Dimming my LED Angel Eyes.......how can I do it?

Do it, do it. Someone needs to help out us noobs.

lol it's not hard. i'm just lazy as hell. i had angels on. then i took them off. now i'm doing quads, and they are just sitting there ahah.

sounds like a good post. update already.

well, I have installed my Angel eyes. Boyy, are they bright!!




I also looked into the power consumption of the lights. With the engine off and lights on, they are drawing .8 amps at 12.5 volts. Thats about 10 watts!

No [affordable] rhetrostat is going to be able to resist that much power without burning up.

so, it looks like the dimmer will have to a bit more complicated. I'm researching DC dimmers that use switching transistors and a 555 timer to variably pulse the power, instead of resisting it.

Ill update here when I have a solution installed (but its a low priority for me, so be patient)

^ uh are you sure about that man? that sounds to me like your measured them with CCFLs. though it's still a little low as a measured a CCFL kit at 1.7 amps.

yes, absolutely positive. While installing them, I measured the current flowing from positive terminal of my car to both the trigger wire and the big gauged power wire (at the same time). The angel eyes had no other power source but through my meter, and were pulling .8 amps with engine off. It might even pull a bit more current when the car is running and the battery voltage is a bit higher.

Anyway, It would make sense that the LEDs use less than the CCFL's, I just expected it to use much less than 10 watts. I guess 240 SMD LED's really add up, eh?

damn i expected like half of that, around 1 watt per ring that the very most.

wait, why did you measure the trigger wire?

I first measured just the high gauged power wire, but I guess the resistance of my meter caused the current to be pulled from the trigger wire, because consumption was zero.

Consumption was also zero measuring only the trigger wire.

So I measured both to get a "full consumption" reading


That might be a sign of upcoming problems for dimming them ..... but I am a problem solver.



Hey, ive seen a lot of people mention dimming, but has anyone actually done it? COME FORWARD!!

i see. makes sense. i wonder if it's lower for other LED units. as the orions have the resistor packs which umnitza says that they take the power and split it between the rings. if you think about it that way. each ring is made up of 2 separate boards. there's a connection for each side on the resistor packs. about 1w per board x 8 = around 8w so that sounds about right.

nah not really. i was supposed to do it. but i got sidetracked and started working other lighting stuff instead lol

I'm just waiting for someone to come forward with a how-to guide on adding proper resistors to lower the brightness. I don't know anything about electrical etc. It frustrates me that people call my angel eyes "rice", I'm beginning to agree. I think if I can make them have a more subtle look like the stock angel eyes, it will be perfect.

Why don't some of the bigger sponsors that sell these angel eyes come up with a solution to lower the output? Seems like they have the knowledge and tools to do testing and tell us what will work best with their product.

I'm looking to put a knob in the cabin so brightness is adjustable. A permanent 50% output is as simple as adding a resistor! Unfortunately you wont know if you dimmed it enough, or too much, until after you buy and test the resistor. (I.e. cutting voltage in half won't necessarily mean you get half the light output)

I will tell you this..... You won't hurt anything if you wire in a resistor rated at 15 watts or more (to be safe) between the ground wire going to the angel eyes and the ground point you used (I'm assuming you installed it yourself, right?). Doing so will only send less voltage to your lights, not more (so it wont hurt it) and you wont be able to short out anything if you work on the ground wire only.

I would suggest buying two 10 ohm resistors and wiring one or both end to end with the ground wire. That should quarter and half the current. Try these:
http://www.madisound.com/catalog/pro...roducts_id=995

as a disclaimer, I'm a self taught electronics enthusist. But what I've described is what I would try. Note, the resistors should be getting warm (that means they're working) but not burning hot (thats bad).

subscribed, has anybody found a way to properly/safely dim the LEDs?

Originally Posted by Fair Witness

Why don't some of the bigger sponsors that sell these angel eyes come up with a solution to lower the output? Seems like they have the knowledge and tools to do testing and tell us what will work best with their product.

why would they? they market their angels as brightest and can see during the day. you can't have those if you dim it down.

also about them having the knowledge. that's a laugh, they have some, but i doubt they have any real electrical knowledge.

no luck! jeez. i got my orions installed this weekend and they look crack! thing is i havent seen it at night yet (i keep my car in a garage) so i was wondering if i could dim them just a teeed bit. kinda like the interior dash gauges. anyways guys keep working on it we at e46fanatics have faith in you.