Angel eayes 430. Take a look.

Great thread everyone!! I've been reading this thread for about two weeks now, line by line I finally received my LEDs from ebay. One question before I start taking things apart from the car, do I have to cut these ones or are they perfect length? These are the 48cm ones SfefVan mentioned.

Thanks all!

 

Thanks

Actually, I didn't bother to cut them. The extra length which will be left, once the strip is slided up to the end, out of the entrance hole and can be bend over and blocked there. It acts then a bit like a spring which holds the leds in place, face up.

If you want to cut the strip, please remind that you must cut it only every 3 leds

 

Perfect! I'm going to the garage now to do it. I'll try to post pix later.

Thanks again!

 

How do you this? which shop? This looks like a strong connection. I attempted to do this mod and failed due to bad solder connection, Help please! TIA.

 

It is not difficult. Even I could do it. Try again.

 

Well, bad news guys. I had ordered 2 pairs of LEDs from ebay, just in case if anything goes wrong. 1 LED turned out to be dark blue, 2 light blue and 1 white. My original order was 4 white ones.

So unfortunately I had to start the job with the 2 light blue ones since these were the only "pair" I had in hand. First of all, it is extremely hard to get in hands in there and do the connection to the LEDs without taking the wheel off. I cut the original bulb connections and used cable connectors to make the new connection. After finishing and closing the cover on the passenger side, I started the driver side. Guess what: Half of the LED on the driver side stopped working when I was trying to put it into the headlight tube. So frustrating! So finally I removed them both and now I don't have city lights at all

I'm planning to go to Ikea and get LEDs from there since I don't wanna deal with the ebay sellers' arguments saying that it was my fault, etc.

For those of you who used Ikea LEDs, do they look bad compared to ebay LEDs? It's hard to tell from pictures.

Or as a backup plan I can just put a LED bulb instead of the H6W bulb powerful enough to illuminate the whole tube with white. What do you guys think?

Below I attached the photo of the dark blue vs white LEDs. The moment I found out I have a large selection of colors in my LED collection from ebay
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Sorry to hear that - my ebay leds were great but I ended up putting mine back to stock.

My car still has 2 years warranty on it, and someone said this is the sort of thing that might make Ferrari wriggle out of paying up if there was ever anything electrical go wrong

 

Sorry you got the wrong and bad led strips. This happened to me also. 3 Leds of a strip failed after a couple of weeks. Such led strips are very cheap and mass produced without any QC. Just buy a couple more and you'll be lucky The colored ones can go on the Christmas tree next winter

But there is still hope for better! I've been studying since a while a total different technology of LED's and I'm working now on a kind of POC (Proof of Concept). The LED's I'm targeting now are Superflux type LED's which have such a brightness that they can be considered as DRL's (Daytime Running Lights). That's what is typically used in the R8 or Audi for instance. I'm testing several manufacturers and evaluate heating (need of heat sink), luminens type, power consumption, light stability, dimensions etc. A couple are already short listed and I'll come back soon with some concrete results.

Wait and see

 

Are you still under the 3 years warranty or Power Cube? These are the only warranties which covers electric wires/connectors/components.

 

Like this. Have tried with acrylic stem and tubes, but no god result. Saw the new generation on some cars. Just a glowing stem. So Stef - I am also waiting for next generation.

All the best

//Anders

 

Hello Anders. I have a question - do you ever take your car from Sweden to the Goodwood revival Festival?

I am living in Jonkoping, and I have a 430 stored in London. Next week I am bringing it by ferry to SWE, using DFDS' freight service from Tillbury to Gothenburg. I will drive it on in the UK then fly to Gtbg to drive it off. (37 hours if I stay on board!)

If you have done this another way, please let me know!

(I'd like to make the LED running light conversion just like you did - maybe when the car arrives I can make a day-trip of meeting you to see in person how yours turned out?)

Regards;
Steve

 

Sorry Steve - I bought my 430 in London, but von Braun Sports Car organized the the ferry to Sweden. When going to GoodWood I have never brought the car. Always to Stansted and a ordinary Hetz one.

//Anders

 

Power Cube.... Got 2 years power cube when buying my 07 from a Ferrari Dealer here in the UK.

 

At the cost of a Power Cube, that's a very good deal You better leave it stock indeed.

 

Days are getting shorter and it’s time to make some update. After having tested several solutions, none of them where 100% satisfying :

- Ikea leds : not bright enough but very reliable
- SMD5050 : quite bright but overheat easily
- Simple 48 LED bulb stips : not bright enough and very unreliable

I discovered that the SMD5050 and the 48 LED strips suffer also a lot from being overpowered. These LED’s are dimensioned to receive exactly 12V. If more than 12V is supplied, which is the case with a good battery and a running engine, the integrated resistors will not be sufficient and the LED’s will take to much current and will eventually overheat and fail.

Here’s an example that explains this. In many cases, LED strips can be cut each 3 LED’s. That means that 10 times 3 LED’s + 1 resistor will be individually connected to the power supply. As shown in the first schema, the power supply is exactly 12V. With LED’s having for example a voltage drop of 3.6V and a current rating of 30mA, you will need a 43 Ohm resistor for each serial of 3 LED’s.

In the second schema, the input voltage is brought to 14V. As a consequence, with LED’s having identical characteristics, you need now a resistor of 110 Ohm! With a resistor of only 43 Ohms and an input voltage of 14V, the LED's will have to manage the extra current and will fail after a while.

All this means that with LED’s, it is vital to use a current driver. Unlike standard power supplies, which deliver a fixed voltage to the output, a current driver is designed to deliver a fixed current. LEDs are current-driven devices that require current limiting when driven from a voltage source and it is desirable to drive LEDs with a constant-current source. The current source is used to regulate the current through the LED regardless of power supply (voltage) variations or changes in forward voltage drops, Vf , between LEDs. The output voltage will vary as required to maintain the specified output current with differing forward drop voltages of LED junctions.

For the new LED solution based on SuperFlex LED’s, the usage of a current driver is di facto part of my specifications.
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I’ve been studying and experimenting several High Power LED’s. Most of them require a huge heat sink and in some cases even a ventilator. They will also require a power source exceeding largely 5W. These LED’s, even if they can be considered as real Daytime Running Lights, can not be integrated into our headlights as the available space is very limited and we can exceed 5/6W. I attached some pictures of one of the High Power LED I’ve been experimenting. This unit is using 3 CREE XP-G High Power LED’s and delivers a wopping 760 lumens! Although, with the huge heat sink I had to build around such LED’s, such unit can not be integrated into our headlights.

I came finally to a solution having hopefully the best ad equation :

- Limited heat using a reasonable heat sink
- Real DRL
- Power consumption < 5W
- One of the best brightness efficiency with 145 lum/W
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My choice went for the Nichia Raijin Superflux LED known under the following reference: NSPWR70CSS-K1 :

- Forward Voltage : 3.5 V
- Forward Current : 50 mA
- Power consumption : 0.175 W
- Luminous Flux : 15.1-25.5 lum
- Operating temperature : -30°C - +85°C (Absolute maximum)

I attached the datasheet of this LED for those who are interested in the technical details.
View attachment Nichia Raijin nspwr70css-k1-e.pdf

 

Now after this theory background, let see how we can practically integrate these Superflux LED’s.

Fortunately, the Nichia Raijin Superflux LED’s are available in LED strips of 50cm having 30 LED’s. Such strip delivers over 600 lumens! On the next picture, you can see the difference of brightness between a SMD5050 and the Nichia Raijin Superflux strip.

Even if these LED’s are available in strips, we still have some homework to do. Indeed, it is absolutely necessary to add a heat sink to this LED strip. Also, we will have to cut the 50cm strip because it will never fit the headlight tunnel up to the end. The strip itself is a hard strip and can not bend. Adding the heat sink will make this strip even more difficult to bend. I decided that 21 LED’s should be good enough even if it will not light up the headlight up to the end. Also, there must be enough space left under the heat sink so that the heat can be evacuated. With a 1cm large hard strip, the strip will remain right in the middle of the headlight tunnel. As any LED strip, this Superflux strip can also be cut every 3 LED’s.
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For the heat sink, I used a flat aluminium bar which has exactly the same width as the strip : 1cm. The strip will be glued to the aluminium bar with Arctic Alumina Thermal Adhesive. This adhesive has a thermal conductivity of <7.5 W/mK and is a pure electrical insulator. Once both products are mixed together in a 1:1 ratio, you have 5 minutes work time. I attached the instructions how to work with such thermal adhesive.

I cut the aluminium bar slightly shorter than the strip to allow 5mm on each side. See the picture with the LED strip, aluminium heat sink and Thermal Adhesive. It is important to apply this thermal adhesive in a good layer covering 100% the aluminium bar.
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View attachment Arctic Alumina Thermal Adhesive.pdf

 

With an ambient temperature of approx 25°C, the maximum temperature of the aluminium bar was 37°C while the maximum temperature of the Superflux LED was 32°C (after several hours of operation). This means that the glued heat sink has a good thermal conductivity. If the LED’s are hotter than the heat sink, you may not have applied the thermal adhesive in the right way.
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As I described before, it is essential to use a current driver to make sure we will provide exactly the right current whatever the voltage is. The best current drivers I found are based on the “BuckPuck” principle and can be obtained, as shown in the picture, at different current rates : 350mA, 500mA etc. This driver is also very small, 2cmx2cmx1,1cm and is perfect for our application. DC input voltage can be between 5-32V. I used the 3023-D-N-XXXX which is a prewired current driver and packaged in a waterproof case. I attached the datasheet for those interested in the technical details.

The entire Superflux LED strip with 30 LED's requires a 500mA current driver (=6W @ 12V). The fact I reduced this strip to 21 LEDS, a 350mA current driver will be needed (=4W @12V).

PS: sorry for my fingers on the picture but it gives an idea of the size of the current drivers
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View attachment 3021_3023-BuckPuck.pdf

 

On the following picture, you can see the two shortened LED strips assembled with the heat sink.

The next picture shows how I soldered the + and &#8211; wires on the LED strip. For extra protection and to avoid any corrosion, I also insulated the soldered wires using a good layer of the thermal adhesive. Then after, I protected the wires using thermal retraction sleeves.
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Now that everything is assembled and tested, let’s do the fun part and install these new strips in the headlights. As I mentioned before, we have to deal with stiff strips. This will make the job a tight more difficult but it’s perfectly doable. I slide them in the centre of the hole, slightly turned towards the exterior of the car. The entire strip fits very well into the light tunnel and only 8cm should be left between the end of the LED strip and the real end of the light tunnel (the part of the tunnel that really turns inwards at almost an angle of 90°). Here’s a picture where you can see the angle of the strip which is process of being fitted into the light tunnel (LHS).

To make sure the temperature will remain reasonable, I tested the LED strip switched on during 1 hour. While the outside temperature was about 17°C, the maximum temperature I measured deep inside the light tunnel was 33.5°C (I used a wired based temperature probe).
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Two pictures of the results taken in my garage (not in the dark as the garage door was open) :
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Two pictures taken outside on a very sunny afternoon
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