LED Puddle Lamps! Home Made!

[Lex Talionis]

(add disclaimers, risks and caveats here about what damage you could do or warranties you could void by modifying your puddle lamps)

 

What you are about to see, I am willing to bet has NEVER been done before on an Edge. Some of you may think it a total hack job, and well, it kind of is. But it works, is simple, and I did it all with household items I had in my garage (except for the LED bulbs of course) and it 100% worked and kicks ass.

 

Yep, I made my very own, 100% from scratch, puddle lamps WITH LED bulbs. I made them on the fly - literally - as the ideas came to me on how to pull it off.. and this is what I ended up with.

 

I did this because (1) I could not stand the fact every other bulb I did was a nice clean super white LED (see other LED thread), except for the dingy yellow puddle lamps and those could not have their bulbs changed as they are a sealed unit and (2) I was not willing to pay $50-60 for just 1 Ford sealed puddle lamp to try to rip it apart and test my theory and (3) I wanted to see if I could do it. So, I did it.

 

The pictures tell the story.. The pseudo reflectors are pieces of clear heavy plastic cut from a clear 30 gallon storage bin (yep, right from Target). I then sanded it down so you could not see thru it anymore and not see into the bulb/mirror. You will see in the photos the cutting of the clear reflectors and then them sanded over and no longer see thru. The springs that hold the bulbs are from the quick release skewers off a bike wheel. Yep, PERFECT idea as they expand and contract and hold the bulb snug, can be easily opened and the bulb changed, and as critical as anything they conduct electricity. The male ends that plug into the existing electrical female plugs I had in my electrical kit from working on my other truck. I just modified them (cut and grind down) to fit the exact size on the female Ford harness plugs that hang free when the factory bulb is removed. I made sure to use red and blue so I could distinguish power and ground once I determined that from the Ford harness as LED bulbs have + and - poles and so that matters. I even marked the Ford harness - you will see a photo - with red shrink wrap to forever note the power wire of the 2 hanging harness wires. And, the little bracket/stand that attaches to the bulb to keep the bulb from moving around in the mirror and kept in 1 place is made of the same left over plastic as I made the reflectors from, then simply super glued to the home made reflector. Finally, it all simply press fits into place (as I left the reflectors a little to big) and is held by pressure BUT I ended up putting black RTV silicon seal all around the lip of the reflector to better hold them in for sure, it blends in with the black plastic, and keep the elements out - like water.

 

Viola!!! enjoy!! they look so aweome with all the other complimentary internal LED lights, license plate LEDs and the HID lights I did. :hyper:

 

creating the reflector

 

reflector done

 

quick mock-up of idea to hold the bulb and tie into the factory harness

 

quick test fit of the mock-up to see if it would fit/work/establish which was power (red) and ground (blue) wires

 

start of making the holding bracket to keep bulb placed correctly over reflector and in the mirror

 

over view of all the pieces and the actual Ford closed unit

 

the final installed working product - Proof of concept!

[Blue Oval]

So very cool Lex

[jpeckinp]

Did you check to see what it would have looked like if you didn't sand the diffuser? Do you think it might have been brighter?

[Lex Talionis]

Did you check to see what it would have looked like if you didn't sand the diffuser? Do you think it might have been brighter?

 

it 'might' have been, but I did not check. There was no way I would have left it, even if it was a tad brighter, as I would not want to be able to look into the reflector and see the bulb, wires, etc. If I were a betting man, I think the extra 'possible' brightness would have been negligible. But hey, the were cheap to make so I could make some clear ones also.

 

I can tell you, they are pretty bright. They still do the job just fine. I only tested last night outside my home, but they still seem perfect bright and you can see the ground just as with the dingy incandescents. When I went out to test last night, I tested like it would be real world. I stood back and unlocked the car as I was walking up and I did not 'feel' in my gut any less brightness. I felt no discernible differences that was like "wow, that does not work or is less light or does not do the job", other than it looks really kick ass. A better test will be to go to a totally dark pitch black area and see what they are like with no ambient light from house lights or street lights. I suspect the result will still be perfect as we know the LEDs put out a cleaner, brighter and more light all things being equal. Also, I need to drive it around and see just how stable they are - do they shift, come loose, etc. they could fail at that stage.. not sure yet.

 

the interesting thing about these LEDs is that since they are 1 sided, LEDs on only 1 side, nothing on back side, no real need for a metal reflector behind them as no light from back there to bounce down. I do wonder if that plays a role in brightness as I wonder when using an incandescent that puts light out all directions, the metal reflector behind the bulb shots stray light back down in addition to the light already aiming down? not sure. but again, the resulting look an feel is as important to me as the actual light output, and since I 'feel" no difference, the goal was achieved. I suppose if it looked cool but put out like no light, light that did not even hit the ground, I might call it a failure and go back.

[luxlighting]

Dear Sirs ,

 

We manufacture Led household bulbs,Autobulbs ,Project lamps .

 

Nowadays ,Led household bulb become very popular and widely substitute incandescent bulbs for indoor lighting because of high luminous and excellent heat sink solve

 

We are one of the manufacturer of these bulbs :

Led household bulbs:

MR16 1W,3W,3*1W .GU10 1W,3W,3*1W ,JDRE27 1W,3W,3*1W .E14 1W,3W,3*1W .

PAR20 3*1W .PAR30 5*1W .7*1W .PAR38 12*1W .

Low power MR16 ,GU10 With 12LEDs.with reflector ( 0.72w) .PAR30 with 60LEDs( 3.6W)

 

Led deocration bulbs .led wall washer ,led underground lamps .

 

Led autobulbs : T10 ,T15Wedge,BA9S ,Festoon 33mm ,37mm 42mm (.single chip .3chips) .red,yellow,blue,green ,cool white (6500k) .warm white (3000-3200k). .T25BA15S .

 

Thanks and best regards

 

Danny Duan

shenzhen lux lighting technologies co.,ltd

www(doc)luxledlight(doc)com

Add: 904 ，124Building ,Mingle New village ,Longhua ,shenzhen ,china ,

Tel：0086-755-28096562 。0086-755-28096561-888

Fax：0086-755-28096562

E-mail: luxlighting@126.com / danny@luxledlight.com

Msn;gtl-guangzhou-danny@hotmail.com

Skype; sinocolighting

[Lex Talionis]

yeah.. but do you have something PRE made that would work in this application? Lots of places to get LEB bulbs. The bulb on the right might work as it has the 2 + - poles so you could tie into those, but still needs modification (create AND attach a home made lens).

 

So.. how about I send you one of the OEM puddle lamps and you look into reverse engineering and making me 2 of the EXACT puddle lamps BUT with LED in them as a prototypes. If they work, you can start to manufacturer them and sell them.

[luxlighting]

Yeah ,you are right ,Everywhere ,store ,shop ,Wall-mart can find a led bulb ...But If you want to find a suitable and reliable bulb ? It seems a little difficulty ,If you run a large business ,you also become very carefully .So all talk will become half believe ,half not .Bulb quality is really .

 

If you really interests us ,Pls send your Bulb details by e-mail first .If we check we can help you to make some bulbs samples .we will get it .

 

danny@luxledlight.com .....

Msn:gtl-guangzhou-danny@Hotmail.com

[Lex Talionis]

UPDATE: read here and you will see a method for opening up the actual factory puddle lamp and changing the bulb to an LED 32mm festoon. Another member, accidentally breaking his puddle lamp trying to get it out, threw caution to the wind and went ahead and opened up the factory sealed puddle lamp unit with a screw driver as a pry tool. As I mentioned above, at $50-60 a pop for 1 puddle lamp, though I suspected this could be done, was not wiling to try to pop that lens off and get to the bulb. But, since he already broke it, he had no reason not to try and sure enough, it is possible.

 

I ended up using a dremmel tool to remove my lens cleanly from the sealed unit rather than a prying screw driver head - which I was going to do originally until I found the replacement cost of 1 lamp in case I happened to screw it up was so high - and will now go back to the original factory puddle lamps BUT with new LED bulbs in them.

[MJ5150]

This is great Lex. You totally went above and beyond with the detailed steps and photos. Nice work.

 

I wonder if a guy could use those plastic safety caps to put in electrical outlets to help cut down on some fabrication time?

 

-Mike

Edited December 28, 2009 by MJ5150

[Lex Talionis]

This is great Lex. You totally went above and beyond with the detailed steps and photos. Nice work.

 

I wonder if a guy could use those plastic safety caps to put in electrical outlets to help cut down on some fabrication time?

 

-Mike

 

now that I know we can just cut open the existing sealed light units - this was not know at the time I did this and only was found by another user who rolled the dice - I would not go this route. I ended up opening my sealed units and just swapping bulbs, but at the time, at like $50+ per side, I was not going to cut and be wrong about being able to access the bulb. now that we know we can access the bulb, this method is kind of useless but it proved it could be done