Darell's first Prius journey and...

Ha! Have you touched the factory bulb!? The LED module consumes 1/5th the energy of the bulb, and puts WAY more of that energy into light than the bulb does... the short story... the LED produces far less heat than the factory bulb. Yes, it gets hot, no it isn't a problem.

 

Here's the other stuff I did today.

http://www.darelldd.com/ev/prius_exterior_rear.htm

 

Links, dang it. We need links!

 

I made it.

Here is what a production run looks like.
[Broken External Image]:http://www.darelldd.com/ev/images/rav4/rav_lighting/dome1_production.jpg

My only warning: Don't go thinking that I'm an electronics expert. I have some skills, but EE isn't one of them! The good news is that I have a friend who is an expert, and between the two of us, we're able to make some pretty neat stuff!

 

Turns out that it is exactly the *correct* amount of componentry to make it work right. No more, no less.

Sorry. The schematics and code can only be had through reverse-engineering once the product is purchased. No code in this one though. Just a "dumb" Constant-current driver. The next one (if we can fit all the components on one side) will be programmable.

Here is my "automotive lighting" page with links to pages with links to other pages...
http://darelldd.com/light/automotive_led.htm

 

That would only be a stocking issue. The same circuit will work with any color as it provides the fixed current regardless of forward Voltage of the LED. The Rubicon crowd that I built a bunch of these things for was all over the red ones for preserved night vision. They seemed happy with them...

 

OK, I've now driven the new Prius TWICE! Yay. So I came up with a few more questions observations, and then I think this thread has served its purpose!

1. I'm in D, and when I stop, can I just hit the power button to set the P and turn the car off? It seems to work (P is lit the next time I turn the car on) but I haven't seen this documented anywhere. Can I safely assume that P is always set when the power is turned off?

2. I was driving our Rav4EV while my wife drove the Prius this past weekend. I got to see it in daylight, and at night for about two hours - front and back. One thing I noticed is that the tail lights are not nearly as bright as the average car's. Not sure I like that! In a thick fog, the Prius would be about the last car you'd see. I think I'm going to have to remedy that one!

3. Though I've heard many say that the Prius HID's are brighter and more glaring than many others, I sure didn't find that to be the case with our car. With our car behind me (along with three other lanes of solid traffic) our Prius was certainly no brighter or more glaring than any other car. In fact, it didn't stand out in ANY way, and many of the halogen lights were more "attention getting" than the HID lights on our Prius.

That's all I've got! I've been pretty busy with mods, BTW. After a week, here's what I've managed: http://www.darelldd.com/ev/prius_mods.htm

Many of the links just go to PC threads, but some have my own pictures. Mostly it is just a way to keep track of what I've done.

 

Thanks for all the confirmations on the park/power thing, guys!

Oh man! I guess it is time for my second run-through on that horrible thing.

It does help to be double-jounted.

I would hope that none of them are DESIGNED to be horribly annoying. I'm just repeating what I've heard elsewhere about people actually complaining that the PRIUS HID's are a bigger problem than most HIDs. Obviously, I don't think it is true! The most important thing that's needed in this regard is a perfect horizontal cut-off. Nail that, and nobody should complain (assuming a correct aim).

The "even" part I still have an issue with. There are most definitely artifacts in the beam that are darker lines that spread outward from the nose of the car (a bit like a fan). I'm insanely picky about this stuff since I build and sell very expensive flashlights. The beam must be flawless, or I'm stuck with a return. The beam is good, but not as good as the halogen headlamps of my Rav4, for example (as far as being uniform with no artifacts).

And on this subject - those things sure hum when they first turn on. Have you stood by them outside the car when first turned on? I've used protable HIDs that hum - and they were at least this powerful 35-50W, but the hum was NOWHERE near this loud. Just an observation... not like I really care how loud my headlights are.