led aux lighting cheap

Let me preface this with the statement that I'm a guy that's got a big-ole LED lightbar that mounts across the hood of my rallycross car and I have been known to use it on the street from time to time.  

BUT

Mine is switched so that it is completely independent of the other lighting systems so I can be sure to only have it on when I'm either off-road or the only vehicle on the road.  Why is that?  Because people that drive around with uber bright LEDs shining in other drivers' eyes are just bad people.  Turn that E36 M3 off when there are other people around.  It doesn't really much matter where or how you mount them, they're going to be blinding and distracting and those of us with aging eyes would appreciate not having our night vision completely destroyed.

Now that I have successfully convinced you to not just blast those with the low beams, let's talk about wiring up the relay.  If you tapped into the high-beam power to energize the relay and then provided the LED power through some other fused connection, you should be fine.  I'm not sure where you're going with low voltage:  The contact on the relay will have a pretty wide range and at 12V you're probably talking milliamps to energize.  Would you be trying to hook the relay up to the +5V sensor power or something?  Where are you getting not-12-volts from?  Assuming that you bring the +12V feed on blade 30 from the battery over the proper AWG wire, you'll have good power there and tapping the high beam power to energize the relay wouldn't add enough of a draw to worry about the headlamp wiring.

Edit:  2 of these put you at about 3 amps (12V * 3amps = 36 watts).  I don't know how close VAG runs their wires to the limit, but I would like the peace of mind that would come with not asking the high beam wires to take another 3 amps.

To quote the amazon page on the first link.

NOT D.O.T. approved. Do not use if D.O.T. is required. For off road use only

This means they have zero beam cutoff and they will be blinding other drivers.  Around these parts every XJ or BroDozer truck have these things burning at all times. They are a nuisance at best and often worse than that. In a fog situation they will be a disaster

You can't just aim them down as they indiscriminately throw photons everywhere.  Dazzling other drivers makes their pupils rapidly contract rendering cyclists, pedestrians, animals and busloads of nuns suddenly invisible. This makes the roads more dangerous for everyone.

Disclosure: I am a firm believer that in city/town traffic situations your low beam headlights are primarily there to alert other drivers to your presence, The road lighting takes care of the rest. Once you are alone on the open road hit the high beams. Wiring something like that to the low beams is not only illegal but just rude. Tons of people do it though and I quietly curse at every one of them from my drivers seat.

Absolutely don't wire any kind of aux lights to be on with low beams other than a set of proper fog lights (which are useless in good weather).  Any kind of driving lights should be on only with high beams (you can trigger the relay from the high beam circuit so they turn on / off together), as they're basically supplemental high beams in terms of light distribution.  

And don't use lights that are not D.O.T. compliant. 

Cooter said:

And don't use lights that not not D.O.T. compliant. 

Honestly, if they're being used as supplemental high beams and not pointed at other traffic, it doesn't really matter (provided they throw light somewhere useful to the driver).  Sticking only with DOT compliant lights can be kinda limiting.  

wae said:

 

Mine is switched so that it is completely independent of the other lighting systems so I can be sure to only have it on when I'm either off-road or the only vehicle on the road. 

I could do that.  in fact i woull probably ad a switch as well.  wired up as an "and"

Now that I have successfully convinced you to not just blast those with the low beams, let's talk about wiring up the relay.  If you tapped into the high-beam power to energize the relay

Low beam,  which gets varied voltage for "drl" and "on"

and then provided the LED power through some other fused connection, you should be fine.  I'm not sure where you're going with low voltage:  The contact on the relay will have a pretty wide range and at 12V you're probably talking milliamps to energize. 

the pot would be to ensure that drl didi nto energize the relay,  but on would.

Would you be trying to hook the relay up to the +5V sensor power or something?  Where are you getting not-12-volts from?  Assuming that you bring the +12V feed on blade 30 from the battery over the proper AWG wire, you'll have good power there and tapping the high beam power to energize the relay wouldn't add enough of a draw to worry about the headlamp wiring.

not woried about relay draw but thanks for confirming

Edit:  2 of these put you at about 3 amps (12V * 3amps = 36 watts).  I don't know how close VAG runs their wires to the limit, but I would like the peace of mind that would come with not asking the high beam wires to take another 3 amps.

i was 99% sure i would use a relay unless i wired the lamps in series (not even sure they would lite)  in which ace its more like 9 watts at 3/4 amp.

rslifkin said:

Cooter said:

And don't use lights that not not D.O.T. compliant. 

Honestly, if they're being used as supplemental high beams and not pointed at other traffic, it doesn't really matter (provided they throw light somewhere useful to the driver).  Sticking only with DOT compliant lights can be kinda limiting.  

nearly impossible and certainly no ton a budget.

When I have big lights on my cars, I wire them in with the high beams using a relay. There's no real extra load on the light wiring to trip a relay. I like having them tied to the high beams so I can quickly and easily flip them on and off with one control. There's also a switch to take them out of the circuit all together.

You can definitely have DOT legal lights on a budget, you just have to spend more than $12.99 at Autozone. I'm pretty sure I paid $40 for the two Hella 4000s on the front of my truck. The KC Dayliters on the XJ were $100-ish.

wow a lot of hate for question about quality .

lets assume i am not an ass / bro  etc.

there was one respnse about the cutoff of the light but it was a general response. 

i think that actually matters because see above.

today i drive around with they hi beams on and NO ONE ever blinks at me because they hit the road about 20 feat in front of the car.  i am trying to figure out how i passed inspection.  

many new cars turn on the "driving lights"  with the low beams  hell my 2008 honda does.

I will assume that none has any expereice with the cheap lights.

there are some hellas that are dot approved I will see if I can find some on "the bay"

In reply to scooterfrog :

Er, I think what you might be missing is that the "hate" is because the cheap LED lights are of very poor quality.  My experience with them is primarily on the receiving end: even in the daytime, they are of a brightness, color, and pattern which causes a distraction to other drivers.  The lightbar I have is on the cheap end of the spectrum and has held up well in weather -- no leaks or cracks or anything and all the LEDs are still firing two years later.  Some of them don't seal up that well, but a little bead of silicone can help with that.

There really isn't a problem with turning on driving lights with the low beams, per se, it's just how we're defining "driving lights".  The ones on your '08 Honda would be DOT-approved and designed and positioned so as to not be a detriment to the people that are on the outside of the vehicle.  There's a chasm between that use case and putting broad-beam LEDs on the car and having them on all the time.  One of those would qualify as "bro".

Consider what you're perceiving as hate to actually be an appeal to your consideration for your fellow drivers.  If you're going to put an "always on" driving light on the front of your car, don't use one of those LED driving lights because they are of low quality.  Instead, I would urge you to either use that light only in conjunction with your brights (or, in your case, since you're driving around with your brights on anyway, a separate switch)  or to install a DOT-approved driving light that is of higher quality such that it will not blind other drivers.

Oh, and you could power the relay for your DOT-approved always-on driving lights from the marker lamps if you didn't want them on when the DRLs were on if it's using the same power wire for the DRLs and the low-beam headlights.  Not a perfect solution since the driving lights would be on with just the markers even if the headlights were off, but fewer components to install, mount, and potentially fail someday.

Factory aux lights are basically just jewelery. Most don't do squat*.

Remember that a car that's approaching you and getting dazzled by your lights is now a 2+ ton unguided missile with a fast closing speed and a trajectory that's very close to a head-on collision.

*: The exception is the fog lights on Ram trucks. For some reason, the low beams are basically useless and the fog lights fill in the pattern really well. So don't judge when you see a stock height Ram running around with the fogs on. Same with the towing mirrors, you have a much better view of what's around your 20' long 4 ton vehicle when they're deployed.

Did OP just delete his first post to try to delete this thread?

I would guess he probably doesn't want to hear any of this...

In reply to Cooter :

Not sure where my first post went it does look like it was deleted but not on purpose.

I think I got the answer I'm looking for which was not about the how but about the quality and basically what I'm hearing is these kinds of Lights cheap Amazon and eBay LEDs are going to have beam patterns for crap that would make me look like an ass or a bro if I ever turn them on while my low beams were on and not my high beams.

so that being said it doesn't sound like there is a cheap solution to lights that would be reasonable to use with my low beams. That's's okay I'll look at some of the better quality hella have Hellas or Daylighters which definitely do make SAE approved. Dot Compliant driving lights

Thanks

Even most of the high end driving lights don't have a pattern that can be used with low beams.  Other than fog lights, nothing has a cutoff like a low beam.  Anything marked as a driving light, pencil beam, Euro beam, etc. is meant to be used with high beams only and would blind other drivers.  

Honestly, even with mediocre low beams, if they're aimed well, adding a bunch of extra light isn't helpful.  It just leads to a bright splash on the ground in front of you to pull your eyes in close and kill your night vision and then you can't see beyond the cutoff at all.  A lot of new cars do this from the factory as it makes the lights look bright.  It's high beams where you can take advantage of tons of light, as you can throw it a lot further as well as wider.  

Which headlights does the Passat have currently? HID's with the auto levelers? Halogens?

If it is something as simple as fixing the broken autoleveling system or shimming the housings with whatever is lying around to make what is there functional I would say start there. Then add appropriate auxiliary lighting as needed for rural use. I don't necessarily hate LED light bars (I mean I kinda do, I think they are one of the ugliest automotive accessory trends in recent memory) It is that I hate it when people use them on busy city streets along with HID's in halogen housings (I'm looking at you Dodge Ram owners!) and the cheap non-DOT 4X6 LED replacement lights that every tow truck and Cherokee in the area runs.

Also, adding Aux lights tied into the low beam circuit seems like a good way to make your daughters car a cop magnet.

if you want good aux lighting go find in a junkyard a modern Acura with fog lights and retrofit them, Acura's performance requirements were basically low beams. 

I have a 48" LED bar on the front of the tow rig and four smaller ones on the rear/corners - but they're only for use when we're out in nowhereland, or in the rally paddock (usually a dark field). in fact, I keep covers on them when on public roads since there is no way no how I want them on with other drivers around, frankly. 

The rally car has several LED floods on the front lightbar as well, but they are covered when not on stage, and per NASA/RA/ARA rules wired to only come on with high beams. 

I get that.  But even with new housing I can't aim them up.  It's common in passats the just aim low and then people try to bring them up and the plastic gear in the adjuster breaks.  Mine was broken so I replaced the housing. I could jam something in the housing to kick the projector up but that seems like even a bigger hack to get them up.  

The new housing has a super sharp cutoff on the driver side.  That's good,. But I can't even read liscense plates at 30 feet.  Just can't aim them right.  There is something wrong.

Can you sim the housing itself?

FWIW I have a goof friend of mine who runs these, they have a VERY nice cutoff and are bright. But they are a Fog light. SAE rated. (DOT does not rate any lights.... ) I will be adding a set for infil on my truck at some point. not cheap thought.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00Q1RS83M/?coliid=IUK1FOY08LHWL&colid=1DJZC99OAXJ5O&psc=0&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it

Jumper K Balls said:

Which headlights does the Passat have currently? HID's with the auto levelers? Halogens?

halogens

If it is something as simple as fixing the broken autoleveling system or

that's why I replaced the housing, to fix the aiming capability,  not auto leveling,  but even just aiming.  the housing was pitted,  but that could have been saved.

shimming the housings with whatever is lying around to make what is there functional I would say start there.

that's actually plan A.  they do move a it with my fingers,  but actually aiming them ang getting them to stay is about 50/50 

Also, adding Aux lights tied into the low beam circuit seems like a good way to make your daughters car a cop magnet.

i also had that thought,  

In reply to java230 :

those look nice but not budget friendly.