Any one know.... LED RINGS

[snerlo]

I think baking in the oven is the only way to do it but I would love to know another way if there was any!! Thanks for letting me know the price mate. Appreciate it.

[Jakeys]

I think baking in the oven is the only way to do it but I would love to know another way if there was any!! Thanks for letting me know the price mate. Appreciate it.

I believe they can also be "snapped" open. Not sure of the merits of that but I have seen it done on a Youtube vid. Dunno how Buckets did it. The sealant he used to put them back together is quite thickly applied but they still sit flush with the vehicle.

[kamold]

Normally just a heat gun (wife's hair dryer) does the job. That's what I use with phones and tablets. Also to open up the led turn/drls when one had water in it.

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[kamold]

Mine finally arrived! (well they arrived a month ago and post office neglected to inform me, so I got the final warning notice...)
Going to try and get them installed today

[kamold]

So I got the lights open Ok with the hair dryer.
Drilled out the LED holes in the housings and glued them all back together.
Dismantled the boot and spliced in the red lights to the license plate lights.
I didn't bother with wiring up the turn signals at this point as it will require running cables through the boot rubbers to the outer lights etc.
Tested the lights with a 9v battery and they light up fine.

Assembled everything and....nothing.

Checked all my connections, checked again with the 9v battery - still work fine - but they don't light up with the license plates lights.
I'm stumped.
Anyone have any ideas?

[snerlo]

so I presume that your license plate lights are still lighting up then? Is there any chance that the wires are around the wrong way? Sorry, had to ask. So was opening the lights up a major PITA? Is a drill press really necessary or can a normal drill do the trick?
BTW, got one of my DRL's open at the moment as she is stuffed from having water in it. Trying to work out if I can replace the LED's in it as I have had one response back from another seller on aliexpress who is willing to sell me just one light but at $75USD which is about $105AUD. Bit rich I think. Trying to work out if there are better ways of doing the LED's because it is really quite pathetic in there when you have a good look. Considering COB LED's but just stewing on what to do. I'm going to go to jaycar first to see if they have the similar strips of LED's. I've spent hours on the computer trying to find similar strip LED's but I am not confident on buying any of them as you generally have to buy 5m worth!!!

[kamold]

Yeah license plate LEDs still light up. Tried putting the old filament globes in there in case there was some interference from the load resistors but no dice.
Also checked polarity.
Have to pull up stumps for now and maybe have a look on the weekend.
Annoyed.

Anyway opening up the housings wasn't too bad. Just lots of heat and lever them apart with a screwdriver.

I used a drill press, would recommend it.

[kamold]

Duuuhhhhh...
It was the polarity.
The license plates aren't fussy and I was rushing to get it done to go and pick up the kids.

[kamold]

Will get a better pic later with a proper camera

[snerlo]

So do they match the outside in terms of brightness and colour? Looks good mate.

[kamold]

Colour is exact. As I'm connected to license plate lights at the moment I've had to bump the brightness of the outers slightly to match.
When I get around to wiring properly to the outer they will be exact at correct brightness for tails (they are a little too bright now)

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[Jakeys]

Colour is exact. As I'm connected to license plate lights at the moment I've had to bump the brightness of the outers slightly to match.
When I get around to wiring properly to the outer they will be exact at correct brightness for tails (they are a little too bright now)

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When you say bump the brightness of the outers, just to confirm, you're doing this via software in VCDS yeah? Just to make sure you (Or anyone else reading this) are aware, the brightness of the parkers on the outside by default is set at 15% (Of full ie brake brightness) and can be adjusted from that figure.

With Buckets' ones, I have permanently wired mine to the license plate wiring. Whatever Buckets used are 100% accurate to the outer lights so there has been no need for me to do the complicated job of running out to the outers. This also provides the benefit of the courtesy lighting still only lighting the outer edge light, which is how it should be in my opinion. If possible I would actually consider NOT wiring to the outers. I believe you get a better setup this way.

[kamold]

Yes, I adjusted with VCDS.
If you have resistors inline with the rings, you can adjust the brightness accordingly to match the default setting of the outers.
However this isn't really the way they were meant to be used.
They are meant to be connected to the outer tail lights so that
a. you can use the yellow indicator rings which are part of the setup and
b. the brightness of the inners is adjusted in line with the outers eg when braking they light up to 100% brightness, then return to dimmed as tails.

[Jakeys]

Yes, I adjusted with VCDS.
If you have resistors inline with the rings, you can adjust the brightness accordingly to match the default setting of the outers.
However this isn't really the way they were meant to be used.
They are meant to be connected to the outer tail lights so that
a. you can use the yellow indicator rings which are part of the setup and
b. the brightness of the inners is adjusted in line with the outers eg when braking they light up to 100% brightness, then return to dimmed as tails.

Oh, okay. That's awesome then. I think fundamentally we have different ideas for how these lights should look and be utilised. Which is not to say you're wrong, what you're saying is 100% valid, just that I think they should be just dedicated parkers and the outers do the braking (As they have the brake centre pieces) and indicating and courtesy lighting. Just different interpretations of the design.

[kamold]

Yeah, each to their own

I'm already quite happy with the look as is, I've only needed to bump up the brightness on the outers to 30% to match the inners, so its still very obvious when the outers are at full brightness under brakes (along with the middle of the outers lighting up, and the top centre brake light)

I want to get the full functionality with the indicators and brightness adjust. Who knows, I may end up preferring the current look and revert to it!