Guide to have Daylight LED on all the time

[gar074]

Great post, Steve - the definitive answer to the "how do Audi get away with it" questions!

[Fowler]

Besides, you'll look like one of those chavved up boy racers who have fitted stupid LED's on there car to have that "audi" look.

Honestly... pointless.

Electrically it needs to be done through a relay like woodey said.

Fowler

[irishRob]

Glad I found this post, was thinking about this whilst I was driving back from work last night. I left quite late, by the time I hit the A19 it was about half seven and as a result, quite dark. Anyway, I was thinking it'd be cool to have the LED's on as I knew they were off because of the main beams being on, then I remembered that it was said here that UK regs state that this is against the law.

Now, with that in mind, I was wondering how these big HGV's get away with it? Cause I noticed a LOT of them with front running LED's and one in particular had a complete pattern of V shaped LED's going down the front grill and a whole box set of them covering the outline of the drivers compartment. Surely if these LED's where illegal (edit: at night), then there'd be no HGV's battling down the road with them? I think a clear understanding of what is and what isn't allowed would be great, as although I'm absolutely shit at doing any technical with cars, I'd love to have my LED's on at night along with the main beams as this is really, the defining look of the car - at night, it'd look extra awesome.

[Bigfeet]

Just been poking about the net over the law regarding LED DRL's and came across this website

http://www.dadrl.org.uk/lawcompensation.html

The last paragrapgh reads to me that if you run DRL's at night then you could get sue'ed for breach of human rights!

There is also a series of letters between this group, DaDRL, and Volvo UK which makes fun reading!

http://www.dadrl.org.uk/docs/Volvo.pdf



What a scary world we live in...

[irishRob]

What a scary world we live in...

Ha, see you say scary, whereas I'd use a different word altogether. Coming from my previous working life within the public sector, I know that people can kick up a fuss over nothing - and to me, this looks exactly like that. I mean, yes, they are a gimmick, but to think that somewhere someone ordered a full report on them, really, what a waste of time and money. But then again, that person will have no doubt been driving an old banger or a public transport (eeugh) user.

Hehe, also, their website is shit! I haven't seen markup like that since the 90's!

[gar074]

Just been poking about the net over the law regarding LED DRL's and came across this website

http://www.dadrl.org.uk/lawcompensation.html

The last paragrapgh reads to me that if you run DRL's at night then you could get sue'ed for breach of human rights!

There is also a series of letters between this group, DaDRL, and Volvo UK which makes fun reading!

http://www.dadrl.org.uk/docs/Volvo.pdf

Ha ha. I've rarely read a bigger load of horse-sh1t.

The argument that the use of DRLs infringes a pedestrian's human right to life because it masks vulnerable road users is especially hilarious. On that logic, all other drivers (and especially the menaces driving BMWs and Audis) should be banned from using the roads whenever I'm driving, because their presence increases the risk that I will be involved in an accident that might endanger my life.

The chap who runs that website needs to get out more (with his DRLs on, of course).

[ZACK]

DADRL ?... DADRL !!!

Wot The Hell ?

I Hate People...

[smill141]

I think a clear understanding of what is and what isn't allowed would be great,

What is and is not allowed for lighting on cars and trucks is set out in ECE regulation ECE 48-04. This 104 page document defines the postion / colour / fucntion and number of lights that 'must be' or can be fitted to a vehicle (car or truck) and every manufactiure (OEM) must comply with this to get homoligation approval for there vehicles.

As for the trucks driving down the road with all the additional lights fitted, this will have been fitted by the driver (owner) after purchasing the vehicle, as for legality of them that comes down to local law enforcement. But generally speaking as long as the forward facing lights are white or orange and rearward facing are red on the outstand of the vehicle very little is done about it.

Clear as mud.....

Steve

[irishRob]

What is and is not allowed for lighting on cars and trucks is set out in ECE regulation ECE 48-04. This 104 page document

...that's when I stopped reading!

[DS3 POWER]

The AUDI's uses an Electronic Module to control the LED's and a system called Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) to send the voltage to the LED's, so what this allows you to do is when you want DRL function at the LED, the module with send 100% PWM voltage to the LED's, and when you switch the side lights on (or any forward facing light) the modules knows the different requirement and will send a 50% PWM voltage to the LED's and you get a dimmer LED (also an ECE requirement for side lights).
Steve

can i buy the pulse width modulation and the electronic module and fit it on my ds3?????

[cameron20020]

Just a quick bit of useful info...

the DRL leds in our DS3 DRLs appear to be PWM incompatible...
The reason is, they are not JUST leds... they have a constant current regulator inside each DRL, which means even if the duty cycle of the leds is changed, their brightness will remain the same.

The reason I know this, is I tried powering the DRLs with an arduino via some mosfets.
I slowly cycled the PWM duty cycle between 0-255, (0 being 0%, and 255 being 100%)

the leds stay the same brightness, until they reach around 105-115/255 duty cycle, then they switch off completely with no change in brightness.

This means the constant current regulator compensates, and it appears to not be possible to dim the DRL leds unless we take apart the modules and take control of the current regulation.

[DS3 POWER]

Loooool I didnt understand much :P

[cameron20020]

We basically have to do something like this guy has done:
http://www.ds3club.co.uk/showthread....t-in-the-night