LED Strip Retrofit. '11 Limited. DIY.

[frybel]

Hey gang,

Like so many others on here I wanted a DRL solution for the 2011+ models, and was less than impressed with the underpowered LED strips integrated into the new bumper style. It's curious that Ford would do such a beautiful job designing the new front end to fall flat with the OEM lighting. So with limited pre-fab solutions , the DIY bug came out....... I'm hoping we can consolidate a lot of info, ideas, etc... into this thread since there are quite a few floating around on the forum. This is what I did and I'm pretty happy with the results. Those of you out there with more technical prowess, dremmel skills, imagination and especially patience, might do a cleaner job, but anyway........

 

Bumper comes off.

 

I followed the instructions on this site. It's for '09 and earlier, but it's almost exactly the same for 2011+. I didn't use jack stands or ramps, although ramps would definitely make getting the 8 underbody screws easier to get at. Just crank the wheels all the way left or right, put on the parking brake and get to work. Oh yeah, make sure you have a blanket or something protective on the floor when you yank the bumper off. It's not heavy, just awkward, and it wants to go face down fast.

 

http://mechanixtrix.com/Article/Article.aspx?ArticleId=405

 

 

Remove the LED housings

 

Each housing is held in place by 2 angled tabs and 2 metal clips. I used 2 small screwdrivers to pry the teeth of the clips away from the tabs and they popped right off.

 

 

The reason the OEM strips aren't very bright is that the entire assembly consists of a single LED that fires vertically through the diffuser tube that runs the length of the housing.

 

 

 

Mark, cut and remove the internal components in the light housing

 

I cut the clip attachment off the bottom of the housing to break and remove the LED, circuit board and diffuser.....at this point there's no going back. There's a reflector behind all the "guts" that I decided to leave in and cut an opening to fit the new LED assembly.

 

 

 

 

 

Here's where more dremmel skill and/or patience may help some of you. The cuts came out fairly clean, but the angled design of the factory housing doesn't perfectly complement the straight design of the LEDs....probably why Ford went with a single, vertical firing option. At first I used a heat gun to try and loosen the glue and pull the lens of the front to give me more room to work with and hopefully be able to take apart the entire assembly. I couldn't get the lens off...the plastic was getting close to the point of melting and the lens still wouldn't budge. I couldn't find any screws of tabs holding it together, but if anyone else tries this and finds a way to pull the front lens off please post results as I think this will allow for a cleaner retrofit.

 

Fit the LEDs

 

I used this kit from ijdmtoy.com

 

http://store.ijdmtoy.com/Philips-Day-Light-LED-Daytime-Running-Lights-DRL-p/led_ddl_sku_7c.htm

 

 

 

 

And used some RTV silicone sealant to make the new housing watertight.

 

 

Wire in the DRL control box.

 

This Phillips product is actually pretty versatile. The control box has a couple of different ways to wire it (relayed/switched, in line with parking/fogs, direct to terminal) along with the corresponding diagrams on the box. I chose to wire it directly to the +/- terminals on the battery so it powers up whenever the car is on. BAM!!!! DRLs!!!! The LEDs will also activate briefly with lock/unlock, and turn off when the headlamps do upon exiting the vehicle. They remain on during remote start.

 

 

You'll need to mount the control box somewhat near the middle front of the engine bay unless you want to splice additional length into either of the leads. There are 3' leads from the control box and each LED with a connector harness on the ends. In order to make sure the wires weren't near heat sources or blocking any airflow I centered the mount against the grill using zip tie through a pre-existing hole on top of the radiator support and around one of the electrical wire looms. Another option would be to splice some additional wire into the +/- leads to the battery. It looks like simple 12 gauge and would open up a ton of other mount points for the control box.

 

 

Coming from DIY mods on German cars for the last 15 years, the amount of space and ease of wire routing in this engine bay was like Christmas in July!!!

 

 

Test, clip in housing, reattach bumper and ENJOY!!!

 

 

I'll post some better daytime and nighttime pics of what they look like soon. The pictures above don't do the brightness justice as they do really look like the Benz LEDs coming down the road. I have an idea to scuff the lenses with a fine grit sandpaper to hide the interior reflector cuts and also diffuse the individual LEDs. Also, the temp on the LEDs doesn't match that of the factory HIDs, so once those bulbs burn out I'll be replacing with 6000K to have a nice uniform color.

 

I know this was a long, picture laden post, but I wanted to start this thread in hopes of helping people do what I did, or come up with better ideas/approaches. Thanks for reading!

[frybel]

Oops! Hit the picture limit.....here's the rest.

 

Real world shots coming soon.....

 

 

 

 

 

 

[choff1138]

Looks awesome.

[specialk4523]

Whoah!!! Great job. looks really good

[mrdave]

Very cool! Thanks for sharing!

 

Are those OEM HID headlights? How does the color compare? Looks pretty close in the picture.

[cal3thousand]

Way to come through as promised! with a GREAT write up at that!!

 

They look very nice!

 

Mind posting a picture of the spread against a wall about 10' or 15' away with your next shots?

[frybel]

Very cool! Thanks for sharing!

 

Are those OEM HID headlights? How does the color compare? Looks pretty close in the picture.

 

They are the OEM HIDs. I think I saw on here somewhere that the OEMs are 4300K. The LEDs are 6000K so they're definitely off a little from the headlights, just a little bit bluer...doesn't show in the pics very well. But I figure I'll find some 6000K bulbs to replace the factory ones when they burn out.

 

 

Way to come through as promised! with a GREAT write up at that!!

 

They look very nice!

 

Mind posting a picture of the spread against a wall about 10' or 15' away with your next shots?

 

 

Thanks man! Glad you found this post over here....I couldn't find the one from a few weeks ago to link. I'll see if I can find a flat wall to get the spread later tonight.

[dr.edge]

Great post.

 

I've been thinking about trying to do something similar but was holding off due to having to take the bumper cover off. Now I think I may get a set of LED's on order and give it a try.

 

I've already switched to 6000K HIDs so I'll be interested in seeing how closely they match.

[DFWJohn]

Frybel, Great post! Thanks for taking the time, this is exactly what I've been wanting to do also.

 

My questions is...Do you think it was possible to leave the diffuser bar in place and have the new lights simply shine through it? I'm thinking of trying to cut the hole in the back for the new light bar shine through the diffuser and still have the current system light up when the head lights come on (extra light at night). I like the diffuser bar as it also gets a lot of compliments (people don't know if it's neon or what). It just doesn't' come on during the day and is too dim for daylight anyway. Just wondered if you think this might be possible from what you experienced?

[sandjunkie]

Are those only held in place by the silicone?

[cal3thousand]

Frybel, Great post! Thanks for taking the time, this is exactly what I've been wanting to do also.

 

My questions is...Do you think it was possible to leave the diffuser bar in place and have the new lights simply shine through it? I'm thinking of trying to cut the hole in the back for the new light bar shine through the diffuser and still have the current system light up when the head lights come on (extra light at night). I like the diffuser bar as it also gets a lot of compliments (people don't know if it's neon or what). It just doesn't' come on during the day and is too dim for daylight anyway. Just wondered if you think this might be possible from what you experienced?

 

It's totally possible. It's actually the way that I will handle this mod. I too feel that the continuous bar of light to be more appealing as opposed to the being able to see the individual units.

 

 

Are those only held in place by the silicone?

 

It sure looks like it.

 

It wouldn't be difficult to reinforce that, but then again, you probably don't need to with enough silicone.

 

 

 

[fishx65]

Fry, I'm one of those LED flashlight nuts and do a pretty good job keeping up with the latest LED tech. Any idea what kind of LED Ford uses in that light strip? Do you think it's possible to solder a more powerful LED to the board? I was thinking that swapping the single factory LED with a single Cree XML or XPG LED could increase the brightness by a huge margin. If you post a pic of the factory LED over on Candlepowerforums.com, those guys can tell you what type it is. I have a few of the newer Cree XML's in small flashlights that crank out over 300 lumens at 3 amps using a single 4 volt Lithium Ion battery!

[dr.edge]

Fry, I'm one of those LED flashlight nuts and do a pretty good job keeping up with the latest LED tech. Any idea what kind of LED Ford uses in that light strip? Do you think it's possible to solder a more powerful LED to the board? I was thinking that swapping the single factory LED with a single Cree XML or XPG LED could increase the brightness by a huge margin. If you post a pic of the factory LED over on Candlepowerforums.com, those guys can tell you what type it is. I have a few of the newer Cree XML's in small flashlights that crank out over 300 lumens at 3 amps using a single 4 volt Lithium Ion battery!

 

I've just finished modifying my lights with the same LED DRL kit from iJDMToy while keeping the diffuser bar intact and will post a more detailed write-up on that later but here's a picture of the original LED circuit board.

[dr.edge]

After following the great post by frybel, here's how I did mine just a bit differently and kept the original diffuser bars intact.

 

Removing the front bumper cover and getting the lights off went a lot easier than I thought it would. The hardest part was figuring out which way to pull on the bumper cover to get it to detach. Once you've removed all the bolts ( I leave a couple still in place on the top so it doesn't fall to the floor) you have to pull the rear part of the bumper cover out from the body, in a direction perpendicular to the side body panel. Once you figure that out, the rest is easy.

 

With the lights off the car, I split them apart to temporarily remove the diffuser, remove enough material for the new LED bar to shine through, etc. In order to remove the front lens, you need to bake the light in a preheated 265 degree oven for 7 minutes. If you're going to try this, make sure you set a timer and stick to the 7 minutes as any longer will make the plastic too soft and you'll end up with a melted mess. (Thanks to the guys over at HidPlanet for that tip!)

 

At the end of 7 minutes, I removed the light and started prying the pieces apart using a wide bladed screwdriver. It takes some effort, so keep at it and they will eventually separate.

 

Once they are apart, I used blue painter's tape to mask offthe aluminized area and to define where I was going to cut.

 

 

 

 

The diffusers come off easily by grinding away a couple of plasticrivets and then I drilled a couple of 3/8" holes at each end of where the slot was going to be.

 

 

 

 

Inner material removed and ready to start putting everything back together.

 

 

LED bars glued in place. I used JB Weld KwikPlastic to really hold them as I wasn't sure that just silicone would do the job.

 

 

All glued up, waiting for the epoxy to cure.

 

 

I let everything cure overnight and then installed them back into the car. When they are in place, you can't tell that anything's been modified and the original lights work the way they always have. When the new LED bars are switched on, they're a better color match for my 6000K HIDs, are extremely bright, and shine right through the diffuser bar.

 

The only issue that I ran into when I was wiring them up was that the control box wouldn't work (it would turn on for about 30 seconds and then turn off). As far as I can tell, it's expecting a higher battery voltage when the car is running than is being provided (I measured my battery at 13.8V when running and I think the circuitry needs a slightly higher voltage to trigger). I contacted iJDMToy and they're sending out a replacement but I'm doubtful that it will fix the issue.

 

I tried hooking up the LED bars directly to the battery and controlling when they turned on myself but at only 13.8V, the light output is actually pretty low - just a bit brighter than the stock lamps. I measured the control box output when it did work and it's putting out 15.5V so if the replacement control box doesn't work, 'Plan B' is to buy a DC - DC converter something like this and wire it in to provide the necessary voltage.

 

Once everything is working correctly I'll post some pictures with the lamps in operation and how I wired them in to make them work.

Edited August 3, 2011 by dr.edge

[cal3thousand]

After following the great post by frybel, here's how I did mine just a bit differently and kept the original diffuser bars intact.

 

Removing the front bumper cover and getting the lights off went a lot easier than I thought it would. The hardest part was figuring out which way to pull on the bumper cover to get it to detach. Once you've removed all the bolts ( I leave a couple still in place on the top so it doesn't fall to the floor) you have to pull the rear part of the bumper cover out from the body, in a direction perpendicular to the side body panel. Once you figure that out, the rest is easy.

 

With the lights off the car, I split them apart to temporarily remove the diffuser, remove enough material for the new LED bar to shine through, etc. In order to remove the front lens, you need to bake the light in a preheated 265 degree oven for 7 minutes. If you're going to try this, make sure you set a timer and stick to the 7 minutes as any longer will make the plastic too soft and you'll end up with a melted mess. (Thanks to the guys over at HidPlanet for that tip!)

 

At the end of 7 minutes, I removed the light and started prying the pieces apart using a wide bladed screwdriver. It takes some effort, so keep at it and they will eventually separate.

 

Once they are apart, I used blue painter's tape to mask offthe aluminized area and to define where I was going to cut.

 

 

 

The diffusers come off easily by grinding away a couple of plasticrivets and then I drilled a couple of 3/8" holes at each end of where the slot was going to be.

 

 

 

I let everything cure overnight and then installed them back into the car. When they are in place, you can't tell that anything's been modified and the original lights work the way they always have. When the new LED bars are switched on, they're a better color match for my 6000K HIDs, are extremely bright, and shine right through the diffuser bar.

 

The only issue that I ran into when I was wiring them up was that the control box wouldn't work (it would turn on for about 30 seconds and then turn off). As far as I can tell, it's expecting a higher battery voltage when the car is running than is being provided (I measured my battery at 13.8V when running and I think the circuitry needs a slightly higher voltage to trigger). I contacted iJDMToy and they're sending out a replacement but I'm doubtful that it will fix the issue.

 

I tried hooking up the LED bars directly to the battery and controlling when they turned on myself but at only 13.8V, the light output is actually pretty low - just a bit brighter than the stock lamps. I measured the control box output when it did work and it's putting out 15.5V so if the replacement control box doesn't work, 'Plan B' is to buy a DC - DC converter something like this and wire it in to provide the necessary voltage.

 

Once everything is working correctly I'll post some pictures with the lamps in operation and how I wired them in to make them work.

 

Nice work!

[cal3thousand]

Fry, I'm one of those LED flashlight nuts and do a pretty good job keeping up with the latest LED tech. Any idea what kind of LED Ford uses in that light strip? Do you think it's possible to solder a more powerful LED to the board? I was thinking that swapping the single factory LED with a single Cree XML or XPG LED could increase the brightness by a huge margin. If you post a pic of the factory LED over on Candlepowerforums.com, those guys can tell you what type it is. I have a few of the newer Cree XML's in small flashlights that crank out over 300 lumens at 3 amps using a single 4 volt Lithium Ion battery!

 

I have a few Cree's left from flashlight modding and thought about this too. But the main issue is that it would still be a vertical firing light that depends on the transmission of the diffuser bar.

 

I'm thinking about putt 4-5 crees in a formation similar to the other bars that some have been installing, but either changing the diffuser OR reflector and adding a driver of some sort.

[DFWJohn]

Well done Dr. Edge!! Thank you for the time to document and post, exactly what I'm wanting to do!!

 

You say you had to 'grind away a couple plastic rivets' to get the diffuser bars out. How did you get them back in and stay in place?

[cal3thousand]

Can either one of you tell me off the about how long the section you cut out was?

 

I'm guessing about 6 inches, but I don't want to walk out to the car right now its 80 degrees out. Sorry to those experiencing any hotter.

 

EDIT: I'm also nominating this thread for sticky stardom!

Edited August 4, 2011 by cal3thousand

[dr.edge]

Well done Dr. Edge!! Thank you for the time to document and post, exactly what I'm wanting to do!!

 

You say you had to 'grind away a couple plastic rivets' to get the diffuser bars out. How did you get them back in and stay in place?

 

They aren't so much rivets as locating pins that are then heated and mushroomed into place when the piece was originally assembled. Here's a picture of them after I ground down the tops. I just used some CA glue to reattach the diffusers back into place when I was putting everything back together.

 

 

[dr.edge]

Can either one of you tell me off the about how long the section you cut out was?

 

I'm guessing about 6 inches, but I don't want to walk out to the car right now its 80 degrees out. Sorry to those experiencing any hotter.

 

EDIT: I'm also nominating this thread for sticky stardom!

 

It wasn't a very precise cut, just enough to allow the LED bars to shine through and still be supported by the original lamp assembly - 6" would probably be close enough but there's room for a slightly longer assembly if you're thinking of using something different.

[dr.edge]

Does anyone know if the LED DRLs voltage can be stepped down to dim them for night use? I want them to be on along with the headlights at night. I think having the LED DRLs on at full power would be too bright combined with the headlights. Please include any instructions along with any parts I would need to accomplish this.

 

FYI. I ordered the white / amber LED switchback DRLs and they should be arriving any day now. I will be posting a video and all of the details of the install when I'm finished.

 

The LED strips that I installed (not quite the same as the dual mode ones you ordered, but close) can't be dimmed down as they start to flicker at about 12V. In order to boost the output sufficiently, I had to install a dedicated DC power supply that provides about 16V to the strips. I can switch it to even higher voltages if I wanted to but I'm pretty sure the trade off would be in reduced life span.

 

If you mount them in the existing LED parking lights, they're not too bright compared to the headlights at night as the diffuser bar spreads the light out. If you mount them by themselves, pointed through the grill somewhere, then they might be a bit bright, but I doubt it.

[cal3thousand]

Does anyone know if the LED DRLs voltage can be stepped down to dim them for night use? I want them to be on along with the headlights at night. I think having the LED DRLs on at full power would be too bright combined with the headlights. Please include any instructions along with any parts I would need to accomplish this.

 

FYI. I ordered the white / amber LED switchback DRLs and they should be arriving any day now. I will be posting a video and all of the details of the install when I'm finished.

 

LEDS generally won't work below a certain voltage, so dimming would have to be accomplished with a Pulse Width Modulator that can cycle the led on and off (this happens faster than the eye can see and it gives the same effect as dimming)

 

So to dim to 50% brightness, the led would go on and off for equal amounts of time (think 1/100th of a second)

[dr.edge]

Can you post the transformer you used and a link to where you bought it. If I can't figure out how to wire it from the product website, I'll. Come back to ask you for a little help with it. I'm not the brightest when it comes to DC wiring. If a circuit requires anthing more than connecting + to + and - t -, my brin reverts to "Standby" mode and has to "reboot" :-)

 

EDIT - I may hav e made my early post sound like I wanted to use the DRLs for supplimental lighjting ( fog lighhts) and would need to do without the internal light bar diffuser. That is not my plan. Just looking to increase the light output to a point that the lights perform as well or better than an OEM DRL

 

Here's the power supply that I used. The nice thing is that the output can be set to a number of different voltages. The LED strips can handle the higher voltages, and the output really increases, but I wouldn't want to guess how long they'll last.

 

Either way, you can play around with the different settings to see how much light you want to create.

 

The one issue that I had to deal with is that the power supply doesn't like having it's input and output negative leads tied together (ground should be common right?). When I first hooked it up like that, it didn't work and after some troubleshooting, I found that I needed to disconnect the input negative wire. So I've got -

1. Power supply input +12V lead connected to switched 12v
2. Power supply input negative lead floating
3. Power supply output +15V - +24V lead connected to LED bar positive
4. Power supply output negative lead connected to chassis frame
5. LED bar negative lead connected to chassis frame

Without knowing the circuitry inside the power supply it's hard to say why this works, but it does for me. YMMV.

 

Hope that helps.

[dr.edge]

cal3thousand,

 

Is a Pulse Width Modulator the same as a "Flux Capacitor"? You know, like the one used on the DeLorean in "Back To The Future"? Or is it more like the "Uranium Pu-36 Space Modulator" that the Martian uses in the Bugs Bunny cartoon episodes? :hysterical2: Ok, enough of that. I understand the need for the PWM in order to dim the LEDs. I'm going to do a little research on it to see if I want to keep dimming as an option.

 

dr.edge, As always, you provide excellent instructions and am glad you were the guinea pig on the transformer setup instead of me. Man, I am so accustomed to the looping current pattern of AC power. I just can't seem to wrap my head around DC that allows for "floating negatives". In any event, I'm glad it works. One thing I'd like for you to expand upon, your item #1 - "power supply input +12V lead connected to switched 12v". Does the (-) leg of the 12V switch then go to chassis ground (EDIT - I think I answered my own question)...Correct me if I'm wrong, the power source wire (from fuse box or headlight switched source connects to one leg of the switch and the other leg of the switch runs to the + input of the transformer. Is that right? Thanks for your help guys.

 

The "switched 12V" that I was referring to is just the 12V that you're using to turn on the LED's. If you want these to run as DRL's then this would typically be a circuit that comes on when the car is running. Doesn't necessarily need to be anything special, heck, you could even use Fuse 29 if you wanted to push your luck (maybe having the extra load might fix some MFT issues!)

 

If you want to actually have a switch so that you can turn this function off and on (which is what I did as well), then yes, you have a wire run from the fuse box or headlight circuit to one side of a switch, and the other side of the switch runs to the (+) positive input to the DC - DC converter (it's not a transformer).

 

Also, the issue that I ran into with the common ground was probably due to the fact that I was connecting all the negative leads to chassis ground. If I had run two wires (positive and negative) all the way from the power supply output to the LED's, it would have worked just the way you'd expect. By time I discovered the issue I had already run all the wiring and didn't want to have to lace in a couple of more isolated ground wires to the LED's.

[dr.edge]

 

How much of an improvement in light output can I expect by boosting the voltage? If I can only get another 20 or 30% out of them, then they are going back and will have to find some that are brighter or there's no sense in even having them.

 

 

Boosting the voltage will make a big difference. Hard to say how much until you try it but you can crank them up pretty high.

 

The other issue that you've probably seen is that the apparent light output is pretty sensitive to being on-axis i.e. if you're looking straight at them, they pretty bright, if you get off to the side, then they start to drop off. The diffuser bar helps spread the light around but then it doesn't appear to be as bright since you're spreading the same amount of light over a wider area. Another reason to crank up the voltage.

 

If you want that sharp, crystal clear, Audi look, then run without the diffuser bar with the voltage boosted, and make sure that the center-line axis of the strips is oriented with the center-line of the car.