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      04-22-2017, 09:47 PM   #1
Billfitz
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Halogens out, LEDs in

I finished up my LED installation today, after over a month of experimentation to figure out what works, and what doesn't. First, the bulbs:


https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

These come in H7 base to fit the headlights, H8/9/11 to fit the fogs. No fans, so that's one less thing that can fail. They include a canbus harness, so they don't throw any warnings. You can find the exact same product sold under at least five different names, including Weisslicht, so shop for the best price. The H7 and H8/9/11 don't sell at the same price, so shop between those versions as well.

They're not plug and play. No LED is. You have to code out the cold and warm checks, whether you have canbus harnesses and/or resistors or not. The cold and warm checks will cause the LEDs to periodically blink. You don't see it with halogens, but with LEDs you do. But don't fear coding. I did, and put off learning how to code for a year until I had the LEDs and found out that coding isn't optional. But coding isn't difficult, it just looks that way, so go for it. And you can code other nice stuff, like getting rid of that stupid warning message every time you start the car.

Something happens with the fogs that doesn't with the high or low beams. As soon as you plug them in they flicker rapidly, at a very low intensity, even when the ignition is off. If this can be coded out I wasn't able to find the code location that would do it. A resistor does stop it. Don't buy the usual 6 ohm 50 watt resistors, though. I found that a 15 ohm resistor stopped the flickering, and 15 ohms burns up a lot less current and runs a lot cooler than a 6 ohm resistor. I used these:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1
They install before the canbus, connecting the hot and ground leads. You can find plenty of instructions and videos on the subject.

The high and low beams don't have this flicker, so they don't need resistors.
There is an issue with the high beams, though. The mushroom shaped heat sink on the back of the assembly won't fit past one of the parts in the lamp. The fix is to cut away enough of the heat sink on one side so it will fit. The heat sink can be removed from the assembly (be sure to loosen the set screw first), and being aluminum it's reasonably easy to cut with a metal cutting abrasive blade, even a hacksaw. Put it back onto the assembly, lock it in the right position to fit into the socket with the set screw.

Installing the high beams is easy, there's an access under the hood. The fogs aren't bad, but it's best to jack the car, pull the wheel and remove the fender liner. The lows are a royal PITA. There's no access under the hood, and working though the access in the wheel well you can't see what you're doing. It's all by feel, and there's barely enough room to fit your hand inside the lamp housing. I love me bimmer, but they really screwed up here. I fixed it with a Dremel rotary tool equipped with an abrasive blade, which I used to put an access under the hood the way BMW should have. I cut off the top of the housing over the low beam, making it easy to get at things. You still insert the bulb from the wheel well, then finish installing it from under the hood.



The cover that's created by cutting the top off the lamp has to be sealed water tight when you put it back in place. That's a simple job using some vinyl mastic, the same stuff used for sound reduction on panels.



The metal brackets that hold the bulbs are flimsy, because the original halogens weigh practically nothing. LEDs are fairly heavy, so the LEDs will probably be loose in the brackets. I secured them to the brackets with some high temperature RTV, just enough to keep them from wriggling around.

How do they work? Great. I didn't take any pictures, you can find those all over the net. I did measure the light output with a meter. The headlights are about twice that of the stock halogens, the fog lights three times the halogens, and the color is pure white. No yellow, no blue. The beam pattern is the same.

Last edited by Billfitz; 05-30-2021 at 02:31 PM..
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      04-24-2017, 04:06 PM   #2
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Billfitz,

Did you upgrade your OEM headlights to projectors or keep OEM halogen headlights?

As I wasn't sure this style of H7 would fit. I was under the impression we had to use the " braided style" H7s.

Pictures of light spread would be appreciated too!
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      04-24-2017, 10:03 PM   #3
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The only changes were the bulbs. They fit inside the housings just fine, other than the required trimming of the heat sink for the high beams. The beam patterns are the same as they were with the halogens.
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      06-23-2017, 01:27 PM   #4
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2017 330i h7 bulb replacement

Anyone know which hid setup is compatible with h7 halogen bulb replacement without too many modifications & recoding?, I don't won't to void warranty by cutting wires or anything under the hood to modify.
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      06-23-2017, 03:16 PM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by acopeland View Post
Anyone know which hid setup is compatible with h7 halogen bulb replacement without too many modifications & recoding?, I don't won't to void warranty by cutting wires or anything under the hood to modify.
This thread deals with LED, not HID.
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      06-23-2017, 04:02 PM   #6
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thanks for your input Bill, I was just asking a question, I didn't realize it made a difference
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      06-23-2017, 09:34 PM   #7
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They're totally different. HID work best with a separate power relay that connects to the fuse box. The only thing the original wiring does is to energize the relay, with the power to the lamps coming from the relay. That means lots of wiring changes, as each lamp requires its own relay. HID also tends to be less friendly with reflector housings. Those are the reasons I didn't use them.
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      07-23-2017, 09:23 PM   #8
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Coding Info...

They're not plug and play. No LED is. You have to code out the cold and warm checks, whether you have canbus harnesses and/or resistors or not. The cold and warm checks will cause the LEDs to periodically blink. You don't see it with halogens, but with LEDs you do. But don't fear coding. I did, and put off learning how to code for a year until I had the LEDs and found out that coding isn't optional. But coding isn't difficult, it just looks that way, so go for it. And you can code other nice stuff, like getting rid of that stupid warning message every time you start the car.

Hey Bill, great work. Will appreciate any info/links/steps to code out the LED hi-Los for cold/warm checks.
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      07-24-2017, 07:52 AM   #9
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You can find them in the coding forum.
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      08-08-2017, 09:57 AM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by AJ2206 View Post
They're not plug and play. No LED is. You have to code out the cold and warm checks, whether you have canbus harnesses and/or resistors or not. The cold and warm checks will cause the LEDs to periodically blink. You don't see it with halogens, but with LEDs you do. But don't fear coding. I did, and put off learning how to code for a year until I had the LEDs and found out that coding isn't optional. But coding isn't difficult, it just looks that way, so go for it. And you can code other nice stuff, like getting rid of that stupid warning message every time you start the car.

Hey Bill, great work. Will appreciate any info/links/steps to code out the LED hi-Los for cold/warm checks.
hiya mate see if these links are any good to you, just used them to do mine.

http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/arc...php/f-175.html
http://f30.bimmerpost.com/forums/sho....php?t=1301679
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      08-09-2017, 11:43 PM   #11
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Quote:
Originally Posted by zed786zed View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by AJ2206 View Post
They're not plug and play. No LED is. You have to code out the cold and warm checks, whether you have canbus harnesses and/or resistors or not. The cold and warm checks will cause the LEDs to periodically blink. You don't see it with halogens, but with LEDs you do. But don't fear coding. I did, and put off learning how to code for a year until I had the LEDs and found out that coding isn't optional. But coding isn't difficult, it just looks that way, so go for it. And you can code other nice stuff, like getting rid of that stupid warning message every time you start the car.

Hey Bill, great work. Will appreciate any info/links/steps to code out the LED hi-Los for cold/warm checks.
hiya mate see if these links are any good to you, just used them to do mine.

http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/arc...php/f-175.html
http://f30.bimmerpost.com/forums/sho....php?t=1301679
Quote:
Originally Posted by zed786zed View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by AJ2206 View Post
They're not plug and play. No LED is. You have to code out the cold and warm checks, whether you have canbus harnesses and/or resistors or not. The cold and warm checks will cause the LEDs to periodically blink. You don't see it with halogens, but with LEDs you do. But don't fear coding. I did, and put off learning how to code for a year until I had the LEDs and found out that coding isn't optional. But coding isn't difficult, it just looks that way, so go for it. And you can code other nice stuff, like getting rid of that stupid warning message every time you start the car.

Hey Bill, great work. Will appreciate any info/links/steps to code out the LED hi-Los for cold/warm checks.
hiya mate see if these links are any good to you, just used them to do mine.

http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/arc...php/f-175.html
http://f30.bimmerpost.com/forums/sho....php?t=1301679
Thanks for that man, good read. Ive completed my retrofit with HIDs though as found a number of forum members cribbing about how LEDs range doesn't compare to HIDs yet. Didn't wanna take any chances as doing it once was a good PIA..lol
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      08-10-2017, 07:37 AM   #12
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The superior beam pattern control of projector lenses will give a better result no matter what the light source, even halogen. The reason why projectors are used with both HID and most LED is because with the higher lumens output of HID and LED the beam pattern must be better controlled to prevent blinding oncoming drivers. That's why HID have headlight washers too. Dirt on the lens can scatter the light, disrupting the beam pattern, causing dazzling.
For best results halogens should use projector lenses too. Because they don't have to use projectors, and reflectors are less expensive to produce, reflectors are what they usually end up in. As for LED versus HID, LED can be made with the same or even higher output as HID, so that in itself doesn't explain differences between LED and HID where they exist. You have to look at all the factors, not the least of which is the lamp/lens design.
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      08-24-2017, 04:09 AM   #13
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Great post Billfitz. Question: My fogs on new 440ix M Sport are horrific yellow. So bad of bmw to do that. It's like having two awful yellow teeth in a mouthful of pearly whites. Ha. How many hours do you sense it takes to just replace the original fogs with bright white xenons like my headlights? Sounds like you would know.

Reason I'm asking so my dealer doesn't overcharge me. I'm going to swap out just my yellow fog lights for xenon fog lights

Last edited by maxdobe; 08-24-2017 at 06:21 AM..
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      08-24-2017, 06:55 AM   #14
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I didn't change my lamps, only the bulbs, and those to LED, not HID, so I can't offer any advice.
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      08-24-2017, 12:14 PM   #15
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Quote:
Originally Posted by maxdobe View Post
Great post Billfitz. Question: My fogs on new 440ix M Sport are horrific yellow. So bad of bmw to do that. It's like having two awful yellow teeth in a mouthful of pearly whites. Ha. How many hours do you sense it takes to just replace the original fogs with bright white xenons like my headlights? Sounds like you would know.

Reason I'm asking so my dealer doesn't overcharge me. I'm going to swap out just my yellow fog lights for xenon fog lights
If you have the time/patience and desire to code via Esys/Carly/Bimmercodeapp............
http://f30.bimmerpost.com/forums/sho....php?t=1027300
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      09-06-2017, 11:24 PM   #16
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Did you replaced the halogen DRL bulb with an LED as well?
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      09-07-2017, 07:29 AM   #17
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I did not, I don't run my DRL. Instead I installed foot long LED strip lights in the fog light sections of the bumper. They're powered by the same fuse as the auxiliary power outlet, so they come on as welcome lights when the car is unlocked, and stay on for about five minutes after the car is locked. You can just make them out in this picture.
https://billfitzmaurice.info/images/Car small.jpg

I also swapped out my reverse light bulbs with these:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

They're brighter than stock, but not super bright. I did them for the color, not the brightness. They need warm/cold check and LED coding, but otherwise are a simple plug and play, install is a five minute job.

Last edited by Billfitz; 05-25-2020 at 08:51 PM..
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      09-07-2017, 12:17 PM   #18
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Quote:
Originally Posted by maxdobe View Post
Great post Billfitz. Question: My fogs on new 440ix M Sport are horrific yellow. So bad of bmw to do that. It's like having two awful yellow teeth in a mouthful of pearly whites. Ha. How many hours do you sense it takes to just replace the original fogs with bright white xenons like my headlights? Sounds like you would know.

Reason I'm asking so my dealer doesn't overcharge me. I'm going to swap out just my yellow fog lights for xenon fog lights
Xenon's and LED's are different. Xenon would require more time as you'd need to mount the ballast somewhere. You'll also be spraying light everywhere and possibly blinding people with xenons since the fog reflectors are made for halogens.

You're probably better off with LED's if all you're going for is color and not light output. Assuming the bulb you purchase fits in the stock bulb holder, installing the LED's and coding shouldn't take more than an hour.
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      09-25-2017, 11:59 PM   #19
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Bought the same pair of LEDs as you and installed yesterday. I was able to code with the help of Shawn.

I'm able to see so much more at night now!
Thanks for posting this!

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      09-26-2017, 06:56 AM   #20
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Quote:
Originally Posted by atam1980 View Post
You're probably better off with LED's if all you're going for is color and not light output.
From my original post:
I did measure the light output with a meter. The headlights are about twice that of the stock halogens, the fog lights three times the halogens, and the color is pure white. No yellow, no blue. The beam pattern is the same.
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      09-28-2017, 09:29 PM   #21
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Update: The LED headlight business is in a state of constant flux, with suppliers comng and going all the time. The original Broviews I bought seem to have gone by the wayside, but the same lamps can still be found under other names. This is one:
https://www.amazon.com/Rigidhorse-80...B727K9NZQ&th=1

You can see it's the same lamp.
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      09-29-2017, 10:56 AM   #22
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Billfitz View Post
Update: The LED headlight business is in a state of constant flux, with suppliers comng and going all the time. The original Broviews I bought seem to have gone by the wayside, but the same lamps can still be found under other names. This is one:
https://www.amazon.com/Rigidhorse-80...B727K9NZQ&th=1

You can see it's the same lamp.
LED bulbs are one of those verticals where there are very few brands actually doing the r&d and developing the products themselves. Most of what you see on Amazon are just white-labeled Alibaba products. Most of all products sold by third party sellers on Amazon for that matter.
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