Front Tribar LED with Sequential Turn MOD! (new thread)

Here's a short video of the tribars from me.
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[MENTION=14834]John577[/MENTION] did you "cook" or saw open your lights yourself to install those LED boards?

there seems to be a lot more work involved to get this working than I originally figured... I thought you'd only need to unplug existing DLRs and then connect the tri-bar DLRs...

Was there a guide around here on how to remove the front bumper?! Not sure local mechanics can be trusted to do this - or atleast not screw my bank royally for doing so

gojensen said:

Was there a guide around here on how to remove the front bumper?! Not sure local mechanics can be trusted to do this - or atleast not screw my bank royally for doing so

Click to expand...

Sure, link in first post of this thread:

>>> How-To: Remove front bumper and headlights (US and EU model) <<<

:cheers:

[MENTION=6742]gojensen[/MENTION], my lights are done in the exact same way as Papinist. Someone made the job for us.

If you intend to do it yourself, please don't. "Cook" open the light is really piece of s*t ... I know that as I tried it first myself and I broke one light ...

From the work side, it's really simple. The hardest part is to remove the bumper. The rest is really simple

There are two main ways to do this mod:
1) buy led board and drivers and have someone _expert_ in your area do the open-install-reseal thing, or
2) find someone _more expert_ in your area, or far away, that already has led board and drivers (self made or bought) and let him do the open-install-reseal thing.

Actually there is a third way,
3) buy led boards and drivers, bake open yourself the lights and do yourself the open-install-reseal thing
but as John already said, WE HIGHLY DISCOURAGE everyone to do this. If you are an expert ok, but in that case you probably won't ask our opinion

For Papinist's point 1) et 3) I will add :

1. If you want to use the tri-bars as DRL, please don't buy the current kit from Diode Dynamics and wait until they provide their new version with high powered LEDs for DRL use

2. If you want to use the tri-bars only as a cosmetic upgrade, then you can go with the current kit without a problem

Ok guys, new drivers are installed and yes, there is indeed a slight increase in brightness. But WOW ! What a difference !

I took some pictures, but it's really hard to take good pictures of LEDs :

Before :



After :



On the top of the bumper is the headlight with the new driver :

It's difficult to tell from picture, but you of course should see better in person
I remember your previous drivers were inside the headlights housing: how did you installed the new ones?

Yes, I can say there is really a great improvement in brightness but as said before, not enough for a DRL use. They are great to be used as parking lights now

Yea, the drivers were inside and I cut them out. Now, they are plugged outside of the headlight. I'm really annoyed to remove all the time the headlights ...

So if I did get these from a "fellow" down in "expert land"... but only wanted to use them as a "replacement" for the current DRLs... would I need all the cabling and fusing done? Or could I just cut into the existing cables for the DRLs? (and how come we get away with having only 2 tiny cubes as lights during the day?!!)

you can't use the wires from stock drls because there is strange voltages and new drls won't be reliable. You need to do some small electrical wiring but it's the easiest (and fun) part of the mod

yea - not real worried about electricals (that's stuff I know ) but not sure I'm willing to trust the "mechanic" then... do I need the bumper off to hook up the wires? If not I could get the shop to swap the lights and then hook it up myself when I take it home...

I'm pining SOOO hard for proper drls (not sure I want sequential blinkers there though... maybe in the rear )

if you remove the wheel and the inner fender cover you can do the wiring with the bumper on, indeed

I was wondering, if you use the tribar lights, do you still need to use the litle squares?

Lights are back to the car. They are really great now with both sides with the same brightness :headbonk:

[MENTION=12253]papinist[/MENTION], the tribars in DRL mode, do they provide the same brightness as your switchbacks on your car ?

Just to imagine how bright they could be with better boards