das

Ok, I ordered several bulbs from autolumination.com.

One is a 5-LED 4.6 lumen bright white LED with a Ba9 mini-bayonet base, the same lamp type used in the angel eye assembly. I tried for quite a while yesterday to figure out how to easily get at the angel eye bulb assembly through the access hole in each headlamp, including slightly removing each headlamp. I haven't been able to figure out an easy way to get them out.

So, I went to my dealer and ordered one of the angel eye bulb replacement assemblies, discussed earlier in this thread, just to see if the bulb will work, and if it appears bright enough inside of the reflector compared to the standard bulb. I can also try some "bright white" conventional incandescent Ba9 base bulbs I ordered. The lamp assembly will be in next week, so I'll try it then.

I did convert all of the brake/tail and turn signal lamps on the rear to LED using the 20 LED high-flux lamps from autolumination, as well as converted the side fender blinkers to LED using a mini-wedge LED, and the rear license plate lamps to LED using bright white LED festoon assemblies. They all look great, especially the rear light assemblies with everything being LED. For pictures, see here.

Bambi

DAS, could you specify which model number of bulbs you are using for the rear lightings? There are just TOO MANY bulbs on the autolumination site and I couldn't tell which one is which.
By the way, do you have a picture of the new licence plate lamp? Is it as bright and white as the new Lexus GS?

das

I put some pictures of the new license plate lamps here:

http://forums.e60.net/index.php?s=&showtop...ndpost&p=223058

Also, I have links to the pages with the lamps, and tell which ones I am using.

mixterk

No chance of taking a pic yet will do on Saturday....until then

Black on black

das

Ok, here's an update on the LED angel eye retrofit. Unfortunately, I have bad news: the new LED is just too dim to light the angel eye lightguides sufficiently. For those that haven't been following, the halogen headlamp assembly on E60 uses two W5W wedge-base lamps per side (for a total of four) to light each angel eye ring. The bulbs are in very close proximity to the end of the angel eye lightguide. However, the xenon headlamp assembly uses a single 10 watt Ba9 base halogen bulb per side inside of a special reflector assembly, aimed about 1" away from the end of the lightguide, at the reflector's focal point, lighting both rings.

I ordered:

- a 4.6 lumen "Matrix" bright white 5-LED Ba9 base lamp
- a 5W blue conventional incandescent "xenon color" Ba9 base lamp

I encountered several issues. First, the lamp does NOT come out of the assembly, because the bayonet nipples do not fit through the hole in the reflector. This was expected, and is the same way it was on E39. You have to cut two "melted" pieces of plastic on each side to get the lamp out:



The angel eye bulb assembly is also relatively difficult to get out. I had to remove the headlight assembly a bit to get in through the access hole, and then remove the H7 "high beam"/flash-to-pass lamp to get at the assembly. It's too small to really get your hand in there, unless you have small hands, and I'd do a full writeup if this were actually a DIY, but suffice it to say that it's hard to get out.

The second issue was that the bulb socket was reverse from the polarity that the LED lamp needed, so if it were to be permanent, you'd have to switch the wires (which would require cutting them -y ou probably could also get a new connector end).

Luckily, I ordered a replacement angel eye lamp assembly from my dealer so I could take it apart.

Unfortunately, both lamps are far too dim to effectively light the lightguides. Pictures below:

Stock 10W halogen lamp:





White LED lamp:





Blue incandescent lamp:





The problem, with the LED anyway, is that it is too far away from the lightguide...almost 1.5" - because it's designed to be at the focal point of the reflector with the halogen lamp. If you could get a high-brightness LED right at the end of the lightguide, it might work.

Ultimately, something like this will probably be a much better solution:



Unfortunately, I can't find it anywhere online yet, including PIAA Japan's site. Hopefully, there will be some easy way for us to get this in the US too. They might not be as bright as Soaristo's custom job, but they'll be better than what we have now stock. And they both share the necessary key point, which is getting the output of the LED very close to the lightguide.

das

Ok, with the help of SOARISTO, I have found out that the PIAA 6500K LED angel eye retrofit is now on the market in Japan:

PIAA_LED_Ring_Marker.pdf



I'm going to try to find if either PIAA and/or Autobacs can (easily) sell this part into the US. The cost is about US$170. More info as I find it.

imaznumkay

http://www.autobacs.com/cgi-bin/inetcgi/sc...=1&t=0&o=0&lf=0

lol i'm korean but im going to ask my japanese friend to translate some of this

tiptronic

any updates on this?! i cant wait!!

davepham671

Same as PIAA I think its for bi-Xenon not sure, any comments?

http://216.239.39.104/translate_c?hl=en&u=...oten/bre-gd120/

norham

Ordered mine on Mon past will post pics when installed