This INSTRUCTABLE will go through the steps I am going through in the making of homemade fog lights for my car, a Hyundai Atos (sold as a Dodge Atos here in Mexico).
At first phase completion, my first 78 LEDs are dissipating 5.8 watts while my resistors only dissipate 0.85 watts, and the array is already powerful enough to dwarf the two front marker lights, which draw 3 watts each. My final objective is installing, at the very least, 300 LEDs at a total energy expenditure of 21 watts at the LEDs and 3.2 watts at the resistors.
All comments welcome.
UPDATE:
Here's an index:
Introduction
Step One: Justification and Objectives
Step Two: Exploration and drawing the assembly goals. I decide here to go for two construction phases.
Step Three: I procure the stuff I'll need for phase one.
Steps Four, Five and Six: I build the LED modules, prepare the area to receive them and install them.
Step Seven: I put the first 78 LEDs to a road test.
Step Eight: I put finishing touches to Phase One and start drawing objectives for Phase Two.
Step Nine: Minor improvements.
Step Ten: Brake Lights
Step Eleven: What not to do
Step Twelve: How to do it right.
At first phase completion, my first 78 LEDs are dissipating 5.8 watts while my resistors only dissipate 0.85 watts, and the array is already powerful enough to dwarf the two front marker lights, which draw 3 watts each. My final objective is installing, at the very least, 300 LEDs at a total energy expenditure of 21 watts at the LEDs and 3.2 watts at the resistors.
All comments welcome.
UPDATE:
I Can pick the laser cutter up either in Florida or in a couple of addresses in Texas. I'm still on the run!
Here's an index:
Introduction
Step One: Justification and Objectives
Step Two: Exploration and drawing the assembly goals. I decide here to go for two construction phases.
Step Three: I procure the stuff I'll need for phase one.
Steps Four, Five and Six: I build the LED modules, prepare the area to receive them and install them.
Step Seven: I put the first 78 LEDs to a road test.
Step Eight: I put finishing touches to Phase One and start drawing objectives for Phase Two.
Step Nine: Minor improvements.
Step Ten: Brake Lights
Step Eleven: What not to do
Step Twelve: How to do it right.
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Signing UpStep 1: Justification and Objectives
It seems silly to me to start working on something before knowing why.
Lets explore why I decided my Atos required more light fixtures:
A) The low beam setting is dim. Not in the sense of 'Wow: that top-end race motorbike emits more light than my car'; no, it was in the sense of 'Man, I'm driving behind a scooter that sounds like a never-ending fart because its light lets me see the potholes 20m ahead.' Matter of fact, some older fellows have told me they can't even tell from the inside if the lights are on or off.
B) The 'high' beam setting legally is a normal low setting, as these are defined by Mexico's Federal Road Legislation: it allows me to see the road just over twenty meters ahead and doesn't bother drivers moving the opposite way.
So yeah, I do feel justified to add more lights to my car.
Now, let's draw some objectives for this project:
A) The new lights should improve my overall visibility; supplementing and eventually leaving my headlights as 'secondary lights' for those times I enter the somewhat more dangerous sectors of Cancun.
B) The new lights should not add further strain to my car's tiny battery, tiny engine and tiny alternator.
C) The new headlights should not draw criminal attention to themselves. This should be achieved through either making them invisible at a cursory glance or by making them obvious and ugly. Personally, I'd prefer not making my car ugly on purpose, so my primary focus should be stealthy design.
D) The lights need a separate control from the default headlights, thus deserving the name of fog lights. This keeps me from being caught with my pants down in case a police officer pulls me over and asks why I'm driving with my headlights off.
E) Whatever the light needs, I cannot modify the aerodynamic profile of the front end. This includes symmetrical work and not blocking enough of the front grid to make the radiator work more than it already does.
F) The arrays themselves have to be designed so they cool themselves on the air. Most people design LED arrays like they were light bulbs, forgetting that LED's are heat-sensitive microelectronics that have to stay below 85Celsius to work their best.
Lets explore why I decided my Atos required more light fixtures:
A) The low beam setting is dim. Not in the sense of 'Wow: that top-end race motorbike emits more light than my car'; no, it was in the sense of 'Man, I'm driving behind a scooter that sounds like a never-ending fart because its light lets me see the potholes 20m ahead.' Matter of fact, some older fellows have told me they can't even tell from the inside if the lights are on or off.
B) The 'high' beam setting legally is a normal low setting, as these are defined by Mexico's Federal Road Legislation: it allows me to see the road just over twenty meters ahead and doesn't bother drivers moving the opposite way.
So yeah, I do feel justified to add more lights to my car.
Now, let's draw some objectives for this project:
A) The new lights should improve my overall visibility; supplementing and eventually leaving my headlights as 'secondary lights' for those times I enter the somewhat more dangerous sectors of Cancun.
B) The new lights should not add further strain to my car's tiny battery, tiny engine and tiny alternator.
C) The new headlights should not draw criminal attention to themselves. This should be achieved through either making them invisible at a cursory glance or by making them obvious and ugly. Personally, I'd prefer not making my car ugly on purpose, so my primary focus should be stealthy design.
D) The lights need a separate control from the default headlights, thus deserving the name of fog lights. This keeps me from being caught with my pants down in case a police officer pulls me over and asks why I'm driving with my headlights off.
E) Whatever the light needs, I cannot modify the aerodynamic profile of the front end. This includes symmetrical work and not blocking enough of the front grid to make the radiator work more than it already does.
F) The arrays themselves have to be designed so they cool themselves on the air. Most people design LED arrays like they were light bulbs, forgetting that LED's are heat-sensitive microelectronics that have to stay below 85Celsius to work their best.
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There is Turtle wax brand headlight restoration kit for about $11 that works great. I used it on two vehicles and had enough left-over for at least one more vehicle.
The kit is for one use. Once the package is opened, it has to be used. The sealant is in a tear open package. It will evaporate and become a dry cloth. I reuse the left over of the other ingredients for future touch-ups. The sealer that dries out can be substituted with Future floor wax. I will need to be reapplied every once in a while, because weather will eventually wash it off.
It is probably the cheapest way to fix the problem. The $11 kit is a fraction of the cost of replacing the headlight lens.
Good luck
Bill
LED from ebay:
cgi.ebay.com/20-x-10W-white-High-Power-LED-700LM-light-10watt-20pcs-/120549980213
ill use some sort of lens, possibly the oval one:
www.led-spot.com/p_square.shtml
what is the best way to set it up so that they will be dimmer when the high-high beams are off, then full power when i flick the high beams on? would also like to install some kind of variable resistor so i can adjust the brightness whenever..
correct me if im wrong, but i was thinking to do that id have a few different circuits each with a different resistor in it. then to choose the brightness i would just change between them. would that work?
For these reasons, unless you make up spares, I would personally go using these high power LED's for foglights/spotlights and install HID bulbs that can be swapped out with regular bulbs if there is failure.
OK, Audi used LED headlights to amazing effect on their Le Mans car this year, but they had a decent stock of spares ;)
http://www.autoevolution.com/news/audi-r18-tdi-le-mans-racer-gets-full-led-headlights-35029.html
Cheers,
Daniel
4x6 inche copper slab. on the front a 70mm 20watt 1900lumen LED
on the back 2 massive copper heatsinks. Ram air tubing for cooling while moving though I think I have sufficient copper to dissipate 20watts even without the ram air.
12v to 32 step up converters (the led's are 32v)
my problem is how do I FOCUS the light into a SPOT like a headlight instead of the flood they will be stock.
I checked your led-spot link but it don't work and its non obvious where to go on the site.
any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
iv started a thread on candlepower forums which has been pretty informative. at the moment im basically just playing the waiting game till i have all the information/time/money to start this project
jump on have a read feel free to add anything
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?282539-24x-p7-off-road-light-array-(3x-p7-12v-driver)
sad that they are the only real LED forum around and they probably HAVE the info that I need.
I am also getting some LED lights from http://www.ijdmtoy.com for my bike mode
What really makes a difference between high and low beam is angle: the low beam is actually supposed to fall to ground and illuminate no further than 20m / 70 feet; the high beam is supposed to be horizontal and illuminate further.
While different circuits would help you a lot, don't forget considering something like this actuator:
http://www.sterenshopusa.com/catalog/search3.asp?sku=AUT-090
Works on a momentary-On switches.
And, if you make different resistor circuits, don't forget to keep them separate, preferably by having them on opposite ends of a same toggle switch. I'm saying this because a friend of mine did some taillights out of these huge PCB's covered in mid-power square LED's, and then I had to tell him that his effort was a waste because his break-lights were at 30% power during the day, which is precisely when you need them at full power.
Furthermore, I don't think your vendor is including heat sinks. If you are going for 10W LED's, by all means get some mayor heat sinks.
i have got the heat sink covered, a mate that is in the metal working industry, said he would be able to cnc route out some aluminum for me, ill just have to work out a design for him.
not 100%sure what you mean with the break lights?
- - - - -
This type of actuator isn't designed to hold things in place, but to forcefully yank things up and down, then release them so they can be moved up and down manually. I was thinking more about the actuator moving a board between two anchor points, were it would be held by magnets.
About vibration and such stuff, don't worry. I haven't uploaded such project here (or at least I don't think I have uploaded it), but I made a very good LED headlight for my bicycle and learned that, as the light is emitted by a load of tiny emitters rather than a single one, the resulting beam is way too diffuse for you to worry about the effects of vibration. That headlight was actually the very best light emitter I have ever had for mountain cycling, as I had a narrow field of light ahead of me, rather than a defined circle riddled with lens and reflector lines jumping all over the place.
About heat sinks, imagine your Star-less 10W LED's to each be the flame of a lighter, then remember they emit more light the colder they are AND that they burn themselves out just a little above boiling point. It's really about how dense you want to put them, but I you do put them in a cluster, you might not even want to bother with fans and go straight for liquid cooling.
I'm not really exaggerating: I recently made a new dentist's light for my Mum from a 1W LED with a proper heat-dissipating Star. I installed into a 2*2*2 inches pin-type heat sink and the heat sink still feels warm to the touch.
http://www.automedia.com/Polishing_Plastic__Headlight_Lenses/ccr20041101pp/1
Try and remove the headlights, and rince the inside out with a lot of soap and hot water to remove dust and crud, then leave to dry in the sun.
After that, if you want a real cheap solution, start polishing the glass of the headlights with toothpaste. They should end up much clearer but it takes a lot of effort! (but toothpaste is far far cheaper than commercial glass polishing compound!). A google search for atos headlights turned up this site : http://restoreheadlamp.blogspot.com/2011/01/hyundai-atos-restoration.html (no affiliation with these guys). The results look spectacular!
Cheers,
Daniel
does the 3mm have more range but less angle (zone)but more range (distance)
ATTE. Diego Soto A.
Hey,
I really don't see the purpose in this mod. I'm not being nasty or rude as I see you did put alot of work into it, but in my opinion... you put too much work into, it doesn't that look that good (especially the interior).
Why didn't you just purchased a HID kit, LED parker globes, and those LED light bars similar to what you see in the Audi's.
But I do have to go you a big thumbs up for the time you have put into it.
Good work.
*Mexico city: I was already pedaling down mayor avenues by age 14. No hum.
*Toronto: harder than Mexico city, but doable. Downtown 'Taranno' introduced me to the concept of cars driving like they couldn't see me.
*Cancun: if the heat wasn't enough of a deterrent, I've got enough scars on my knees and arms from 'close encounters' with taxis, mini-buses and even with a police car. My bike now is getting rusty.
*Car modders around here have made a bit of a fashion to switch their forward indicator lights from amber bulbs to white strobes. They know not to get either red or blue strobes, though.
What it takes to get pulled over is pretty much mayor offenses:
*Matte paint on black or any tone of green or gray.
*For your car to have the colour scheme of the local police, firefighters or taxis.
*The police adds on a special type of protection bumper to their units. While such double bumpers are quite common, the specific design they use is not to be used by non-official vehicles.
*To have a turret that gives out any red light. This one has a corollary, though: they just don't bother 18-wheelers that have red rotating turrets installed on their underside, but they can't work those turrets inside a town or city.
*You have to have license plates, but you don't really need to have them on the outside of your car: many people use suction cups to put then on the inside of their windshield and rear window.
*Darkened windows are strictly forbidden beyond 2 shades. You can shade your car, but people on the outside are to be able to see through your car.
*To be noisy on purpose: cut tailpipes, no silencers, unreasonable sound systems.
*to drive with your headlights on High.
you may find it interesting
If it weren't for the restrictions our government puts on internationalpurchases, I would be already online buying a bag of high intensity LEDsto supplement my car's headlights (yellowed plastic and expensive toreplace) and interior lights.
I'm curious, why do you blur your car's license plate in step 2 butleave it visible here in step 7?
If each LED is 3.5V, then the voltage drop of having 3 of them is:
12V (source) minus (3.5V times 3LED's)= 1.5V at the resistor.
I'm using the resistor to limit current. 1.5V/20mA=75ohms, but I use 82ohm (the next higher value) resistors to mitigate the slightly higher voltages that any car pumps when it accelerates.