[knaveen]

Originally Posted by Reinhard

Or you can simply plug in the fog light. If you don't have a real need of using it - no need to wire it either. I was driving around with just the unit placed in place & no wiring done for it for a couple of months before I could get the time to complete the installation.

Well, that is one way . Loved your thread on the HID install, that will be my next upgrade. Will do this along with the HID upgrade. Will hold onto blank till then (if I can get one).

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by Reinhard

For a significantly lower current, the LED is giving at least 4 times more light output. However, there turned out to be a major drawback. The LED light is getting very hot in little duration. Hotter than the halogen in fact. So the life will surely not be too long. It needs to be controlled with a series resistor on the input side. That will reduce the light output & also the thermal output - while extending life! For now, due to time constraint, I put the halogen in place & installed it. Replacing the bulb takes 1 minute. So when I get the time in future, I'll replace with LED & add a covered resistor at the start of the red wire in engine bay (I think 220Ohm should do it sufficiently).

Thank you Reinhard for the DIY.

For the LED, you can't use 220 Ohm resistor in series. It will drop the current to less than 50 mA instead of the 1.2 A your LED draws. You are using a 14 W LED bulb looking at the current drawn. Either you could source a lower Watt LED or add a few 3-5 A diodes in series. This would drop the Voltage and so the current will drop resulting in lower heat generation.
Another thing with Chinese LEDs - they tend to fail by going short. It will be a disaster in a car especially as the cables are drawn near the fuel supply line. Add a mandatory fuse - inline 5 A at the supply.

[Reinhard]

Originally Posted by Prowler

Thank you Reinhard for the DIY.

For the LED, you can't use 220 Ohm resistor in series. It will drop the current to less than 50 mA instead of the 1.2 A your LED draws. You are using a 14 W LED bulb looking at the current drawn. Either you could source a lower Watt LED or add a few 3-5 A diodes in series. This would drop the Voltage and so the current will drop resulting in lower heat generation.
Another thing with Chinese LEDs - they tend to fail by going short. It will be a disaster in a car especially as the cables are drawn near the fuel supply line. Add a mandatory fuse - inline 5 A at the supply.

Yes that was a typo, I meant to type 20Ohm. Double typed the 2! But still, your approach of adding diodes to drop the voltage makes more sense. Resistor is a basic approach where the resistor would heat up instead of bulb.

Since the halogen is glowing bright enough, I might as well stick with it for a while. When moving to the LED, will add the diodes. An inline fuse is already in place at the source relay from which I'm powering the light. No harm in adding a separate one extra for the rear fog light of course.