BMW engineering is waiting for Bruce to complete his work so they can copy it for the taillight facelift kit.

Hurry up Bruce so I can buy mine.

 

been out for about 1 week. nice to see that things are still moving along.

bruce, were you able to get rid of the initial strobing effect and the every 3-4 minutes 1/3 second flash using the capacitors? the batteries are DC, not clear why LCM would complicate things with AC? maybe it is just DC signal being chopped up, pulsed--turning on and off very fast.

 

I too was surprised to see a very high AC component. The LCM is definately chopping the signal 1/4th to produce the 3volts for the the low tail and brake and 1/8th for the 1.5v for the low fog. I connected a rectifier circuit to remove the AC and that ups the voltage to 6volts per bulb on low settings because the AC noise is removed. However when I smoothen the signal with a capacitor that pushes the low and high signal to ~12V which doesn't help.
The capacitor does get rid of the strobing on the turn lights and the LED rods. The complication with the LED rods is if you add a capacitor it makes them bright, which is not really an issue but then you get a bulb failed message on the computer. If you try and add a resistor to simulate the bulb then the capacitor gets shorted and the strobing returns. The LED rods strobing is not visible to the human eye because its happening several times a second.

As mentioned the only circuit that I have created that actually works as required is the one with the relays. Not have a clean DC signal on any of the lines doesn't help to create a proper solid state switching circuit. Pulling a clean DC signal from somewhere else is possible but then it doesn't make the solution plug and play!

P.S. : Having experimented some more I've been able to use up to an 18R resistor as a 21W bulb load. Couldn't get hold of a 20R one but anything more than 20R is giving an error on the computer when starting the car, which disappers in a few seconds. Anything more than 27R is a permanent error. Using the 18R resistor is much better because it gets a lot less hotter than the 6R one. This does also mean that those who've chosen to use a hidden bulb can reduce the bulb wattage to just below 10W. You can't put a 5W because thats about 27R which as mentioned doesn't work.

 

guys, has Umnitza found a way to make these baby's work ??

look HERE

 

 

the capacitor, what was the value of it? i'm thinking just hooking one to the turn signal to capture the energy that flashes every 3-4 minutes and the initial strobing when turning on the car. the faint flash is more obvious with the turn signal at night since it is not on & the housing len is clear white. did it also give a turn signal error too?

 

No Turn light error for me. And on my car with CIP 25 I don't need a resistor on the the Turn LEDs too. However I add them to the cables I make because it makes no harm to have it and I'm not sure if people have CIP25 or not. Any capacitor will do, the value I use is what Cwest showed was used in the other aftermarket LED lights, i.e. 470uf 50V.

As for Umnitza selling these as plug and play. I'm not prepared to spend $550 only to find out that I need some cables that aren't included. Our own Group Buy seller tried to do it before everyone started bombaring him with emails saying they couldn't work. Why don't you ask them to show you an image of a pre-LCI car with just one of these installed, instead of them stealing the HELLA images.

 

much thanks again! will try it sometimes. so no need for 1k resistor in parallel to capacitor to leak out the
the charge when turn signal is off?

weird about the turn signal, i needed resistor to fix error + fast blinking (cip 24). but another member i was helping
install the light, had an older version but did not need the resistors and had no problem at all.

 

You guys did a great job with the lights.....

 

Because there is no power coming to the turn light when its off you don't need to discharge the capacitor when the turn signal is off. But you could try putting the resistor in parallel too because what your suggesting makes sense.

The need for the resistor on the turn lights is so unpredictable which is why I always connect a resistor.