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      12-08-2012, 11:40 PM   #1
snowboardjoe
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F25 LED upgrade update

Quick update on my progress with the LED's and coding this evening. LED's are from http://www.superbrightleds.com, 1156 LED bulb, single intensity 45 SMD LED tower (amber 1156-A45-T, red 1156-R45-T).

I wanted a good comparison and installed the new LED modules on the right side of the car only (front turn, rear turn, brake light). I then coded the right side to disable warm checks, cold checks and enable LED mode. Fired everything up and did some checks. Here's what I came up with:

Front turn signals

As other mentioned, you need to file off one of the pins (it's a colored bulb and the pins are at about 150 degree angle (no modification needed for rear sockets)). The amber intensity is different compared to the incandescent. Whining the lights off the fence at night and incandescent one appears to have a more focused beam than LED. However, when looking head on at the turn signal the lens looks like the intensity is more dispersed throughout the lens. The parking light level is 50% intensity, so it does respond to that fine. I want to so some more testing from a distance and definitely during the day.

Rear turn signals

This one was a little odd a first. I simply hit the hazard light switch. At first the LED was flickering a bit, but then it stabilized. Could be the connection was not seated perfectly at first or something. After that is was totally stable and solid. I will keep an eye on this. The intensity is not quite as bright as I expected, but the incandescent one is not that bright either. Also remember this is an amber LED being filtered by a red lens, so that kills some of the intensity. I was impressed that the result is very much an amber color which I like. It's still quite noticeable with the instant on characteristic of LED's. So far, so good.

Brake lights

These look pretty nice and look just as intense as the incandescent versions. It also looks like a deeper red which I think looks nice. This is most likely because I'm using a red LED in a red filter which means all of the light gets out (unlike white incandescents). Very pleased with this particular one.

I will take some video this evening at night and another one tomorrow during the day before I fit the left side of the car with the LED's as well to give a good side-by-side comparison. The instant-on nature of LED's is very apparent and almost makes it look like it's out of sync with the incandescent side.
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      12-09-2012, 12:43 AM   #2
gstyle333
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How about some pictures?

Please post some pics when you're done.
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      12-09-2012, 10:12 AM   #3
snowboardjoe
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Quote:
Originally Posted by gstyle333 View Post
Please post some pics when you're done.
I took a quick video last night:


I took some more photos last night and will post later on this thread. I could not get good video of the blinkers from the front at night. Without professional equipment (and iPhone4 is hardly that!) it's nearly impossible to capture them due to the incredible brightness of the LED halos or headlights.

Dark and rainy this morning (it is Seattle after all) and will take some more pics and a video later on during daylight hours.
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      12-09-2012, 02:14 PM   #4
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Upgrade complete, here are the videos and photos

Completed the upgrade this morning. Just before that I took the following videos and photos of both day and night. Again, in all of these the LED's are only on the passneger side and original incandescents on the drivers side.

I tried to embed these, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to do this for the YouTube videos.

Photo set

Night video

Day video

Overall I'm pretty happy with the results.
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Last edited by snowboardjoe; 12-09-2012 at 02:43 PM.. Reason: Fixed links to videos
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