LED Angel Eyes

G

gchristopher9

Member
Hey guys. So most people who do LED angel eyes use some kind of acrylic rod that is lit from both ends. Problem with them is that they aren't really all that bright, at least from what I've seen, and you can't get a complete circle. I had been toying with the idea for a while to use LEDs in direct view. Rather than to light up a rod of some sort, you would actually have a circuit board in the shape of a ring with some white LEDs mounted to it. when it turned on you would be looking straight into the light of the LED, so it would be a lot brighter. In my search i actually found a company that sells them, for something like 45 dollars PER RING. that would mean 180 bucks for 4. Plus from what i can tell they aren't voltage or current regulated, meaning that if your battery voltage drops down your LEDs would dim a little bit, probably not a big deal but if your running a big system and its hitting hard you might get some dimming on the rings at idle. So, being an electrical engineer my first thought was to just make some myself. I am going to work on laying out a PCB today, and pricing out the LEDs as well. I figured it would start a thread to gauge some interest on this. i will get back to you guys with pricing. As with everything else, the more people we can get to commit the cheaper they will be. I can promise you that it wont be anywhere close to 180 bucks for a set thats for sure. The big advantage over the CCFL tubes is that the LEDs aren't as sensetive to temperature, and will surely last A LOT longer. Anyhow, reply to the post if your interested and i'll keep you guys updated on my progress.

wow that is a long paragraph......but hey i'm an engineer not an english teacher
 
those look pretty nice. i'm just wondering how you'd get them to mount and be secure. i guess we could glue them....
 
right. the back of the board would be completely flat so it would be pretty easy to dab some high temp epoxy on there and be done. and i agree that it would suck to have an LED burn out, but most LEDs have a life of 10,000 hours. I highly doubt anyone has had a CCFL tube last anywhere close to that long.
 
looks like they'd be about 100 bucks for the entire set, if we could get 20 people to go in on this, which probably wont happen. that quote was for 30 LEDs on the small ring, and 40 on the big one, compared to their 24 and 33 respectively.
 
How would power be provided for this mod. Regulating the power(Voltage) is important in order for it not to burn out the module that you would eventualy use to activate the Angel Eyes with the DTRL switch.

Additionally, this mod looks great when lit up. But, when it is off it does not look that appealing. There is a member of the R-Rydes that has LED angel eyes and his looks great because of how the LED lights are placed on a White Background. Can this type of background be created for the LED angel eyes you propose.

I also have a concern with Moisture and humidity when it come to the LED's. Our headlights generate so much heat and when they cool down there is a bit of moisture that occurs with in the housing on a daily basis. The LED's for sure would not survive in this type of an enviorment.

You should thinkg about going the traditional route and find a way to encase them in order to prevent any of the LED's going out due to moisture or having them get dirty or tarnish due to the moisture.

I am intrested and keep us posted on your progress.

If you need a guine pig let me know. I have several Headlights that I can play with(West Coast, California) as does turbocad(New York) on this Site.
 
I had actually thought about the fact they kinda of look like crap when they're off. also the fact that when the LEDs are spacer kind of far apart like that, its not one continuous light, but rather a bunch of individual point sources. Encasing them in some type of clearish rubber material, similar to a hot glue, would diffused the light so they look even, as well as protect them from moisture. this would require that extra step during fabrication though.

i wasn't to concerned with power draw. 80 of the LEDs i'm looking at would draw 5 watts total, so you'd be looking at 10 watts for the complete system of 4 rings. You could happily pull an extra 5 watts from each of your DTRL sockets without much trouble, especially with LED DTRLs. There is probably a 5 watt variation between standard halogen DTRL bulbs anyways.
 
In reagards to the hausing or casing of the LED.. I can ship you a casing that woud fit the 90MM ring. you send me a pM wih you address and let's see how it would look if they were encased in the Current CCFL Plastic hausing...
 
You know what would be cool.. more than angel eyes, which everyone seems to have nowadays.. since you're an electrical engineer, if you can come up with a LED lighting mod that resembles the audi headlights, like on the R8, I'd support that endeavor 100% :biggrin:

LED's along the bottom of the housing something like..

1


let me know if it's possible by PM please :)
 
nosebleeding said:
You know what would be cool.. more than angel eyes, which everyone seems to have nowadays.. since you're an electrical engineer, if you can come up with a LED lighting mod that resembles the audi headlights, like on the R8, I'd support that endeavor 100% :biggrin:

LED's along the bottom of the housing something like..

1


let me know if it's possible by PM please :)
Click to expand...

That could see that!

View attachment 146007
 
nosebleeding said:
You know what would be cool.. more than angel eyes, which everyone seems to have nowadays.. since you're an electrical engineer, if you can come up with a LED lighting mod that resembles the audi headlights, like on the R8, I'd support that endeavor 100% :biggrin:

LED's along the bottom of the housing something like..

1


let me know if it's possible by PM please :)
Click to expand...

I actually tried doing something like that on a set of headlights.

I went to the Audi Dealership and took a look at the S5 lights and tried to duplicate it.

It's just so hard to try to do a mod like this. There 2 things that hold us back to get this done. Spacing and making it look OEM vs. Mickey Mouse.

But, it can be done. Their is a MNFG. in China that had a set up that would come a bit close to the shape of our headlights. The only problem would be the curve that starts at the turn signal are. The agle sucks..

There are LED that are encased in a type of ruber tube that flexes but they are not as bright and look fake.
:thumpdown:
 
I don't think that style looks to good on the FX. Maybe some other idea would work better.
 
run the audi led lights along the top of the casing and run ccfl angel eyes on the projector/blinker and youll have anime eyes complete with eyebrows... you could run leds across the grill for a unibrow...
 
HumbertoCALI said:
I actually tried doing something like that on a set of headlights.

I went to the Audi Dealership and took a look at the S5 lights and tried to duplicate it.

It's just so hard to try to do a mod like this. There 2 things that hold us back to get this done. Spacing and making it look OEM vs. Mickey Mouse.

But, it can be done. Their is a MNFG. in China that had a set up that would come a bit close to the shape of our headlights. The only problem would be the curve that starts at the turn signal are. The agle sucks..

There are LED that are encased in a type of ruber tube that flexes but they are not as bright and look fake.
:thumpdown:
Click to expand...

How about LED lights down the middle of the side markers like on the BMW 5 Series? Could it be done or would it look cheesy?
 
Cheesy.

I could try it. But there would not be that much of an esthetic effect on the side marker.

PS something and I can try it.
 
HumbertoCALI said:
I actually tried doing something like that on a set of headlights.

I went to the Audi Dealership and took a look at the S5 lights and tried to duplicate it.

It's just so hard to try to do a mod like this. There 2 things that hold us back to get this done. Spacing and making it look OEM vs. Mickey Mouse.

But, it can be done. Their is a MNFG. in China that had a set up that would come a bit close to the shape of our headlights. The only problem would be the curve that starts at the turn signal are. The agle sucks..

There are LED that are encased in a type of ruber tube that flexes but they are not as bright and look fake.
:thumpdown:
Click to expand...


Hmm, that makes sense.. the spacing and OEM look would be a big issue.. but then again I would think that also would apply to the LED angel eyes, which would also require equal spacing :err:
 
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