LED Puddle Lights & LED Interior MOD

[Lexicon740iL]

With the LED Angel Eyes out of the way I decided to go for the Puddle lights next.

I wanted something really bright that would illuminate the area around the X when approaching the vehicle at night.

I went with a 3W Cree T10 Wedge with a nice heat sink.







The larger design of the high output LED didn't want to seat in the bulb housing correctly So I used the Dremel to take off a few mm's of plastic to accommodate the larger bulb head. The bulb socket has a rubber O ring that still allows the bulb holder to seat correctly and make a nice watertight seal.

The instructions for removal of the mirror cover and access to the bulb to do this retrofit have been covered here before so I didn't document this part. It's very easy to pull the cover off.

Here's a link http://www.xoutpost.com/610136-post10.html

And on to the before and after.

Before






After








The light output looks 10X Brighter to me "It was hard to capture on my camera" It washes the ground and side of my X5 in a nice bright LED glow.

I am very happy with the result.

Now for the interior.

I swapped the Door/Courtesy lights, Footwell, Front Mirrors, Rear Headliner, and Glovebox With these 3 SMD 39MM Festoons



Some before and after shots









While I was at it I did the License Plate bulbs as well.

Before




All LED



The next to be swapped will be the interior tailgate bulbs that are a T10 wedge that needs to be a different orientation than the ones I used in the Puddle lights "Down firing only"

I ordered these


And the Maplights are super low profile T10's that won't fit my T10 3W Crees either so I've ordered these. Hopefully they will be low profile enought to fit in that little holder.



I really enjoy the crisp white look the LED's put out on the black leather!

[sedc]

Cool, are you getting license plate light out errors with those festoon bulbs? If not, where did you get them?

[SlickGT1]

Looks good. If you get SMD bulbs for exterior lights, it shouldn't cause errors, but they will flicker at startup. To kill the startup flicker, you need to do some coding.

Lexicon, did you notice yours flicker at night at startup? Mine did till I coded off the cold monitoring. Same for the driver side angel eyes. It actually abused my driver side AE to the point I had to send it out for replacement. Glad Umnitza has lifetime waranty.

Oh, interior lights are not monitored at all, so no need for interior SMD LEDs, any led that fit will do.

[Lexicon740iL]

Cool, are you getting license plate light out errors with those festoon bulbs? If not, where did you get them?

Thanks man. No Errors. I coded the LCM for Check Control and Cold monitoring off on the lic. plate circuit.

Originally Posted by SlickGT1

Looks good. If you get SMD bulbs for exterior lights, it shouldn't cause errors, but they will flicker at startup. To kill the startup flicker, you need to do some coding.

Lexicon, did you notice yours flicker at night at startup? Mine did till I coded off the cold monitoring. Same for the driver side angel eyes. It actually abused my driver side AE to the point I had to send it out for replacement. Glad Umnitza has lifetime waranty.

Oh, interior lights are not monitored at all, so no need for interior SMD LEDs, any led that fit will do.

Hi Slick, No Flicker for me man. I remembered your warning about your A.E. Bulb turning green or failing because of the cold monitoring on the LCM for that circuit. I used my homemade ibus interface and coded the LCM with a program called Navcoder. It's a nice little piece of software I have used for years to code navi units/ radios/TV modules ect. On my E38 & E39 It also has LCM support and adjustments for DRL, Follow Me Home Settings, Double Blink Euro Flashers, GPS Clock Sync. Ect.

I was going to do a thread on it this evening actually. Thanks again for the reminder. Those A.E. LED's did strobe quite a bit in key pos. 2 prior to start up before I coded the Cold monitoring off.

-Lex

[SlickGT1]

Cool so you are on the right track. You convinced me to replace some of my interior bulbs with LEDs. Def brighter.

[tmv]

I like them. Waiting for the bulbs to arrive.

[Lexicon740iL]

The low profile T10 wedges arrived yesterday. I had to disassemble the dome light housing to accommodate them but boy do they look great!

I'll post pic's later after the sun goes down.

[X5SND]

Are those bulbs capable of the fade in/out when opening or closing a door?

[Lexicon740iL]

Originally Posted by X5SND

Are those bulbs capable of the fade in/out when opening or closing a door?

Yes Sir! Just like stock.

[X5SND]

Niice!! Where'd ya get 'em from?