I've Solved The Mystery Behind The Z4 Angel Eyes

[pungo]

Originally Posted by papitosabe

can you just post it here for others in the community? plus there are sometimes lurkers here that would benefit as well

edit....oh snap, I just replied to someone from 2007...lmao....whoops..

Funny, back to the future.......

More options available 6 years later....

[ovrkll]

There is a write-up on how to change and upgrade to a 20W AE here:
http://www.z4-forum.com/forum/viewto...p?f=27&t=36896

[yousefnjr]

My replacement bulbs finally came in yesterday; I ordered both 10w and 20w.

Plenty of room to do this with the wheels on. Point them away from whichever side you're working on, i.e. turn the steering wheel all the way left to work on the driver side.

You don't need to touch the torx screws around the AE bulb housing. Just rotate the housing CCW and it'll come out.

The connector will come out of the back AE housing socket with enough wiggling.

My drivers-side AE bulb came out of the housing without any modifications. However, to get the new bulb in I had to cut a bit from socket to fit the pins sticking out of the new bulb's base. I used a heated butter-knife and it was easy Passenger-side took more knife work to remove and fit the bulbs.

I installed both 10w and 20w bulbs. No bulb-out light on the dash. The 20w were indeed brighter than the 10w, but it's not night-and-day. I decided the slight gain in brightness wasn't worth the chance of melting anything, and swapped the 10w back in. A pleasant surprise is that the new 10w are brighter than the original 10w.

Osram 64113

[XMetal]

ovrkll, How is the housing, wiring, etc... holding up with the 20W bulb? I'm somewhat comfortable with a 50% increase (15W), but not sure if I'm comfortable with a 100% increase (20W) bulb. Wished someone had made a 15W version...can't find one thus far

yousefnjr, Thanks for the feedback on the 10W vs 20W bulb. I may just stick with the 10W per your suggestion if I can't find a 15W version.

Also, the rated life on these bulbs doesn't look right? They're only rated at 240hrs? My OE bulb hadn't burned out yet after 5 years and I have them on for an average of about 1hr per day.

[yousefnjr]

The rated life is a concern of mine too, but IIRC a guy on a different forum has had his for over a year and they're still going. I also read that keeping the bulb glass clean can extend its life. Just gonna be a case of wait-and-see I suppose. When they do eventually fail at least it's an easy fix

[AmmarYasirA]

Pics?

Is this just a brighter amber light or a whiter light?

[ovrkll]

I upgraded to the 20W in April of 2012, and have not had a bit of problems. No damage to wires or housing. The light color is white and matches the Xenon color. It is very difficult to get a picture that actually shows a noticeable difference in brightness due to the light metering in cameras. Mine are easily seen during the day whereas the 10W bulbs were not.
The main reason I started the original write up was because I had 2 AE's go out within a year of each other and thought it was ridiculous to pay $45 for a light bulb. The dealer will only sell the whole assembly, not just the bulb.

[pungo]

I received the brighter LEDs I ordered, they are sustainably brighter than the old LEDs that I tried several years back. They are brighter than the stock 10w Halogen and much whiter/blueish matching the Xenons well. I have not seen what they look like during the daylight since I put them in tonight and took some quick crappy pictures. My camera shots really don't show what they look like in person. I need to figure how to set the camera for some better pictures, probably need to use a tripod. Oh, they did give a bulb out warning light, as expected, but that was quickly recoded to ignore just the DRL bulbs, so now there's no error, much easier, for me, than the resistor way.

These are ebay LEDs with (10) SMD-5630 for around $15 shipped per pair.

Here are the crappy pics, left side in picture is the LED:









Flash on:

[yousefnjr]

Very cool, that's much brighter than stock. Interested to see daytime pics

[ricanbandit]

Subscribed

[chickdr]

No bulb out warning? If so I will order a set for mine.

[Aries326]

Thanks for sharing! Looks great! Got a link for the bulbs?

[Mirko]

Originally Posted by chickdr

No bulb out warning? If so I will order a set for mine.

He recoded it to ignore the bulb out.

Originally Posted by pungo

Oh, they did give a bulb out warning light, as expected, but that was quickly recoded to ignore just the DRL bulbs, so now there's no error, much easier, for me, than the resistor way.

[AmmarYasirA]

sweet. I really wish there was an easy plug-play version to where I wouldnt have to recode or add resistors :/

Will do this mod soon.

[tikamak]

It doesn't seem any brighter from the pic :S

Is this bulb made in china or made in UK ? can you tell by looking at the quality of the bulb?
I'm asking because if it's made in china, i can get you around 100 for 15$ :P
And in order to get it myself

[pungo]

Originally Posted by tikamak

It doesn't seem any brighter from the pic :S

Is this bulb made in china or made in UK ? can you tell by looking at the quality of the bulb?
I'm asking because if it's made in china, i can get you around 100 for 15$ :P
And in order to get it myself

I'd like to see where you can get 100 bulbs for $15? Post a link with that pricing. Do you even know what a SMD-5630 is?

Each assembly uses a quantity of (10) SMD-5630 LEDs. Even my wholesale pricing for just the SMD-5630 LEDs in quantities of 300 is $20, which is enough to make 30 assemblies. That does not include the bulb base, circuit board, electronics, aluminum heat sink and assembly labor. So if you can get 100 of these for $15 someone is loosing allot of money selling them that cheap.

[ZeD4Mr]

Will the bulbs with 8 SMD-5630 and a Q5 CREE on top be brighter than just 10 SMD-5630?

Like this one?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/T4W-233-BA9s...item2a30b522be

[pungo]

Originally Posted by ZeD4Mr

Will the bulbs with 8 SMD-5630 and a Q5 CREE on top be brighter than just 10 SMD-5630?

Like this one?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/T4W-233-BA9s...item2a30b522be

Unfortunately the light output needs to come out of the sides of the bulb, not the front. With the Q5 pointing toward the front, I don't think it's going to make allot of difference. If there were (4) Q5, one on each side, then that would be much brighter. I was going to make a custom LED for our cars, but couldn't find a cheap, broken donor headlight to experiment with.

The LEDs I posted above are still not suitable for a real DRL, though brighter than the stock Halogens, they don't stand out enough for real DRL use. I drive many back country roads, where having some front lighting on helps me to be seen. Since I don't have fog lights that I can use as DRL, I'm going to go with high end long thin LED DRLs and mount them either behind the lower grille or in front brake ducts.

[tikamak]

Originally Posted by pungo

I'd like to see where you can get 100 bulbs for $15? Post a link with that pricing. Do you even know what a SMD-5630 is?

Each assembly uses a quantity of (10) SMD-5630 LEDs. Even my wholesale pricing for just the SMD-5630 LEDs in quantities of 300 is $20, which is enough to make 30 assemblies. That does not include the bulb base, circuit board, electronics, aluminum heat sink and assembly labor. So if you can get 100 of these for $15 someone is loosing allot of money selling them that cheap.

With all due respect to your knowledge but in china you can get an exact knock-off replica.

www a l i b a b a com

15$ was like a random number I chose, it's not exactly what these items cost.

My original question was to see if these are made in the UK or china to see if they are knock-offs or not.

[AmmarYasirA]

So let's say I buy these LED's and retrofit them in to my old AE housing yada yada.

How do I code the car to remove the error code?

[pungo]

Originally Posted by AmmarYasirA

So let's say I buy these LED's and retrofit them on to my old halogen housing yada yada.

How do I code the car to remove the error code?

Oh, here's what I set on the LSZ to turn off the error after adding the LEDs:

WARMUEBERWACHUNG_FL - HOT MONITORING OF HIGH BEAMS
nicht_aktiv - not enabled

KALTUEBERWACHUNG_FL - COLD MONITORING OF HIGH BEAMS
nicht_aktiv - not enabled

[AmmarYasirA]

Originally Posted by pungo

I don't really understand how you are going to do this. Can you explain your plan?

I didn't think the Halogen housings even have angle eyes, though I could be wrong. The Xenons don't have a inner high beam Halogen but instead have a 10w bulb for the angle eye.

Oh, here's what I set on the LSZ to turn off the error after adding the LEDs, but I don't think it will work for Halogens:

WARMUEBERWACHUNG_FL - HOT MONITORING OF HIGH BEAMS
nicht_aktiv - not enabled

KALTUEBERWACHUNG_FL - COLD MONITORING OF HIGH BEAMS
nicht_aktiv - not enabled

Im an idiot. My bad I didnt mean halogen. I dont even know why I said halogen haha. I was talking about the OEM AE bulbs.

Also want to do the Euro Headlight coding to turn off the ugly yellow during regular use. But Ill do that later when I get the LED's