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I decided to do a DIY fog light conversion. I know there's a Rennlist sponsor out there that offers a pretty good kit, but I wanted to see if I could do it myself.
I got a set of H3 LED bulbs on ebay for about $30. The challenge is getting a bulb that can be shoe-horned into the light housing. The one I found has a copper braid on the back as a heat sink. I still had to cut out part of the back housing to make it all work - but, I'm really happy with the results. I set one LED and one incandescent light next to each other on a stool and turned off the lights in my garage. The LED one seems to put out nearly twice as much light!
Nice vid. will those heat sinks not melt the plastic they are touching? How hot do they get?
I don't think they get very hot. I had the lights on a few minutes in my test, and I couldn't feel any extra heat. We have a bunch of LED bulbs in our house - they all have heat sinks - and don't get hot enough to melt plastic.
LED headlight bulbs have evolved rapidly and there are newer bulbs with that braid heat sink.
I just put some Vplus fanless LED bulbs into my 4runner (9003/H4) and they seem to be really good. The bulbs with the braided heatsinks would probably be better in that they could be installed with less trimming of the dust seal in the H4 application, but the downside is the outboard power supply to locate and mount. Not a big deal, probably and better for the other packaging issues like you might see in popup lamps.
IMO nothing that low works OK as headlights and you can get pulled over for it pretty much anywhere in the USA. It'd be interesting to see how well they light up a road sign or reflector at a distance, all by themselves, but if used as headlights you'd stick out like a sore thumb and in some areas (cough cough Colorado Springs cough cough) you'd get to meet a lot of our fine Law Enforcement personnel.
Not only is the lower position advantageous but the shape of the reflector that creates the proper distribution pattern of the light also makes the fog light not a headlight quality.
Looking at the intensity of the light does make me wonder if it might be 'too bright' and hence reflect back on the fog itself - look forward to further reports on your experience with the LEDs.
IMO nothing that low works OK as headlights and you can get pulled over for it pretty much anywhere in the USA. It'd be interesting to see how well they light up a road sign or reflector at a distance, all by themselves, but if used as headlights you'd stick out like a sore thumb and in some areas (cough cough Colorado Springs cough cough) you'd get to meet a lot of our fine Law Enforcement personnel.
Ha its not that bad down here, i've run my fogs into dusk and they've never said "HI". That said i hit my actual headlights when it gets that dark.
The light pattern of the fogs is pretty lame for headlight use IMO. I much prefer the 90/130w Cibies.
IMO nothing that low works OK as headlights and you can get pulled over for it pretty much anywhere in the USA. It'd be interesting to see how well they light up a road sign or reflector at a distance, all by themselves, but if used as headlights you'd stick out like a sore thumb and in some areas (cough cough Colorado Springs cough cough) you'd get to meet a lot of our fine Law Enforcement personnel.
Come and visit California. I'll give you a tour of my garage. You can go surfing. And when you're ready for a break from the fun, you can try driving at night. At least half of the cars on the road have headlights that fall into one of these categories:
- aimed too high (being in a 944 makes it worse, but even when I'm in my f-150 they still hit me in the eyes)
- drop-in HIDs
- high beams are on
- fog lights on, with no fog present (which is against state law - fog lights scatter light upward)
- my personal favorite, drop-in HIDs in fog lights
And the cops don't care at all. In the city or the suburbs, I constantly see cops ignore every kind of illegal lighting issue. Honestly, I could use some of your local cops around here, I literally bought tinted glasses for driving at night.
I was just curious about the amount of light coming out of these. My ulterior motive here would be to have them as my flashing lights. With the headlights down, flashing the high beams only flashes the dinky, weak factory fog lights, which sends pretty much no message at all. With the headlights up, 944 high beams are pathetic - for driving or for flashing.
Is it one of your turbos? because the euro driving lights do a good job for flashing if you do the conversion. The cibies are also killer for this when the lights are up.
Just to back up my cibie/euro driving lights are awesome. I did a few shots with my phone on my drive home from work. The high beam flash gets just about anyone's attention at night.
11-25-2016, 11:56 PM
DIY LED fog light conversion
