Projects for me sometimes start with simple observations and this time it was 20ducks bemoaning the fact that the Z4 centre brake light does not light fully from side to side.
OK so no big deal, until I looked and it really did look odd. Obviously Zeds are rare enough around here that I can’t recall following one with its brakes on to notice.
Herminator proved the catalyst by bringing me the core of a scrap rear light and so a brief project was born, purely to see if it could be done for the hell of it.
So this is the start
Standard ‘clear’ partial illuminated light
Pulled to bits it’s just a simple circuit board and shaped reflector
Note the 3 ‘dead’ spaces at the end
Illuminated –– and wow some serious light from these tiny critters…’Flashing them across a battery I thought there was danger of bringing a light aircraft down.
It looked so obvious that at each end there was a series of 3 sculptured depressions in the reflector ,but no LED’s on the matched panel. Well 6 LED’s in total in series would be just perfect to run on 12v, since LED’s run between 1.8 to 2.4 volts.
Choice was simple 6 in series without resistors, the only problem in connecting in series is if one LED goes out then they all go out. The other option is connect in parallel, where you connect a resistor to each led, but I did not like the idea of all those resistors and birds nest of wires, so series it would be.
A bit of advice from the very helpful guys at http://www.goodwillsales.com and 10 suitable red LED’s of 3 different designs were in the post. (I needed to test which fitted best and had the closest light output as there seemed no way of knowing the OEM spec. For my clear lens they also had to be white/clear off and red on).
A quick bench test with a resistor on each style and a 3mm 5000mcd was selected
as the closest output to the OEM and an easy design to work on.
Next step was to drill the 3 holes in each end of the reflector and then create my daisy chain of 6 LEDS.
Test fitted before bonding:
Bonded in place I simply needed a clean 12v feed taken before the BMW circuit board did it’s trickery with voltage and resistors on the 4 batches of 4 LED’s.
And test illuminated to ensure the new LED’s worked:
Reassembled and fitted to the car pretty much job done.
End result
Not bad result for an hour’s internet research and a couple of hours work and in reality how it should have been done by BMW. Completely unnecessary project but way better than watching TV on a wet evening, but I’m pleased at it looks OEM
(I’ll edit a better picture in when I can get out in the daylight as it’s actually perfect colour and intensity side to side)
OK so no big deal, until I looked and it really did look odd. Obviously Zeds are rare enough around here that I can’t recall following one with its brakes on to notice.
Herminator proved the catalyst by bringing me the core of a scrap rear light and so a brief project was born, purely to see if it could be done for the hell of it.
So this is the start
Standard ‘clear’ partial illuminated light
Pulled to bits it’s just a simple circuit board and shaped reflector
Note the 3 ‘dead’ spaces at the end
Illuminated –– and wow some serious light from these tiny critters…’Flashing them across a battery I thought there was danger of bringing a light aircraft down.
It looked so obvious that at each end there was a series of 3 sculptured depressions in the reflector ,but no LED’s on the matched panel. Well 6 LED’s in total in series would be just perfect to run on 12v, since LED’s run between 1.8 to 2.4 volts.
Choice was simple 6 in series without resistors, the only problem in connecting in series is if one LED goes out then they all go out. The other option is connect in parallel, where you connect a resistor to each led, but I did not like the idea of all those resistors and birds nest of wires, so series it would be.
A bit of advice from the very helpful guys at http://www.goodwillsales.com and 10 suitable red LED’s of 3 different designs were in the post. (I needed to test which fitted best and had the closest light output as there seemed no way of knowing the OEM spec. For my clear lens they also had to be white/clear off and red on).
A quick bench test with a resistor on each style and a 3mm 5000mcd was selected
as the closest output to the OEM and an easy design to work on.
Next step was to drill the 3 holes in each end of the reflector and then create my daisy chain of 6 LEDS.
Test fitted before bonding:
Bonded in place I simply needed a clean 12v feed taken before the BMW circuit board did it’s trickery with voltage and resistors on the 4 batches of 4 LED’s.
And test illuminated to ensure the new LED’s worked:
Reassembled and fitted to the car pretty much job done.
End result
Not bad result for an hour’s internet research and a couple of hours work and in reality how it should have been done by BMW. Completely unnecessary project but way better than watching TV on a wet evening, but I’m pleased at it looks OEM
(I’ll edit a better picture in when I can get out in the daylight as it’s actually perfect colour and intensity side to side)
)
