Ger's 2003 Porsche Boxster S

[geraintthomas]

Just pulled open the headlights again as I didn't remove all of the old glue from before, and I wasn't very happy with the fit. After scraping out the old glue, it's now sat perfectly and exactly how it was before. Opening them also allowed me to straighten the lenses too.

Tomorrow I'm off to a garage to get the headlights levelled against an MOT testing board, so that they're perfect - shouldn't ever have to touch them then.

Then I'll order the parts to make the relay for the full beam bulbs, and will buy some LED full beams when I'm at it. Should be fun

[geraintthomas]

I was going to pop to the garage to get the lights done, but they weren't open. Instead I did it myself, and they've turned out great

Used a box with lines on, to get the initial rotation right and height comparison with the two


Here's the beam pattern. If you're wondering if £18 ebay projectors are any good, here's your proof:


The cut off is stunning. Lovely small blue fringe to the tips, no curve (although that's fixable by bending the shield as ParticleWave mentioned), the bi-xenon part of it where it flicks the light upwards works fantastic too. The only thing I have to worry about now is if they last. If they do, they'd be bargain of the century.

Performance and visual upgrade in one

[TrumpyAl]

The advantages of spending the extra £££ on something like the Morimoto 7.0 are: a proven durable reflector coating, proven reliable solenoid mechanisms, a confirmed very-wide beam pattern and a higher concentration of light at the cut-off (rather than on the ground in front of the car where the glare will contract your pupils and reduce your ability to take see into the distance).



The thing is, it's hard to know what you have so you can't be sure what benefits you would get from upgrading.

Besides...you are soooooo much better with cheap projectors than you are with a halogen setup that it's all a bit of a moot point. Enjoy!!!

[geraintthomas]

Originally Posted by TrumpyAl

The advantages of spending the extra £££ on something like the Morimoto 7.0 are: a proven durable reflector coating, proven reliable solenoid mechanisms, a confirmed very-wide beam pattern and a higher concentration of light at the cut-off (rather than on the ground in front of the car where the glare will contract your pupils and reduce your ability to take see into the distance).



The thing is, it's hard to know what you have so you can't be sure what benefits you would get from upgrading.

Besides...you are soooooo much better with cheap projectors than you are with a halogen setup that it's all a bit of a moot point. Enjoy!!!

Gotcha! It does seem tempting, but like you said Projectors are better than halogens, even cheap ones. I may even upgrade in the future now that the headlight build has gone brilliantly.

I've bought H7 Cree LED bulbs to replace the main beams. ParticleWave has kindly drawn up a wiring diagram that requires a 5-pin relay, but enables the main beams bulbs when the dipped beams aren't on, and switches to the bi-xenon feature when the dipped beams are on. Basically, the mainbeams bulbs will be used just to flash people as I can't flash the HID's, then when the HID's are being used, it'll flick the bi-xenons instead.

Reason for Cree LED's is because I've painted the reflectors black, and a Cree LED bulb has a projector on top of it to project light directly forward, so it'll be brighter to on coming traffic.

The only thing I need to think about are the parking lights. Now that the projectors are in, they're covering the side light bulbs. You can see them in the dark as they illuminate the black surround, but you can't in the day. Wondering what I can do there...

[TrumpyAl]

White demon eyes?

[geraintthomas]

Nah not a fan. Thinking something that will allow me to not open the headlights again!

[geraintthomas]

I've just ordered DRL's:



So that should solve the problem of the parking lights being obscured by the projectors They're Cree LED too, so should be very white and very bright.

[TrumpyAl]

Good thinking. They don't happen to have a secondary low brightness mode do they?

[geraintthomas]

Don't think so. I'd probably leave them as sidelights so I have the option of not running them, but depending on how much I like them, I may wire them to act as actual DRL's to turn on with the ignition and off with the headlights.

[particlewave]

Those would be good to tie into the courtesy lights (like you wanted to do with headlights).
Wire them up with the ignition or parking lights or however you decide, then tie in the courtesy lead with some diodes and and they'll behave like you wanted.

[geraintthomas]

Originally Posted by particlewave

Those would be good to tie into the courtesy lights (like you wanted to do with headlights).
Wire them up with the ignition or parking lights or however you decide, then tie in the courtesy lead with some diodes and and they'll behave like you wanted.

I was going to ask you actually. With these DRL's, would it be a case of wiring the live/ground of the parking lights into these instead, and all will be well? Just want to make sure!

[particlewave]

Depends on how you're going to use them normally. If you just want them to come on with the parking/side lights, then yes.

If you also wanted to tie them in to the courtesy lights, it would be a tiny bit more work.
For example: if you powered them to come on with the parking/side lights, you would feed them a constant 12V+ from the parking light circuit and both the switched ground for the side lights and switched/dimming ground for the courtesy lights. You'd need to add diodes to make sure you don't get wonky behavior. I'll see if I can draw you up a diagram and link some diodes later tonight if you want to do this.

[geraintthomas]

Originally Posted by particlewave

Depends on how you're going to use them normally. If you just want them to come on with the parking/side lights, then yes.

If you also wanted to tie them in to the courtesy lights, it would be a tiny bit more work.
For example: if you powered them to come on with the parking/side lights, you would feed them a constant 12V+ from the parking light circuit and both the switched ground for the side lights and switched/dimming ground for the courtesy lights. You'd need to add diodes to make sure you don't get wonky behavior. I'll see if I can draw you up a diagram and link some diodes later tonight if you want to do this.

Thank you, I appreciate it

As a totally unrelated question, I'm getting a 996 TT spoiler switch for the dash to re-wire the footwell switch to, which I'm fine in doing. I was just wondering if there was a feed that was live when the spoiler is up, and dead when the spoiler is down, that I could put an LED light onto? The idea is to put a very small LED in the footwell as an indicator to what the spoiler is doing.

[geraintthomas]

To recap, my main beams don't come on when I flash people with the dipped beams off in the day time, as the main beams are linked to the bi-xenon Projectors, so when I pull on the stick to flash people, there's no light to flick up due to the dipped beams being off. So for a work around, I needed a relay to switch circuits when needed.

Created the main beam changeover relay today.

Ready to make it:



Done:



Installed:



Works perfectly! If the xenons aren't on, pulling on the main beam will flash the old separate main beam bulb (perfect for day time flashing). The bulb is now a Cree LED a bulb with a forward facing projector on it, so that it's bright. When the xenons are on though, it'll use the bi-xenon solenoid to flick the projector light upwards and the main beam bulb won't be used.

Perfect.

[particlewave]

Nice!

I'll get to your diagram ASAP...been a madhouse over here and my clutch died today.

[geraintthomas]

Originally Posted by particlewave

Nice!

I'll get to your diagram ASAP...been a madhouse over here and my clutch died today.

Thanks again for the help with this, appreciate it very much!

That's no worries, no rush hope the clutch change goes alright!

[geraintthomas]

So I've had my DRL's, and they've actually come with a DRL box that gives three wires. White, red and black. The white attaches to the headlights, red attaches to a switched 12v, and black to a ground. When the car's turned on, the DRL's turn on, then when the headlights are on the DRL's turn off.

I do like that feature, so I'm wondering if I could just wire that red wire onto the courtesy light feed too? So if the switched 12v OR courtesy light is on, the DRL's come on, and if the headlights are on they turn off.

From the instructions, they're meant to be this:



But would this work:



Thanks for the help bud I owe you a PayPal Pint!

[TrumpyAl]

Wouldn't you have no need for the extra Earth? Only the 12v feed from the Courtesy circuit.

And wouldn't a Diode be required to stop your courtesy circuit feeding power to whatever supplies the Switched 12v? Otherwise something like your ignition would stay on until the courtesy light goes out. Which may, in turn, stop the courtesy lights going out!?!?!

[particlewave]

The parking lights have a switched positive and the courtesy lights have a switched ground, so its a bit more complex.

[geraintthomas]

Perfect, thank you

The 4 pin relay, what's that called officially? A make-and-break relay? Just so I can search for one and order one!