LED Lights
 

Anyone tried a pair of these ?

Do they fit ? , how hot do they get ? , do they give error codes ? , Current draw ??

2014 New 60W 6000LM 6000K CREE LED Headlight Kit Bulbs H11 H8 H7 H4 9005 or 9006 | eBay

Looks like a set of these with 986 projectors would be awesome....but everything is not as great as it looks

There's a disclaimer in the ad that says they are not compatible with German cars.

"The led kit is not suitable for the Germany car, for example: BMW, AUDI, Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz ect."

If they were compatible, I agree they would be great. There must be another manufacturer offering ones that are compatible.

THere were several like it listed on eBay, many listed Porsche, BMW and Mercedes as compatible . I worry about heat and current draw

I bought 25w H7's. I would think 60w would generate too much heat.

MOre info
 

I have been reading up on this, they are actually about 27 watts per side. They use what looks like a HID Ballast, but in actuality it is called a driver. More checking reveals it is simply a constant voltage and current regulator that will supply a constant +3V to the LED unit that has a tiny fan on the rear to assist the aluminum heatsink built into the lamp assembly. My concern since the total Max current draw is only 2 amps per side is will the rear cooling fan/heatsink fit inside our headlight assembly?

The light output looks to be roughly the equivalent of a 35W HID conversion. THe price is appealing and seems to average from 60 USD to 85USD.

Perhaps someone else will weigh in on this with some actual hands on experience.

PS this looks to be a newer form of Cree called a "COB Cree array" and is much more efficient than what we have been seeing in the past.

I am also very interested to see if anyone installed this type of bulb. I plan on doing the DRL fog light hack with LEDs installed, and thought this would be a great upgrade until the rest of the car is up to snuff.

Very interesting.
Guvs.

Dwight - those kits made in Asia with all the fancy/marketing fan-cooling thing are to be avoided atm. I've read various reports here on the local retrofit forum that the fans prematurely fails (similar IMS bearing design I'm guessing). Also read reports of melting cabling/terminals (fire hazard, dunno). Its just a plastic dumb fan.... last a few weeks under constant high temp and vibration conditions. They DO get hot... the high lumens aftermarket does anyway (hence the fan/over-sized heat shield design idea)

... and they are NOT cheap to start with lol

Perfect for the rusty Ford Ranger 1994 but perhaps not yet ideal for the Porsche car club. Careful with those thing.... is the msg I got from the pros here

CREE is real and I advise anyone to stick to the official product only (Cree, Inc. | LED lighting, LEDs, power converters, RF amplifiers). And I don't think they design car lighting systems yet (could be wrong of course)

Cheap LED rocks.... safe, efficient, and 99% of the time they will fit ;) For the fogs anyway... Max 20~25 watts and you should be fine

Fogs
 

Fogs are what I was thinking about, I have the Main Headlight problem almost solved. I would love to have one of these LED replacement H Bulbs to put on my bench and measure current draw on start up and sustained , also heat startup and sustained...then measure the Lumen output with my instruments after running for a few days constant on. Did I mention I worked almost my entire life in the Photo Industry with my speciality being Dichroic Lamphouses that cost as much as a new Boxster. But I digress those days are long gone, Photo is dead and has gone the way of the Buggy Whip. Now I am a lowly Biomed person

I believe that the claim by sellers that their lights will not work in German cars applies to the newer cars that will detect faults with any electronic draw besides the intended bulb.

After going through a lot of different bulbs for my fog lights I came across these on eBay. IMHO, they look great. No heat issues.

2 Pcs H7 SMD5050 12 LED Car Front Fog Light Bulb White CREE Q5 Lamp 12V 30V S0BZ | eBay

http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/NTg1WDU4NQ...cTg~~60_12.JPG

I checked with the seller and they wont work on CANBUS systems. I believe they would be fine with the 986
2014 New 60W 6000LM 6000K CREE LED Headlight Kit Bulbs H11 H8 H7 H4 9005 or 9006 | eBay

I used these LEDs for my fog lights when I converted them to DRLs and they work fine
2X White Bulbs H7 Car Genuine CREE XB D LED Fog Light Lamps Headlight | eBay

I just bought a set of these; when they get here is a few weeks I will report back :) I am wanting to enable the Fog light DRL hack and once I get these I will do it.

Steve

It took them eight days to get to me from China. With any luck you'll set them in the same time frame.

From what I have read about Cree is, that they are a good Co. With quality products. Last week I tried to change out my break & tail lights with LED bulbs from Pilot Co. And could not get them to come on. Anybody out here know why the LED bulbs would not come on? Pilot claimed that you will not get any check eng light, which was true, but could not get their lights on either.

Hope this link works.

http://www.boxa.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=62675

It tells you why the LED rear light bulbs don’t work, and a fix for it, on our UK models anyway, should be the same for you over the pond.
Guvs.

The link goes nowhere ??

Link works fine for me. You might need to be a registered user and logged in.

I have tried to register on that board several times with no luck. I even emailed the admin about never getting the verification link with no luck or return email.....Im glad our board here is run much more professionally.

Dwight

Same here. No luck getting on that page to read it. I will keep working on it because I want to find out how to get my lights to run LED's

Hi Ed.
Nice to see you on this side of the Atlantic as well, seeing as we have such an unprofessional Board, I hope Simon/D8EAN hasn’t seen that remark, lol
Sorry you can’t log on to our site however others have, I did just try and cut/paste for you but the photos never came across and the thread is useless without them.
Anyway I’m sure you’ll find a way.
Guvs.

I got the 55 watts led kit over a year Now and no issues yet , they rated those for 50,0000 hours , this is my set up low beam 55 watts led , hi beam 80 watts h7 23/23 Cree led (not on the states yet ) 23/23 means the led chip is bigger than the 50/50. Chip and on fog lights got a h7 Cree my next project will be the drl"s. as soon as I installed them will post pics

do you have a source for the LED replacements?

Here's my post from Boxa.net:

I bought some 99p LED bulbs off eBay to try in the rear light clusters of my pre-facelift 986 and, of course, due to the reverse polarity in the rear/brake light sockets they didn't work. The reverse lights, however, work OK. Anyway, here's a quick fix to get the bulbs working which entails reversing the polarity of the bulb rather than the cluster housing:

These are the bulbs I bought:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-R...o/IMG_6683.jpg

First, pop the top off the bulb to expose the circuit board

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-5...o/IMG_6677.jpg

Then de-solder the wires leading to the -ve bayonet housing and the +ve end terminal

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-T...o/IMG_6678.jpg

You can just about see the + and - signs marking the polarity of the terminals on the board behind the LEDs

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-K...o/IMG_6679.jpg

Then just re-solder the wires back on the opposite way around In this case the red -ve wire (which is connected to the bayonet housing) is now attached to the +ve terminal on the circuit board and the +ve centre wire (attached to the end terminal of the bayonet) is connected to the -ve terminal. The centre wire appeared to have an in-line resistor.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-v...o/IMG_6680.jpg

Push the top back on and stick it in the rear light socket or the brake socket and it should now work.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-g...o/IMG_6682.jpg

This one is in the rear light. I have a 50 SMD one in the reverse light which has normal polarity.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-j...o/IMG_6681.jpg

May be useful if you've bought some cheap LEDs that didn't work and were thinking of chucking them out :)

Hope that helps.

Thank you for the pic's. I have a pair from eBay on the way to see if I can re-wire them.

Please List the LEDs
 

Hey PHD - Thanks for your help. I noticed you had you tail light set up in the pic.
Could you be kind enough to list the type of LED you selected?
Even the fronts if any upgrades there.
Thanks and Happy Thanksgiving!
S

These are the exact bulbs I used:

Tail lights 2X BA15S P21W 1156 382 9 LED Car Tail Brake Turn Signal Light Bulb DC 12V White | eBay
Reverse lights 2 x 1156 BA15S 382 P21W 50 SMD LED Car Tail Brake Signal Light Lamp Bulb White | eBay
Number plate lights 2X Bright LED License Number Plate Light Porsche Boxster 986 1996 2004 96 04 | eBay

At the moment I only have the number plate lights as LED. I didn't find the reverse lights or tail lights were bright enough tbh. Those reverse light LED bulbs will also work in the front indicators, but they are so white the indicators look faded orange. Nice immediate on/off effect though.

Thank you for this post! Last night, what I did was took out the base and switched the contacts on those two but that did not work. Tonight, I will try and pry the top part which is the circuit board like what you said and switch the + and -. I'm just a little iffy about popping off the top part because I might break something in there.

By the way, there is what I bought and I'm planning on putting all these in my tail lights.

10 x White 1156 BA15S LED 27 SMD Light Bulbs Tail Backup RV camper 1141 1003 | eBay