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So I received my LED DTR's today from China (purchased on eBay) and I will have to get a refund.
1. The polarity was backwards at the bulb connector. Luckily even though there is a small plastic bump on the side of the male connector which normally goes under the lock tab on the female connector, you can still flip the connector 180 degrees and re-insert...but it doesn't lock in....however:
2. The 3 tabs on the locking ring are not the same as the OEM lamp and even though it can be fully inserted into the lamp housing, it won't lock securely into place.
I recently ordered a digital current clampmeter on eBay from China (go it REALLY REALLY cheap) and when it finally arrived after 2.5 months, it did not work at all. This is the last time I order anything on eBay from China. I have noticed that recently there seems to suddenly be a bazillion trillion electronic-y things available on eBay from China for unbelievable prices,.... or has it always been this way?
So I received my LED DTR's today from China (purchased on eBay) and I will have to get a refund.
1. The polarity was backwards at the bulb connector. Luckily even though there is a small plastic bump on the side of the male connector which normally goes under the lock tab on the female connector, you can still flip the connector 180 degrees and re-insert...but it doesn't lock in....however:
2. The 3 tabs on the locking ring are not the same as the OEM lamp and even though it can be fully inserted into the lamp housing, it won't lock securely into place.
I recently ordered a digital current clampmeter on eBay from China (go it REALLY REALLY cheap) and when it finally arrived after 2.5 months, it did not work at all. This is the last time I order anything on eBay from China. I have noticed that recently there seems to suddenly be a bazillion trillion electronic-y things available on eBay from China for unbelievable prices,.... or has it always been this way?
Sounds like a good old case of "you get what you pay for.." or "if it sounds too good to be true it probably is.."
I went back to beating my head against the wall by wrapping a whole bunch of teflon tape around the base where the 3 lock tabs are, thereby essentially increasing the thickness of the plastic, which actually then eliminated the slop/play when they are mounted in the housing. Awesome, I thought I was home free...except the brightness of the DTRs is way too bright, I would end up pissing off anyone in front of me.
When you switch to hi beam, the voltage going to the bulb increases to full voltage (about 14 volts) from what I believe is around 8 volts. The LEDs then become significantly brighter.
Sorry Comfy, never got quite that far. Personally, before and after photos are fairly meaningless to me unless you use a camera where you can manually set the light exposure metering or aperture and shutter speed to the same settings on both the before and after shots. Otherwise the camera will automatically adjust the amount of light allowed into the shot and not really give you a valid comparison.
sorry to hear man, maybe you will have better luck on another one. Thanks for posting the pic so i can not choose that one. If i find one that works/doesnt work ill share the info.
Before I send them back, I will try to see if, using a Zener diode, I can slightly reduce the voltage going to the lamps in DRL mode while maintaining the full voltage in hi beam mode. Its a bit of a long shot but I like the color of these lamps so its worth a shot.
The zener to control the max voltage?How many watts?Going to need a big zener.JMHO
Not exactly. (but yes to the hi power diode) I am thinking that if I connect a reverse-biased zener (say for example a 7.5 volt zener...1N5343) in series with the lamp, at the DRL voltage applied, the zener will begin to break down and allow just enough current to illuminate the LED to the desired brightness, (which would be less than the brightness I saw when I initially installed it) ...then when the hi beams are switched on, the zener is in full breakdown and will allow full voltage minus around 2 volts to go to the LED. (I have found that the LED's brightness actually does not decrease if you turn down the supply voltage from 14.4 volts to around 11.5 - 12 volts.)
Of course before I begin I will need to measure the supplied DRL voltage with the LED installed in the car before trying to select an appropriate zener...as well as determine desired voltage for desired brightness using my variable DC power supply..... haven't done that yet. A 25 watt zener would be OK (the led lamp draws around 1.4 amps in hi beam mode) but since those are only available in the metal can package, I was thinking of using 5 5-watt zeners wired in parallel to split the power dissipation.
The problem is that I would have to get VERY lucky with the chosen zener's breakdown voltage so that the DRL brightness is satisfactory. I really don't know if I want to go through with this, and would prefer a more elegant solution (such as, maybe, a current limiting resistor (for DRL mode) in parallel with a MOSFET that only turns on when the supply voltage is at hi-beam levels) but I'm sure you'd agree, is all this work really worth it....no...but if I can get lucky by adding a diode, well then to me it may be worth it.
Time to abandon this...I discovered through using an oscilloscope that the voltage to the DTRs is 13.8 volts but its pulsed at 100 times per second, with about a 20% duty cycle...meaning the LEDS receive full voltage for about 2 milliseconds every 10 milliseconds....this works OK for dimming the light output for halogen bulbs but obviously not so good for LEDs.
Time to abandon this...I discovered through using an oscilloscope that the voltage to the DTRs is 13.8 volts but its pulsed at 100 times per second, with about a 20% duty cycle...meaning the LEDS receive full voltage for about 2 milliseconds every 10 milliseconds....this works OK for dimming the light output for halogen bulbs but obviously not so good for LEDs.
what year is your RDX? you should try the one I got. I posted the pics of mine on the other thread.
Just thought I'd share, I ordered and received another pair of LED lamps , and these ones are fine with regard to the brightness of the DTR's...they are not hard to look at like so many LED DTRs I am seeing on the roads these days.
They are 8000K so a little blue-looking...only problem is that they don't get brighter when you turn on the hi-beams, which is weird because when they are connected to a steady 13 volts they are very bright.
I tried taking photos of the light output but the photos look absolutely NOTHING like what they look like using your eyes so whats the point......
05-19-2017, 04:22 PM
