Menu
What's new
By:
Advanced search...

CL7 Indicator/Daytime running lights mod

S

Sinkewa

Members
Messages
5
Reaction score
2
Location
Crawley, W.Sussex
Car
cm1
What do you guys think of this mod?

https://youtu.be/B6ZciIZrm9k

Basically I always wanted DLR lights, but couldn't face drilling the bumper, or attaching lights with cable ties etc. and ruining the look of the car. So I found this bulbs on ebay ( http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2x-50W-7440-T20-42-LED-2835-Dual-Color-Switchback-LED-DRL-Turn-Signal-Light-Kit-/271969171438?hash=item3f52a037ee:g:sdgAAOSwgQ9VrftX ). Similar to what Audi A6 has. They fit instead of your normal indicator bulbs and one extra cable attaches to your sidelights. When you turn your sidelights on they light up white, when you put your indicator on the white on that side goes out and amber light comes on, then when you cancel the indicator, there is about a second delay and white light comes on again. I think they look awesome and go really well with led sidelights.

Tell me, what you think.

If anyone is interested I might do a tutorial on this, as just changed my saloon cl7 for a tourer recently, and thinking of moving this mod over to new car.
 
Very nice...I'd like to have this on mine
I'm not na electical guy so please post an DIY
 
This DRL kit is not a stupid thing because it prolongs the headlight bulb life. High quality Xenon bulbs are not cheap
 
What do you need DRLs for? We have sidelights for that.

If everyone starts driving round with their headlamps on during the day, suddenly the motorcyclists and cyclists become even less visible.
 
DRL are a good idea in principle and have proven to work as a safety item in some countries well, probably has a lot to do with the safety OCD connoisseurs Volvo. Problem is nowadays DRL rather than being a functional safety item have become a fashion item and soon nobody will bother to notice them.
 
Goodluckmonkey said:
What do you need DRLs for? We have sidelights for that.

If everyone starts driving round with their headlamps on during the day, suddenly the motorcyclists and cyclists become even less visible.
Click to expand...
Got to say I'm with goodluckmonkey, makes bikes less visable.
 
Side lights do do the job. I have DRLs on mine fitted by previous owner, plan to remove them or make them switchable. The idea of DRLs was originally I believe so that pedestrians could tell that a vehicle was 'active', same can be achieved as per Goodluckmonkey. Although some sidelights are rather dim and difficult to see in daylight/bright sunlight. Hence the intro of DRLs I suppose.
 
I had to take the led sidelights out of mine and go back to proper filament bulbs. They'd been fitted by a previous owner and must've been old tech, but they were terrible. Two naff little white spots.
It's much more visible with proper bulbs now when light conditions are poor.

Either way, it's the OP'so choice as to what he runs, and I think the system's particular neat, however could be misleading to oncoming road users.

I remember when the Peugeot 206's first came out, and being confused by an oncoming one indicating because the indicators were inboard of the headlamps. For a brief moment I though right was left and it threw me slightly.
This is a similar system to some cars I see on the motorway and it always seems odd to me too.
 
This is the problem when something becomes a fashion item rather than it's intended purpose, recipe for disaster.
 
Every one have his own opinion on that sort of add-on's, and from my view this is money saving and safety add-on.
Like said before in my coutry the headlights must be turned on 24/24 or have DRL otherwise it cost 120€ of penalty so sidelight's are not an option.
In the sidelight if you want to make it visible at daylight you must put some powerful bulbs/LED and this option in my coutry it cost 413€ of penalty and confiscation of the car on the place.
If the DRL is a stupid thing then why is every single new car equiped with ?

Don't get me wrong but we have different opinions on the same thing and from that point we could talk about the color of the car, wheels, suspension etc.
 
As I said above, it's a case of each to their own.
I know it's mandatory in a lot of european countries, and over here it's mandatory on motorcycles so they stand out from the traffic more.

If it's what's required by law, or what you want, then it looks like a decent system. Think the main comment is really that it's unlikely you'll find someone here with that setup due to the fact that DRL's are not a requirement here, and we use sidelights in poor light, and headlamps when we need to see where we're going.

Lights on all day, or worse still the sidelight with front fogs combo, are the preserve of the boy racer who hangs round McDonald's over here, as are badly adjusted HIDs that blind other drivers.

As accord drivers, we wear smoking jackets, only read leather bound books, and have fine collections of monocles and pocket watches.
 
Lights on all day, or worse still the sidelight with front fogs combo, are the preserve of the boy racer who hangs round McDonald's over here, as are badly adjusted HIDs that blind other drivers.


This sound familiar to me.
Around here we also have this kind of people and as you said in those cases are "fassion add" but this in my opinion is poor mentality
 
Goodluckmonkey said:
Lights on all day, or worse still the sidelight with front fogs combo, are the preserve of the boy racer who hangs round McDonald's over here, as are badly adjusted HIDs that blind other drivers.
Click to expand...
Funnily enough, over here the boy racer is identified by daytime running lights forced into headlights that were never designed to have them.

It is recommended on Australian country roads to drive with headlights on. On my moto's I ride with high beam during the day. Driving with lights on has significantly decreased the amount of lane changing near-misses in my life. Half the drivers here drive with one eye on their mobile or navigator and drive with passive rather than active awareness. Headlights cut through that.

If it's good enough for the Swedes..
 
I know how it feel's that near misses on the motorcycle... Ugly experiences, but for now i'm living in peace because i sold it and for the next bike im seriously cosidering to get an track bike just to avoid that sort of things.
 
Sinkewa said:
What do you guys think of this mod?

https://youtu.be/B6ZciIZrm9k

Basically I always wanted DLR lights, but couldn't face drilling the bumper, or attaching lights with cable ties etc. and ruining the look of the car. So I found this bulbs on ebay ( http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2x-50W-7440-T20-42-LED-2835-Dual-Color-Switchback-LED-DRL-Turn-Signal-Light-Kit-/271969171438?hash=item3f52a037ee:g:sdgAAOSwgQ9VrftX ). Similar to what Audi A6 has. They fit instead of your normal indicator bulbs and one extra cable attaches to your sidelights. When you turn your sidelights on they light up white, when you put your indicator on the white on that side goes out and amber light comes on, then when you cancel the indicator, there is about a second delay and white light comes on again. I think they look awesome and go really well with led sidelights.

Tell me, what you think.

If anyone is interested I might do a tutorial on this, as just changed my saloon cl7 for a tourer recently, and thinking of moving this mod over to new car.
Click to expand...
Tutorial? :)
 
Hi, I'm going to give this a go over the next couple of weeks; any hints or tricks?
 
I think they actually look really good.

The stock factory setup on my A6 with factory LED lights is similar, when the indicator is on the DRL for that corner is dimmed until the indicator stops flashing.
 
Hi All, has anyone tried this since the OP? I've had kit delivered and looks to be ok quality considering its from China. A little confused by the additional wiring for sidelights though. Is it just a case of stripping the existing wiring back and soldering/joining this in?

Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk
 
zav13r said:
Hi All, has anyone tried this since the OP? I've had kit delivered and looks to be ok quality considering its from China. A little confused by the additional wiring for sidelights though. Is it just a case of stripping the existing wiring back and soldering/joining this in?

Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Hi, yes, the wire for drl lights has to be joined to the positive wire of the stock side lights. The pcb inside each bulb will take care of switching between white and amber leds.

The way this work,is there is three wires out of the bulb, the positive for amber, the positive for white, and a common ground for both white and amber lights. The ground is supplied via stock indicator connector. When + is supplied to the drl wire (the extra wire that has no connector on it), white leds are turned on. When + is supplied to the indicator wire (the one with the wedge type connector), amber leds come on. The + can be supplied to both, drl and indicator wires at the same time, but indicator will have priority, so when you have your drl's on and indicate, drl on that side will go out and indicator will come on, and as soon as indicator is canceled the drl will come back on after a 1 second delay. Sorry if I made this a bit confusing, never been good at explaining stuff to people.

The way I have done mine the first time is, I've stripped a small portion of insulation on positive wire of stock side lights, just behind the bulb connector, soldered the drl wire to it, and wrapped it with some good quality electric tape. I have since then redone it with crimp splice connectors and heat shrink. Both methods work fine, and never caused any problems, but crimping and heat shrinking just feels more reliable.

I would also suggest adding a relay to turn drl's off when main lights are turned on, because, although these drl's don't look as bright in the daylight, they can be quite a nuisance to oncoming cars during the night. Also, in UK it is required by law.
 
Perfect answer mate and all very clear so thank you. Going to give this a go in the next few days I think.

Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk
 
zav13r said:
When you mention a relay, do you mean something along these lines: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/162430544717

Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
No, I've used one of these before, and although it seemed ​to work fine at first, eventually caused one of the bulbs to blow. The problem with these modules is they are using duty cycle method to dim the drl when main lights are turned on, and it messes with the circuits in the drl bulbs as they are being turned on and off rapidly many times a second. In my case it had blown an IC in one of the bulbs and caused a short between sidelight and indicator circuit, causing all the indicator lights to glow when side lights where turned on. Fortunately it didn't cause any damage to cars stock circuits. So wouldn't advice to use it.

I have used a good old fashioned electromagnetic relay, that is in a normally closed position.
One like this
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/290919977733

You put the switch side of the relay in series between your sidelights and drl, and connect the coil side to positive of your headlight at one end, and to the ground anywhere on the chassis at the other end. That way, when sidelights are turned on, the drl's will come on as well, but when the headlights are turned on, it will cause the relay to open the drl circuit, turning drl's off.

I've connected the ground of a relay to one of the bolts, that hold the airbox in place, and used a length of a bicycle tube with cable ties at both ends to protect the relay from elements, and some double sided tape to hold the whole thing in place.
Would also advice to use an inline fuse for the coil circuit of the relay with a low amp fuse, to avoid getting your headlight circuit fuse blown in case something goes wrong with the Chinese relay.
 
I've finally got round to fitting this yesteday and I love it! Thanks to @Sinkewa for the diy and advice. Still need to wire in the relay but as I rarely drive the car at night this can wait for now.

If you like the idea of this but are worried about wiring, it really is straight forward.

Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk
 
Sinkewa said:
What do you guys think of this mod?

https://youtu.be/B6ZciIZrm9k

Basically I always wanted DLR lights, but couldn't face drilling the bumper, or attaching lights with cable ties etc. and ruining the look of the car. So I found this bulbs on ebay ( http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2x-50W-7440-T20-42-LED-2835-Dual-Color-Switchback-LED-DRL-Turn-Signal-Light-Kit-/271969171438?hash=item3f52a037ee:g:sdgAAOSwgQ9VrftX ). Similar to what Audi A6 has. They fit instead of your normal indicator bulbs and one extra cable attaches to your sidelights. When you turn your sidelights on they light up white, when you put your indicator on the white on that side goes out and amber light comes on, then when you cancel the indicator, there is about a second delay and white light comes on again. I think they look awesome and go really well with led sidelights.

Tell me, what you think.

If anyone is interested I might do a tutorial on this, as just changed my saloon cl7 for a tourer recently, and thinking of moving this mod over to new car.
Click to expand...
I like you should..

Sent from my E6853 using Tapatalk
 
I just ordered this kit and some normally closed relays to kill the DRLs when the main headlamps are on.

OP states he tapped the DRL voltage off the parking lights. Why is that though? Does it look better to run parking lights as well as DRLs?
 
Richard B said:
I just ordered this kit and some normally closed relays to kill the DRLs when the main headlamps are on.

OP states he tapped the DRL voltage off the parking lights. Why is that though? Does it look better to run parking lights as well as DRLs?
Click to expand...
I did the same with mine.. Certainly found it easier tapping into the side light wiring than running directly from ignition or battery.

In terms of looks, it just means these are active along with the stock sidelights which works for me.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top