Anything is possible, to get all the LEDs to light up you would need an extra mini PWM and a little re-wiring, that way you could choose the brightness of the tail lights and then just apply the full 13v on brake or fog.

I could do it but this was just easier and still maintains the C, is there enough difference between tail and brake on your superb Chineese ones?

The difference between tail and brake is very noticeable on mine, however I have another slight anomaly, the lower line of horizontal LED's illuminates at brake light intensity in tail light mode, however as the remaining LED's are in a double layer then the intensity is even.

 

I thought this was deliberate at first, but then I followed a Superb with the OEM LED clusters and the lower line was dimmer.

 

 

Difficult to tell here, and in the flesh too...

 

have the litec led lights for my vrs hatch

 

I got them from frank at orange tuning ( if you want to pay by paypal email him or order off website for other ways of paying)

 

Had to add the supplied extra resistor and soldered it rather than using connectors (to avoid canbus bulb error)

 

They work fine and look good.

I bought some from Germany and come with resistors all ready fitted, how ever joining the fog up to the brake light sounds a good idea as mine only brake at the top.

Good job though suits the car

 

have the litec led lights for my vrs hatch

 

Had to add the supplied extra resistor and soldered it rather than using connectors (to avoid canbus bulb error)

 

I thought that the Litec / Dectane clusters were plug and play?

They are plug and play how ever the brake light is only at the top of the lights and i like the idea of using tne fog at the bottom of the lights to light up with the brake light, iv had my fog turned on for both sides all ready, how ever once looking im not to sure now as if i join the feeds in it means when i turn the fog on it turn my brake lights on so i think ill leave them alone

The feeds should not be joined within the light clusters --  the central electronics module can be coded with VCDS for rear fogs to work with the brake lightsTThis will allow the rear fogs in the LED clusters to work in exactly the same way as a normal cluster do. The coding will still put the power to the fogs, especially as the LED clusters are said to be plug and play, and a direct substitution for the original lights.

 

Mike

That isn't a coding option on my module, they simply have to be joined with a 25p diode so the brake lights can activate the fog but not the other way round.

on my 08 reg the light units through up a bulb warning so I added the extra resistor and its working as normal

So, having been followed by a friend he said he could barely see the difference between the tail light brightness and the brake light brightness. I have always thought this but didn't realise it was that bad, so I have since made a little modification to my LED lights.

I have now disabled the top row of the LED's in 'side light' mode but still allowed them to operate in 'brake light' mode. This means there is now a separate light for the brake lights and they are now clearly visible (he has followed me since and said they are absolutely fine now)

Here is the picture and vids of them in operation with the mod - both day and night.

 

 

Vid at night

http://s1041.photobucket.com/user/Philip_Mitchell/media/lightsinnight_zps691e28bf.mp4.html

 

Vid in day

http://s1041.photobucket.com/user/Philip_Mitchell/media/lightsinday_zps7f54869e.mp4.html

xpower, could you explain how you did this mod? I was trying to do something similar with zener diodes but the tail lights are PWM, not easy to do this way...

xpower, could you explain how you did this mod? I was trying to do something similar with zener diodes but the tail lights are PWM, not easy to do this way...

what led light units did you buy  

same as xpower's - VW Shanghai

XPOWER did you used RC filter to obtain this brake light effect? If so, what kind of capacitor and resisitor did you used?

 

I don't see other easy way to mod these lamps same as you did...

Sorry, I have seen the reply and I will answer it with a little diagram as soon as I get a spare 5 :-)

Ok here you go, don't quote me on the wiring colours though as I'm doing most of it from memory.  You basically need to stop the power going to the top row of the LED's using a 4 pin relay.  As the BCM is modulating the power down to around 4.5v it isn't enough to trigger the relay to let the electricity flow, but on brake light activation this voltage goes to 13v (battery voltage).

 

This is enough to trigger the relay and let the electricity flow to the top row.  Oddly enough the top 2 rows are overladed with voltage from both the tail and brake light supplies.

You can see the relay in the bottom pic, Hope this helps

 

 

 

Thanks,

 

In fact it is very easy to do.

 

I was thinking also to apply as an alternative RC filter to upper row LED circuit. Because It's PWM, the average voltage on the filter should not be enough to switch on top position leds, but with full voltage - for brake - LED's should work with maximum power. At the same time serial resistors should dimm the LED's a bit to be not so bright.

 

Next weekend I'll try to do some experiments and off course I'll share the results.

Thanks,

 

In fact it is very easy to do.

 

I was thinking also to apply as an alternative RC filter to upper row LED circuit. Because It's PWM, the average voltage on the filter should not be enough to switch on top position leds, but with full voltage - for brake - LED's should work with maximum power. At the same time serial resistors should dimm the LED's a bit to be not so bright.

 

Next weekend I'll try to do some experiments and off course I'll share the results.

I understand what your trying to do but when I tried using resistors to reduced the voltage it wasn't possible to get the 4 I now have made go out to sit at the same brightness as the other 4 leds in that top cluster. I used a variable resistor to play around and it just didn't look right

If I was keeping the lights I also suspect the bottom 2 rows (tail / fog) behave in the same manner, and a single row could be extinguished and only made to come on with the brake light, that would look awesome but as I'm selling the lights there is little point in me playing around with them. Basically it could be wired up with a second relay doing the same thing to the fog / tail input as I have done to the brake / tail input.

Ps I forgot to say the relay does buzz a little as the coil in the relay is being switched on / off quickly via PWM. It doesn't lift of its seat and doesn't engage but does buzz a fraction - it doesn't cause any harm though and you can only hear it if you pull the carpet back and listen.

Hi there,

 

Below is version of this mod that I did in my car.

 

In case of stop lights there must be relay as capacitor and resistor - as I did for fog lights - do not disable all 4 diodes. Two diodes goes completely off but another two are still on, with less light but anyway.

To avoid to buzz by relay there's electrolytic capacitor in palarell.

 

Serial 5 Watt resistors are added to control brightness of tail lights vs stop lights and fog lights. In other words the reason why the resistors are there is to increase contrast and limit the current for LED's to extend their life time.

 

Hi there,

Below is version of this mod that I did in my car.

In case of stop lights there must be relay as capacitor and resistor - as I did for fog lights - do not disable all 4 diodes. Two diodes goes completely off but another two are still on, with less light but anyway.

To avoid to buzz by relay there's electrolytic capacitor in palarell.

Serial 5 Watt resistors are added to control brightness of tail lights vs stop lights and fog lights. In other words the reason why the resistors are there is to increase contrast and limit the current for LED's to extend their life time.

This is a little wrong if you ask me.

1) The relay as I have used - yes

2) The capacitor to stop the relay buzzing as you have used - yes (although if you get the right relay with a good internal spring strength the buzzing is almost unnoticeable)

3) The resistors in series - no

This would just reduce the brightness of BOTH tail and brake light brightness ultimately meaning the brakelights wouldn't be as bright as they used to be without the mods

Edited 8 February, 201412 yr by xpower

I understand you don't like the resistors in series but really, they do not reduce the brightness dramatically.

 

And having capacitors in PWM circuit it is rather recommended to have resistors in series - this is simple averaging of PWM voltage...

I understand you don't like the resistors in series but really, they do not reduce the brightness dramatically.

 

And having capacitors in PWM circuit it is rather recommended to have resistors in series - this is simple averaging of PWM voltage...

 

Final O2FL working condition with bit different CAN-BUS cancellers:

 

Just to add some extra info as I've now fitted a pair to my car.

 

You don't need any additional resistors, diodes, relays or capacitors to remove bulb warnings or to correct the light brightness.

 

To fit you'll need wires (as mentioned earlier in this thread) from one T10/501 tail light holder on each side to the empty slot on each 6 pin connector. Just make sure to take it from the powered side of the T10/501 socket and that's all the fitting done.

 

After fitting, there will be warnings for tail/brake/fog lights on each side but using VCP or ODIS-e it's possible to correctly configure the BCM. Once configured, there are no warnings and the tail light brightness is correct. You won't be able to do this with VCDS...

 

The above assumes that the BCM fitted supports LED's, mine is a 087 Q for reference.

Awesome, excellent work. Could you post up a pic of how the lights operate with the ECU software programmed correctly?

Yep, as above Rob, pictures or it didn't happen 

I'll grab some pictures when the car is next clean

 

The Octavia hatch is slightly odd when it comes to the standard clusters. It has 21w/4w bulbs for the fog/tail and brake/tail lamps but never uses the 4w filament (hence the empty pin on the connector), instead it PWM's the 21w filaments to match the W3W bulbs. This is almost certainly what caused all the issues mentioned in this thread requiring the relays etc.

 

The config suggested (from various Russian sources) for the LED clusters also PWMs the fog and brake lights. This means that all the LEDs are lit for tail lights but with a slight difference in brightness across the different groups. I'm sure this could be fine tuned to get a better match but I didn't like it and opted for a solution that more closely mimics the setup shown by xpower above.

 

The tails lights are currently PWMed at about 35% (single top row, side and both bottom rows).

The fog light connection now only provides power when the fogs are on, it no longer PWMs for tail brightness (bottom two rows).

The brake light connection now only provides power when the brakes are on, it no longer PWMs for tail brightness (top two rows).

 

I'm undecided if I'm going to try and get the other top row to match the brightness of the rest of the cluster when using tail lights. I probably won't as it gives a much more clear indication of when the brakes are applied and if they were suppose to be lit, I would expect the clusters to take care of it as they do for the top most row.

 

The last check I want to make is to compare the tail light brightness to that of a standard Octavia, I can change the tail PWM percentage to more closely match stock halogen bulbs.