Do some Google searching, this thread has NOTHING to do with what you're asking.

I will give you one answer, as long as you don't ask any more questions in this thread. You can PM me if you want.

You CAN purchase LED bulbs that will be very bright, but they won't cast the light over the road like the regular fog lights.
LED bulbs are not designed to work like the stock fog bulbs.
The LED 'bulbs' you have will never be that bright, they are way too dim for fog lights.

The LED bulbs that are very bright cost over $70. See V-Leds.com

 

Well, now that you're talking about it, Tuner...

...have you ever seen these H3 "very bright" LED's in our fog lenses? Because like this jacker here, I tried a stalk of LED's configured for an H3 housing, and it was very sparkly at night, but still unacceptably dim, and daytime was useless.

Since I don't think the OEM bulbs work very well as far as light output, and their color is really dull, I've been happy with 6000K drop-in replacement bulbs, and my fogs become decoration, rather than function. During the day and in the evening, you definitely see that they're on. And the color is whiter than stock.

Are these "very bright" bulbs noticeable during the daylight? I usually drive with my parking lights and fog lights on, but my low beams off (because I re-wired my fogs to work without my low beams.) So I wouldn't mind something decorative, but better than what I'm doing now, without going HID.

You're turning into the LED expert in the 5th gen forum, Tuner. What do you think?

 

I would not recommend LED's in headlights or foglights. The cost you're going to pay to try and replicate a Halogen projection with a LED 'bulb' is going to be too high to justify, and you still won't get the performance.

I would recommend getting a PIAA or high quality Superwhite 4000k-4300k if you want to stay with stockish fogs.

If it were me, I would install HIDs in the fogs. Our fogs have decent clearance, and don't glare much because of the style of reflector and the angle.

Get proper 4300k bulbs, not the HIDextra, etc junk that is labled as 4300k, but is actually blue. Considering the cost (can get a decent kit under or around $100), I would not hesitate, you will be very pleased with the decision.

I don't know about that, but I learn quickly, and I've chosen to take this on as a little side project, so knowing what I'm talking about is a requirement IMO.

 

Rochester I don't think our fogs particularly do well with the led bulbs since we have that metal cover over the bulbs.

 

Cree makes an 800 lumin led. 4 of those would equal our headlights

 

I think rochester is trying to do plug and play, also it would maybe be as bright as our headlights but good luck focusing it right =(

 

For functional fogs, am operatic hid would be the only solution for plug and play. There is s guy on the Toronto maxima club that put a ton of leds in his 4th gen fogs. Looked cool, but no where near bright enough to be functional.

Maybe some luxeon stars like they use in high end flashlights would work. They project a decent distance with a good reflector

 

Luvlexus is right, I'm not going for function in my fogs. At this point, the only function the fogs serve is as visual cue that a car is coming in the daylight. You could rightly say that for me, my fog lights are Daytime Running Lights. If I wanted both form and function, then both Knight's and Tuner's advice about HID's is the way to go.

And luvlexus, the dispersion hat over the bulb just unscrews (if you bake the lens off). So that's not a big deal.

Tuner... sorry for pursuing the noob's thread jack. Good info after all.

 

I will end this OT with this, Rochester:

-If you want purely appearance, get HID's

-If you want Purely function, get High Quality Halogens.

-If you want both, but more-so appearance, get HID's in 6000k or less.

-If you want both, but more-so Function, get high quality Halogens

I know you say you only want appearance, I get that, HID's will look the best, you will not regret the decision, and for the price you can buy them for these days, as well as the relatively simple install, I would highly recommend them. For what I think you want, they can't be matched, and the cost is less than you would spend on products to try to match them. And seeing as we have to remove our fog lights completely just to change a bulb, doing the HID route is not much more work.

If you really, really don't want to do anything more than Plug and play, get some good Halogens.

You'll notice I didn't mention LEDs in any of those options.
The LED's will never work as good without a lot of messing around or without purchasing some pretty expensive LED 'bulbs'
That housing was made for halogens, if you buy good ones (in whatever colour you want), you'll be happy with the results. There's a thread/sticky somewhere listing the fog bulbs that most closely match the HID colour on our cars. Have a peek.

As far as DRLs, the stock DRLs still cast much more light, and are more easily seen than your LEDs in your fogs. It's safer than nothing though.

 

Tuner did you ever find something to do with the mirrors?personally i have been looking for a set of them cefiro power folding mirrors.

 

Since he was reasonable enough to delete his spam in this thread just now, I'll acutally point you to the man who is selling his. though I think the price is a little steep, the TDM mirrors are wicked.

His name is Vastmax, http://forums.maxima.org/member.php?u=57349

 

How about one of those side firing led strips on the inner edge of the mirror. That might be distracting though.

 

Way too much ill order from china first for cheaper.

 

Yeah kind of my thoughts. It's not bad though, they do sell for quite a bit and are getting pretty rare to find, especially locally.

For $250 they'd already be gone, cause that's the reasonable price for them.

 

is there a write up anywhere on how to do the puddle lights? it looks fairly simple, but would prefer if there was LED's that could either be mounted or drill and mounted easily over soldering LED's together to make it work. I really like the idea and I want to do it on my maxima, but Also my wife's SUV and my truck would benefit from doing this as well. (as well as the turn signal)

 

I did the strips that tuner was originally discussing.. they look great, I ran into 2 problems, 1, I had to drill out the screws on the bottom of the mirror because they were so tight, when putting a screw driver in them and turning, it stripped the head... and with doing the turn signal and puddle lights, the wires were too thick to all go through the harness so the way I had to route it, the mirrors will no longer fold.

 

Picccs duude.

I just got my V35 auto folding mirrors in the mail, so I'm going to be doing puddle lights and signals in them. I can post them here as they're pretty much the same housing and concept.

 

I want pics of these uber rare things did they come with the harness and switch?

 

Switch and harness yes but no relays or instructions. Totally different wiring. Going to be tricky to figure it out and have it work how I want but Ima start messing around tonight and pull them apart.

The Mirror side is easy to figure out, it's the switch that's gonna be a little tougher but that should mainly be process of elimination based off the USDM switch terminals.

 

Puddle light

 

Niiiiice dude how many did you get wanna send me a couple?

 

Ill hit walmart clearence section up on wensday and pick you up a couple.at 6ft they cover my whole 15 wall with blinding light you can not look at it and they were less then $5 each

 

Yeah I'm down man but will they hook up to DC?

Either way grab them even if they don't work I'm down to try em. I'm starting tonight so I'll pull out the internals from the old mirrors and the JDM mirrors and start figuring out what to do for signals. I have some CREE Amber SMD's and those Strips from this thread still, plus a whack of assorted Amber SMDS....

 

Okie so the strips don't work for me personally. I think it's a great option for many and they're pretty hidden overall, but I'm picky and don't like it. A couple snaps of them during testing:

 

Yup 12v ac/dc 4.4w 640ma 6000k operation and have a built in driver circuit .

 

I'll snap some pics.... you can't really see the strips on mine like you do on yours.... you can see it a little from the back, but from the front you can't see the strip at all.

 

Warning, Picture Whoring function enabled. Large Hi Res Whoring going down momentarily.





My New Folding Mirror Puddle Lights, thanks to Cjandura for the idea of using Household LED's designed for track lighting, etc:



Resistor'd and wired, 27 Ohms to dim this bad boy down some!!!





Now, installed:





Epoxy:



And finally, the output:









WAIT for it.........











That's dimmed down to about 2/3 of standard output or maybe less. It's effing awesome.

That is all for now I'll update this when I test signal integration, which I'm going to attempt.

 

Interesting choice tuner. I've been playing with the idea of using a 3 watt led with a 3 watt led driver and lens in the side mirrors. Can't justify it quite yet until mine fail though. Also wouldn't it aiming down be more suitable as a puddle light than a signal?

 

Not sure what you mean bro, that's mounted flush on the bottom of the housing. It will be pointing down, and I angled it just a touch toward the car and to the rear.

 

Damn!

Talk about some serious output.

 

My point was in OEM applications its the puddle light that gets mounted in the bottom of the light while the turn signal are either on the outer edge, in the mirror itself, or on the front side of the side mirror housing. I was more or less 'just saying' in a way.

**edit** ignore me I didn't read all of it...looks good matt

 

Tuner I am going to ride out to Kitchener just to meet you!! You do some amazing work!

 

Come on over. We're having a meet up as soon as spring rears it's head, AutoX run on the adgenda as well

 

That just gave me an idea...


this could be bad

 

puddle light on, folded in





puddle light on, folded out




Custom made signal LED strip for under the mirror:




^The picture I took of this kept failing upload. But I didn't use a signal, the dark tint on the mirror made the LED's look super dim, and because they're 5050 LED's, you could see the 3 chip lights and it looked odd.

I didn't have enough small SMD's on hand so I just ditched the signal idea. Less is more.

 

BUMP for working pics.

 

^Fixed.

 

I'm like a week and a half late but thanks.

So you ended up using LED track lights for the finished product? I assume that's something I could pick up at like WalMart, Home Depot, or Lowes?