Daytime Running Lights, Full-High Beam. Theory, tests, implementation.
Prologue. It so happened that some big man in the government bit the rooster. Apparently it’s a rooster’s nest. And they introduced this stupid law, about the lights. And okay, would have been introduced and introduced, well obliged to install the car manufacturers from the factory lights. So no, we need to get to all motorists. What have we come to? Someone puts kolhozny Chinese LED lights, wherever they want. Someone drives with dipped beam, often blinding the oncoming traffic, even in the daytime. Why blinding? Yes, because our religion does not allow our drivers to adjust the headlights, to use the corrector. And someone does not even understand how it is possible to drive without xenon in 100 thousand K. And the corrector, what is the use of it during the day? The driver cannot see the light spot, so how will he know if it is blinding or not? And I, for example, think that the use of dipped beam as a daytime running light is outrageous. In the first place, it is wear and tear of electric equipment (it may be disputable, but I’m sure I’m not going to argue on this subject). How do I indicate that I’m driving in an organized convoy? How do I indicate that I’m transporting people? As it happens, up until the last moment, I didn’t give a damn about this stupid law and drove without lights. Those who want to yell for safety, think about it, we used to drive without lights, and everything was OK. You have to watch the road carefully. So I drove around, I did not care, but have recently become pestered by the traffic police. Why are they picking up on little things like that? Because they put plans back in place. I mean, the stick system. Which they swore they would eradicate with the transition from the police to the police. They don’t care. It comes to the point when my friends, traffic cops, stop me and ask to at least issue me a warning. This does not make me feel cold or hot, and they stained the paper and for the accountability of the profit, as they say. Well, and about the light began to stop, even good friends. Well, I do not feel comfortable, somehow, in front of them to bend their policy. You can also understand them, they work.
Part 1. So that’s what I mean? I had the idea to do flasher lights. But I don’t want to install LED Chinese trinkets, burning every once in a while or flashing. Buying branded expensive is not logical. I do not need it, why should I pay? And these headlights don’t look harmonious, and spoil the design of my Lada. I do not hang any extra crap on my car.
This leaves me with the option of low beam headlights, such as “high beam at half speed”. I don’t see the point in describing what, how, and why. Especially at one of the drivers it is already described. And quite in detail and understandably. Here is a link to his blog
But the circuit on microcontrollers is complicated. A lot of fuss. I need to flash the microcircuits, but what about flashing, where will I find them in my hole?
I decided to try something with simple relays the old-fashioned way.
First, the calculations. Sketches of the almost finished circuit and calculations. Calculation of the wire cross section, just in case.
Then the bench test on the table.
And finally, the circuit tested on the bench.
I count on the following principle of operation: When the ignition is turned on the relay P-2 begins to receive voltage. When the handbrake is disengaged, relay P-2 opens. Power from the ignition switch goes to the permanently closed contact of relay P-1. From there the power goes to the mass terminal of one of the high beam bulbs. Thus, we have a series connection of the bulbs and half-light. That’s all, it is the DRLs. Next, we turn on parking lights. When power comes to regular bulbs of clearance lamps, power also goes to the relay P-1, turning it on. At the same time, the mass terminal of the high beam bulb is connected to the mass, and power from the relay P-2 stops coming. Lights work in normal mode, low-beam lights turn off. The high beam has no effect on the circuit, it is known to turn on only together with parking lights. High beam. If we turn on high beam, it does not matter if we blink them or turn them on in normal mode, both high beam bulbs are powered in parallel. The same power comes to the relay P-1 and as in the case with turning on the lights, as well relay P-1 is triggered (if not yet triggered), connecting the mass terminal of the high beam bulb, with the body mass. It seems to be simple. Although I had to break my head. I added one more diode in the circuit, at the parking brake bulb. That would be when you turn on the parking brake light, this light would not light up, and worked in normal mode. I checked it on the table, it works fine, no heat, no short circuit. Now I will have to install it in the car.
Here is another guy with almost the same circuit www.drive2.ru/l/1220306/.
SLAVIK62 did a great job, he found a bug in the schematic. I fixed the circuit.
Part 2. The next day was a trip to the radio parts store. I bought some LUT stuff (google it if you don’t know). Decided to finally try to make my own circuit board. I am putting together a circuit for my LEDs. Not nice and cumbersome to do it all with relays and a bunch of wires. I decided to make it pretty. Found some old relay in a neat case. I unsoldered the circuit board from the connector. People used special programs to draw the board layout. I did not understand them and made it in Photoshop.
I made it in Photoshop and printed it on a magazine, ironed it out, etc. All in all turned out beautiful and not bulky design.
THE LIGHTS. Scandinavian light or full beam.
Greetings to all not indifferent to the body of C4! Everything goes according to plan! 
The long-awaited vacation has begun and the car stood on “idle”, in the long-awaited waiting for the installation of various “knickknacks” that have accumulated since the purchase of the car itself. After overhauling of rear suspension I can finally relax and do my favorite thing. But today’s post will not be about the long accumulated stuff, but about a recent acquisition… About what I started…
A long time ago I had the idea of such a thing as daytime running lights (DRL). During daytime driving with dipped beam or fog lights (PTF), I found impractical, firstly, it is unnecessary load on the generator, and secondly, as daytime running lights and PTF are not effective options, as have a slope of the beam incidence. Far-beam at full power is much better seen from a distance than dipped beam at full power.
So I decided to use main beam in native headlights, which works at half load. This function is implemented routinely in Scandinavia, the U.S. and some other countries, hence the name “Scandinavian light”.
I decided what I want, and then I began to think about how to implement it all. I excluded at once the homemade solutions on the type of implementation in the chain of the high beam with incandescent resistors and resistances from the heater. Searching for the ideal solution led to an absolutely ready, effective and easy to connect DRL Controller.
On the website of the manufacturer there are a few options for the emitting diodes controllers, depending on the make of the car and the customer’s wishes. I chose the easiest and cheapest option for my car, so to speak for the trial, with a fixed light output of 35% of 100% of the lamp power. As the manufacturer – it is more than enough when using the high beam headlights as a low beam headlights. More expensive and advanced versions have the ability to continuously adjust the light output from 0 to 100%.
The prefix “Lite” means a simplified version of the design, very easy to connect, the fixed power output is 35%.
As you can see by the photo of the device itself, it has only 5 wires and is easy to connect. The manufacturer also states that the controller can be placed in any convenient location, it is sealed and always stays cool. Here is a little explanation:
This controller is based on the principle of Pulse Width Modulation (PWM). This principle has long been used by car manufacturers to control the brightness of instrument lighting, fan speed, etc.
In the early days of automobiles, sets of resistors and potentiometers were used to adjust the power in the load. These elements were connected in series with the load and dissipated some power in proportion to their resistance. The level of development of modern electronics allows you to convert the power in the load using PWM almost without losses.
To connect the controller’s exhaust lights I needed the following : The controller itself, a 10A fuse, a fuse holder, a pair of d6 ground terminals, regular duct tape, “hairy” duct tape (the last item is not necessary), from tools – screwdrivers, side cutters, multimeter and soldering iron.
The first thing I started with – unscrewed and removed the shelf under the steering wheel, then, dismantled the left sill and removed the plastic casing at the rest area of the left foot, then from the end of the torpedo opened the cover fuse box, unscrewed two bolts fixing the block and lowered it down, leaving it hanging on the wiring harness.
I decided to turn on the lights after the ignition, so that they will turn on automatically. The threshold of sensitivity of the controller +6V, which means that he is not afraid of the voltage sag at the time of starting the engine, which rarely falls below +10V, in addition, the controller has a delay for turning on ~ 3-5 seconds, which again only goes for the benefit and makes it possible to connect to the ignition without any consequences. But if you want, you can switch on through the “handbrake”, oil pressure lamp or alternator, whichever is more convenient.
Controller and its fuse decided to put in this place, it is the most suitable for connection. Everything is near, I took the common ground from the point on the body, plus 12V and ignition – under the shelf on the contact connector, main and clearance lights found in the fuse box.
One more important point, the lamps to which the controller is connected must be standard wattage, i.e. no more than 65W. It turned out that I had “hundreds”, so I had to change them to Philips +30%.
And then for better clarity, a comparative photo set in different light modes. Photos were made in the daytime, using a special dimming mode for a clearer perception of the light difference:
