DRL help

Hi,
Greetings from across the pond(UK).
I want to make some DRL's for my car, but unsure what would be best as I have seen some DRL's for sale on certain sites but you can't go by their pictures of the brightness, so I'm seeking the opinions of anyone who has done this and for recommendations ?
Thanks for any input, did do a search but nothing exactly as I wanted, would prefer to buy a finished product that works well, but will diy if need to, price not really and issue.
thanks
tabetha

Hi!

This is my maybe bias veiw from sweden so don't know if this is much help but...

The classic DRL's using a 21W incandescent light bulb, wich I think is about 250 - 300 lumens. They generaly had a very wide beam. The new DRL's using LED's (AUDI) has a narrow beam that is realy strong face on but seams to be more of a design element then a real improvement over the classic DRL's in overall visability and energy saving.

I have an older car that is orginaly fitted with DRL's and I have quite a succes by doing my own "plug and play" LED lamp to replace the incan light bulb. It's three cheepo 1 W star LED's on a bit of sheet metall driven of just 200 mA with a resistor. The thermal design is bad and I think the three leds put out about 100 lumen togather. Altho, it is almost as viasable as the 21 W bulb that is still left on the other side of the car. And it have so far outlived two of the incans on the other side.

Don't know where to find the law requirements for DRL's? But if you build or buy a DRL with 250 - 350 lumens and not a too narrow beam, it should be highly viasable without being blinding to other drivers. And with good LED's it will only draw about 3 - 4 W.



O well, I can just throw in some pics aswell.

The homemade quality plug an play lamp :naughty:




Mounted into the cars lamp, the light from the leds is not too bad..




LED's to the left, 21 W incan to the right.




BR

I'm in the same boat as Tabetha. I'm looking for a "plug and play" solution as well (or something with simple wiring). Nice creation, Neondiod, but I think building my own LED DTRL is over my head (not sure about Tabetha).I've seen light bars offered, but the manufacturer was very vague about the type of LEDs used and lumen/candle power. Someone here mentioned an LED fog light assembly but I haven't found it for sale anywhere. Anyone else have suggestions?

Phatty McPatty said:

I'm in the same boat as Tabetha. I'm looking for a "plug and play" solution as well (or something with simple wiring). Nice creation, Neondiod, but I think building my own LED DTRL is over my head (not sure about Tabetha).I've seen light bars offered, but the manufacturer was very vague about the type of LEDs used and lumen/candle power. Someone here mentioned an LED fog light assembly but I haven't found it for sale anywhere. Anyone else have suggestions?

Click to expand...

Im not sure as to the quality of these, but superbrightleds has some you can check out.

I'm seeing newer cars now that just use the parking lamps as DRL's. My guess is due to complaints about the light from normal drl's. So even though I'm not fond of the parking light drl's they are now legal and you could easily splice a relay into the front park lamp circuit.

Hella got a legally approved LED DRL's here http://www.daytime-running-light.com/index_uk.html

There are some really usefull info on the last screen 4, in the PDF's links. Legal requirements, mounting requirements and electrical connections. In the award winning PDF there is info that theese lights draw 7W but I don't know what brand they use or how many lumens they put out.

Cheers / Andreas