Originally Posted by bjsbuds' post='1092536' date='Jan 17 2010, 02:36 PM

Now for the Smoked vs. Clear comparison. The Clear are on the left and Smoked on the right. Again, the Smoke look much brighter in the photos.

Attachment 97442

Right side of Smoked tail light.

Attachment 97443

This is about the truest color comparison to actual.

Attachment 97444

Again pretty close to actual with lights on.

Attachment 97445

With lights off.

Attachment 97446

I think you get the idea.

Attachment 97447

Here's my opinion. Sure they are not LCI OEMs with Bruce's cables, but they are a vast improvement over pre-LCI tail lights. Providing Bruce's cables are not cost prohibited, I plan to buy them and improve these lights even more.

As Bruce has implied if you can afford the OEM LCIs that's the way to go. I prefered to use those funds to replace all other lights, Angel Eyes, HID, Fogs, Interior LED, and License Plate LED, with the savings by going replica.

BTW, this was by far the easiest mod to install yet!

Originally Posted by chrisxiv' post='1092696' date='Jan 18 2010, 01:18 AM

thank you. I'm glad someone set aside some time just to show all of the member's here a legitimate comparison between the two..... that being said, I'm still undecided LOL

Originally Posted by bruce_miranda' post='1092424' date='Jan 17 2010, 01:12 PM

So finally managed to get some photos. If anyone makes fun of my photo taking skills or my camera then I'll be very upset

The difference is quite a lot but they don't come out well on my stupid dinky little camera. But hopefully you can see it.

On the LEFT is my kit on these lights and on the RIGHT is the lights unmodified.

Attachment 97426

You can clearly see the bulbs lit behind the rods in the unmodified version.

Attachment 97427

Which I suppress until you press the Brake. I've also made the LED rods a lot brighter.

Attachment 97428

The quality of the material used for the LED rods is quite a lot poorer than the OEM tubes and they also have the LEDs positioned the wrong way. To overcome this I've had to make a few adjustments to my V6 configuration to make the LED rods brighter. When I tested this on the OEM lights the LED rods were blinding.

All I can say is that unmodified these lights can almost be considered unsafe because the Brake light is significantly dimmer than BMW intended. Everything else is acceptable. With my kit I think I've resolved all the issues I can without ripping the entire light apart and redoing the circuit.

My kit will be completely plug and play. I wonder how popular the kits for these lights will be because in Europe they are quite expensive. I paid about 250 EUROS from a seller in Germany on ebay.de

For that reason I cannot mass produce these just yet and they may not work out as cheap I would have hoped for. But I hope you like the results.

Originally Posted by ericdiver' post='1093192' date='Jan 19 2010, 10:33 AM

maybe this will help, ha ha..... i know its cheaper to do the cheaper ones, but the cost of oem is comming down and wow they look 100 times nicer

Originally Posted by UncleFodder' post='1093026' date='Jan 18 2010, 08:37 PM

Bruce - how much (continuous, not pulsed I assume) voltage are you sending to the LED bars with the new cabling?

Originally Posted by ericdiver' post='1093192' date='Jan 18 2010, 09:33 PM

maybe this will help, ha ha..... i know its cheaper to do the cheaper ones, but the cost of oem is comming down and wow they look 100 times nicer

Originally Posted by bjsbuds' post='1093304' date='Jan 19 2010, 07:14 AM

Very nice! How much is the cost of OEM now days?