nrgy

I've always loved the Audi style LEDs, and more and more high end cars/exotics are starting to follow trend. (ie. Porsche Turbo, Ferrari F430, Lambo LP560, etc), so I don't see this as a complete rip off of the Audi design. So I decided to embark on a little project this weekend and quickly created a crude mock up of DRL LEDs for the W204 C-class. I only did one headlight, but you can get a general idea of what my idea looks like, and no it's not a Pshop. I tried my best to take pictures that represent the actual color of the LEDs, which IMO is very difficult to do but I think I pulled it off. But as is the case with most things, looks even better in person.

It's getting late as I just managed to take some decent pics so I won't go into much detail right now, but basically I think something like this could easily be manufactured for the masses and the install very simple (ie. 10 min), AND look oem.

Anyhow, let me know what you guys think, good or bad.

CDP

that is sick!

I love how those daytime LED running lights look.

Is there a tutorial you can post up if you don't mind?

Black.E

WOW. Man, that looks sick. Nice job!

iku

that is hot! make sure u post some instructions on how to convert the eye lid bulbs into leds!

-michael-

Nice work. Is this the only color? I think that the ones Audi has, are a bit whiter than yours, are there any color options? The ones you have, seem too blueish to me .

king360

Great idea, not bad at all. Are you planning mass-production on these LEDs? I would order for sure.

GPI

I was predicting that one of the changes Mercedes would make in the facelift version would be replacing the normal bulbs on the "eyelids" with LEDs.
That looks great!

VaderSS

Great Job Nrgy!

I am very interested! This is the Best-Looking eyelid mod I’ve seen, IMHO.

Before you install the right side, could you snap a shot of what you used? Maybe where you purchased them…

Awsome!

Danny_Boy

mrwolf

I agree, that looks nice... + those leds make the already mean front end look even meaner lol

I want those

Name Brand

MORE PICS OR BAN!

BerBer63

Any chance those LEDs can follow the bottom curve of the daytime running light? and also is there room for 12 lights? I like even numbers

Great work, looks mean

tanktube67

Looks real good

gsrjc

Looks good... so how did you do it?

passcheco

Timeless

+1

occarfan

How much do you think it would cost?

nlpamg

wow, that looks awesome! more info and pics please

FrankW

awesome DIY, but same question as above. that looks sort of like an happy eye. need angry eye.

nrgy

Hey everyone, thanks for the comments but I'm afraid I don't have a working DIY yet. It seems like most people like this look, but before everyone gets too excited you did read where I said "crude mock up" right? I was actually hoping someone more resourceful and with better DIY abilities could take the idea and expand upon it. My main goal was to see what DRL Leds could look like on the W204, and I hoped to inspire someone to perfect the idea. But anyhow, I'll just give a run down of my ideas and hopefully someone with more DIY abilities can chime in.

Basically what you are seeing is a simple string of LED lights temporarily tacked in place along the outside top of the headlight, which is concealed by the hood when closed. If you open the hood, you can see a ledge on the headlight housing where a strip of LEDs could go, and they actually sit behind a raised clear portion of the headlight housing. There is enough clearance (apprx. 3/8") where they won't get crushed by the hood.

To my surprise, and as you can see from the pictures, the LEDs are quite visible from this location. The light isn't distorted at all from the headlight and when looking at it, it appears the LEDs are built into the housing. But of course you are limited to location, and that is why you can't follow the bottom curve of the factory parking lamp/DRL without opening up the headlight housing, which I'm not about to experiment with haha. Ideally having LEDs built into the headlight housing like the Audis would be the way to go, but even if you were able to take apart the housing then the next hurdle would be getting the LEDs to look like the belong there.

Sooo, IMO it is better that the LEDs themselves aren't visible, yet obviously the light is when turned on.

Another location that I think could look good (perhaps even better), and look like it belongs, is at the bottom of the headlight there is about a 1/4" gap between the housing and the bumper. Luckily LEDs are small, so there would be plenty of room to fit a strip along the bottom curvature of the headlight. They would be completely concealed, yet shine through pretty bright I imagine. And it might give more of that angry look like some of you have been talking about.

The next issue is powering the leds, which probably isn't a big issue at all for someone with a little more electrical knowledge than me. Again, since this was temporary I didn't bother wiring them up to the car, rather I used an external source. I'm out of my realm here, but I imagine you could get a male connector used for the parking lamp bulbs, wire it to the led strip, and plug it into one of the parking lamp sockets. I don't know if this would provide enough power, or if some sort of resistors, etc would be needed to get this to work though. Or I assume it wouldn't be too difficult to tap into a switched power source somewhere else.

As far as the LEDs go, there are really alot of options out there, it's just getting them to fit your specific application. Someone who understands LEDs could probably solder up their own strip and braket/housing to hold them. But I was thinking about buying a few of these to experiement further with, as they come in a 12" strips evenly spaced, and could easily fit into the confined spaces we're dealing with. Pretty cheap too.

http://www.mpja.com/prodinfo.asp?number=17362+OP

Anyhow, sorry to disappoint as I'm sure you were expecting a real DIY, but I'll continue playing around with the idea and hopefully this provides some ideas so that other can experiement as well.

mrtesting

I was thinking that and I guess at the same time you were writing it! Last night as I was driving around, I saw a black R8, S6, S8 and RS4 and all the *******s had their LEDs on! That was too gorgeous! All I could think about was the picture you had posted.. because about a month ago I was actually looking around for similar mods on this topic, but could not find anything.

syrAMG

nrgy I think it is fantastic to see someone stepping up to with their ideas!

because you mentioned about having the LED's on the rims of the brow line
as well as the bottom portion of the headlights I decided to make a CG


Im hoping that some aftermarket parties can take this to the next level by implementing them to their products.

IMO I Prefer the brow lines rather than the bottom of the headlights (they are too similar to the audi style)