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.
Someone just started a thread on "LED lighting", into which I dumped what I've learned over the past couple of days. . _H*
That's a lot of active componentry to drive an LED. I haven't scanned your website top to bottom; do you have any schemos and/or MCU code up for educational grabs? . _H*
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.
Yes, when you are parked you have a choice of either powering down directly (power off and park) by pressing the Power button alone or you can do it as a two-step process and press Park, then Power.
I think this is correct. This is what I've been doing so far, and have stopped on some slight slopes (not parking brake worthy) and I haven't had any problems.
1. Yes - and it is in the manual as well. Pressing Power while stopped will cleanly shift into Park, and power down the car. I'm not sure I've touched the 'Park' button itselfl once since I've owned the car. (ok, I did, once.. as part of the reverse beep dance) 2. Never seen the car from behind while driving it... 3. The Prius HID's, unlike some others, are *not* designed to appear bright and glaring from the front. They are designed to create a maximum amount of light, and diffuse it over a useful area. Unlike some other annoying HID lights, they are not supposed to look like two blinding singular points of light to oncoming traffic. From inside the car however, they do a much better than average (in my opinion) of brightly illuminating the road. In that regard, I like the Prius's HID's a lot better, as they are not obnoxious when viewed from the front, like many others, but provide bright, even, white light when viewing the road from inside the car. -Ken
So what happens if you press the power button while in motion? I've not been brave enough to try it yet..
Isn't that the 99.9 litres per kilometre (or 99.9 MPG to you US folks)? First time I saw it, I gasped for air .. I've since learned to ignore the numbers and treat them as an icon ...
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.