How-to: "Eagle-eye" individual LEDs as DRLs

[Aitch]

I've had these installed for a while, but last week I swapped my front LEDs as one of them had burnt out and I didn't feel like buying another 10 of them for $80 from the original source, iJDMToy. These ones were $14/10, and using 8 of them I have 2 spares for now if they burn out.

http://www.torontomazda3.ca/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=11383&stc=1

Again, learning from my past mistakes, if you just bolt these into your bumper or side grills, they will be angled out a fair amount which is obvious to anyone not standing dead in front of your car. Plus it looked a little blinding to some pedestrians as I drove by them haha (to be fair, the original ones were BRIGHT ASS).

An example of the original beam pattern:

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3905/15031798866_ebe7e6a422_c.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/oUiU6Y)
IMG_6859.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/oUiU6Y) by Steve Hayward (https://www.flickr.com/people/16933777@N02/), on Flickr

After thinking a lot and not doing anything, I finally took a trip to the hardware store and found these thick grommets:

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3859/14868218308_729dc17912_c.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/oDRviw)
IMG_6850.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/oDRviw) by Steve Hayward (https://www.flickr.com/people/16933777@N02/), on Flickr

Again, I had a long lazy think about the best way to get an angled cut into the middle of them. Eventually I decided a little rough edges wouldn't hurt anyone, so I just used some side cutters:

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5555/15054804215_3ce1bd362d_c.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/oWkNMV)
IMG_6852.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/oWkNMV) by Steve Hayward (https://www.flickr.com/people/16933777@N02/), on Flickr

Et voila:

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3918/14868138410_b6b2f8820a_c.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/oDR6xY)
IMG_6853.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/oDR6xY) by Steve Hayward (https://www.flickr.com/people/16933777@N02/), on Flickr

Here's one with the front half-grommet mounted. Easy to angle now.

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3873/14868248107_e518eca23e_c.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/oDREai)
IMG_6856.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/oDREai) by Steve Hayward (https://www.flickr.com/people/16933777@N02/), on Flickr

Installation is pretty easy, you have to drill holes in your front grill (or wherever you're mounting them), thread the wires through, and get the half-grommet and bolt on the backside. The grommets give some nice compression so I actually only used my hand to tighten the nuts.

Be warned, on the passenger side you are fighting around the windshield washer resevoir, it can be hard to get your hand up there to put the nuts on. And I suppose that means you should be careful drilling the original holes too haha. DON'T GO TO DEEP.

Installed:

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5584/15051741541_3e78c08b68_c.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/oW57nc)
IMG_6862.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/oW57nc) by Steve Hayward (https://www.flickr.com/people/16933777@N02/), on Flickr

You can see the light pattern is much better now:

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3896/14868210058_b0f69d160f_c.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/oDRsRh)
IMG_6863.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/oDRsRh) by Steve Hayward (https://www.flickr.com/people/16933777@N02/), on Flickr

These lights are a bit dimmer than the last ones, but I would still rate them on par with say Mercedes OEM DRLs (which they most closely resemble IMO, in light output/quality), so plenty bright. The light is a bit more diffused than before, and not quite as blue - there is more yellow around the edges, probably due to a different-shaped lens on the front.

Blurry-cam shot during daylight hours:

http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/08/23/thumbnail/4apyveja.jpg

Wiring:

I wired these in parallel, so each LED gets 12V. Currently both sides run from a single power wire, which piggy-backs off a fuse in the engine fuse block.

Like HID ballasts, I don't want these to be on while the engine is cranking. I believe that voltage fluctuation is what often killed LEDs for me in the past. So these are installed with a time-delay relay, set to ~8s.

http://www.torontomazda3.ca/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=11384&stc=1

[danacosta24]

been looking to add fogs to my car, might do this instead! good post

[greyseason]

Same here, similar idea.
Some ebay funds may be going to something similar. Thanks Aitch!

[Mazduh]

Sorry to raise this, but did you wire them right to the DRL circuit Steve?

[Aitch]

No, I sourced power from the injectors fuse in the engine fuse box. This seemed to be the only one that is not hot when the car is off, but automatically goes hot when you start the engine. I suppose you could also determine which post of the DRL relay to piggy back off of instead, but I think these might then go off when the headlights come on.

[Dubwize]

The drls do go of with the headlights. I used power from the fog light connector but I also pulled and re wird the drl/highbeam relay. This way mine turn off when the hand brake is up, and are on with or with out the headlights.