LED Tail lights

[Ricky Bobby]

Originally Posted by Dark5yde

I was also getting the *check rear lights* error. The caps I assume will eliminate those as well? Also I don't see them on their site. Are these special parts I have to ask for?



*edit* I just emailed them. just waiting for a response.

The caps as far as I know how they work in "storing voltage" so that you dont get the error for check rear lights. I never got a check rear lights error since my tails have been installed.


Hell if someone could code my car for me this weekend so I could test that LED tail option terminator was talking about, if it worked to keep my car from flickering I'd send you my capacitors from my tails!



If i remember correct though they are pretty quick to respond, the guy used to be on xoutpost and I think he pioneered the capacitor fix for adaptive brake lights.

[Dark5yde]

I appreciate that offer man. As for the response time, I got a reply with in 5 minutes of me emailing them. He is sending me a request form now.

[Dark5yde]

got the form, already paid. He said it'd be out by monday. Now i'm not so sad.

[Ricky Bobby]

you will love the tails. Now get some Bimmian invisibulbs for the turn signals and reverse lights

And let us guys work on the rear fog stuff hopefully we can figure out how to get them working without a TCM

[X5SND]

Originally Posted by Ricky Bobby

The caps as far as I know how they work in "storing voltage" so that you dont get the error for check rear lights. I never got a check rear lights error since my tails have been installed.


Hell if someone could code my car for me this weekend so I could test that LED tail option terminator was talking about, if it worked to keep my car from flickering I'd send you my capacitors from my tails!



If i remember correct though they are pretty quick to respond, the guy used to be on xoutpost and I think he pioneered the capacitor fix for adaptive brake lights.

I do believe that caps are used to even out voltage and prevent flickering, while resistors are what boost the load on a light circuit you stuck an LED into (as seen by the LCM) to prevent the bulb out warning.

[TerminatorX5]

Originally Posted by X5SND

I do believe that caps are used to even out voltage and prevent flickering, while resistors are what boost the load on a light circuit you stuck an LED into (as seen by the LCM) to prevent the bulb out warning.

caps are normally considered as a break in a DC line - however at the moment when the voltage is applied, the capacitor is charging (there is current for that brief moment), when the voltage is removed, the charge is discharging from capacitor back into circuit (creating current for a short period). Thus, the higher the nominal value of a capacitor (measured in millifarads), the longer it takes to charge and discharge the cap.

When a pulse from PMW is applied to capacitor (in parallel), it is charged, when the pulse is removed and the system is on the down cycle, the capacitor discharges the energy back into circuit, thus, smoothing the final "square" wave, into a more smooth wave, where the peaks are lower and the valleys are higher and the wave is not square but rather "wavy"...

this property of the capacitors is used in rectifying bridges, to smooth out the pulsating DC coming from a bridge. Similar to what is present in the alternator's voltage stabilizer...

my $0.02

[Dark5yde]

Yea its been a few yrs but I had to deal with caps in the past. Had to solder inline caps into my homemade HID relay harness on my Chrysler 300 I had to stop the flickering. As for the rear fogs I may just wire them into the running lights or experiment with LED strips.

[X5SND]

Originally Posted by TerminatorX5

caps are normally considered as a break....

...my $0.02

And there's Mr.T, bringin the calipers to a measurement the rest of us do with our thumb and one eye! Not a fan of laymen terms are ya?

Joking aside, since we have the ability to change the PWM values, is it not possible to "adjust" them to compensate for an LED, thus rendering the necessity of a cap irrelevant?

[Ricky Bobby]

Well Terminator was talking about there being an option in NCS Expert that looks like it is an LED tail light option, which i'm willing to try out, but I dont have a nearby coder unless I visit Slick in Brooklyn which is a solid hour with traffic.

Neilrmp on the forums lives by me but he just got his cable in so he is going to play with the software a bit and get familiar before he pm's me for coding.

[X5SND]

I haven't had a chance to set up my ncsexpert yet, so im a bit in the dark on that program. However, on the BMW scanner 1.4.0 getup there are actually numerical PWM values for each bulb that can be changed.... But as the min and max values are unknown I'm a bit hesitant to start changing things!