I have, in my possession, OEM LED taillights

compu_85 · Jan 5, 2013

If you have the brake on does the outer light still flash? Does the center (bright) portion of the light come on when you hit the brake?

-J

Fixmy59bug · Jan 5, 2013

That one will be a tough one for me to test as I would not be able to see how the lights react while stepping on the pedal.

I will try to set up a tripod with my phone and see what happens.

Fixmy59bug · Jan 5, 2013

Ok, got it.

Here's what happens with the hazards when standing on the brake pedal.

Video #2

compu_85 · Jan 5, 2013

It's really hard to tell what's going on in that video. I'll wait for you to make another video in the daytime

-J

Fixmy59bug · Jan 5, 2013

Yeah, I thought so as well. Lol.

So this project retires until tomorrow.

Just as a point of reference, the way your car is now with 00 as the coding, how do the lights react in the same scenario?

Brakes on and hazards or turn on?

Presumably as the incandescent lights do? The outers flash even when stepping on the brake?

compu_85 · Jan 5, 2013

00 isn't a real coding

I have our car coded for A0. Hopefully that's what your '13 was coded to originally.

Fixmy59bug · Jan 5, 2013

Nope.

It most certainly was 00

I copied my original coding as well as took a screen shot of each screen in channel 09

compu_85 · Jan 5, 2013

That may be what VCDS was displaying, but that wasn't the lighting coding

It's a "security" code vw uses to obscure the real coding. I'm surprised ross-tech didn't point that out to you.

There's a thread on vortex about Byte 18 issues. I could dig it up if you want.

-J

VeeDubTDI · Jan 5, 2013

There is also this 95 post thread from a while ago...

http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=352634

IRISHpride · Jan 5, 2013

would you mind linking to your photobucket? I am having issues opening realplayer.

thank you..

vw_norm · Jan 5, 2013

Wow - you've been busy tonite! Those tails look excellent - nice and bright and did I say bright! I think that I am going to have to get my lights ordered this week.

Fixmy59bug · Jan 5, 2013

Told ya I wanted them on. Ha ha ha ha.

Still have to figure some things out though...

Fixmy59bug · Jan 6, 2013

Ok

This is driving me bat sh*t crazy...

Bt I'm not giving up...

compu_85 · Jan 6, 2013

What's got you tripped up?

Fixmy59bug · Jan 6, 2013

I've got the coding back to A0 like you say it should be.

But when my parking lights are on, all 4 are at full brightness.

You can't see any difference in the turn signals, hazard, or brake lights.

I haven't installed the resistors on the inner lights yet, but that wouldn't change the brightness of the outer lights..

Fixmy59bug · Jan 6, 2013

Thanks for the phone call Jason.

I got the problem fixed, resistors installed, and coding done.

They now work as far as we can get them to for now.

Thanks again. Without you pointing out my error, I would not have figured it out.

compu_85 · Jan 6, 2013

Cool

The brightness of the inner fixtures matches the outers on parking lights?

-J

IRISHpride · Jan 6, 2013

what was the error?

Fixmy59bug · Jan 6, 2013

Jason,

They are a perfect match and everything works great.

Irish,

On the OEM taillights, pin 3 is used as the rear side marker light (the single LED on the side of the taillight) and pin 1 is used for the single filament bulb which is dimmed for rear parking light and full brightness for brake and turn.

When making the wiring harness adaptors, I hooked up pin 3 on the body harness to pin 1 on the taillight, and pin 1 on the body harness to pin 2 on the taillight. I did this because I thought pin 1 on the taillight was running lights and pin 2 was brake/turn.

After Jason understood what I did wrong, he explained I should clip the wire going to pin 1 because the brake light will be dimmed by the BCM to serve as parking lights.

vw_norm · Jan 6, 2013

Fixmy59bug said:
I've got the coding back to A0 like you say it should be.

But when my parking lights are on, all 4 are at full brightness.

You can't see any difference in the turn signals, hazard, or brake lights.

I haven't installed the resistors on the inner lights yet, but that wouldn't change the brightness of the outer lights..

I went through my entire BCM controller today and made screen shots of all of the settings as is, including Byte 18. A0 is not an option to choose from in the drop down menu. Did you directly enter HEX A0 as Binary 10100000? Or is there some other method?

Fixmy59bug · Jan 6, 2013

Hey Jason,

I have an idea I would like to bounce an idea off you...

Right now my trunk lights are not symmetrical with the body lights and it kinda bugs me (slight OCD) so I came up with an idea to solve that.

Currently on the outer lights, the eyebrow, ring and center are lit however on the trunk lights, it is only the eyebrow and ring.

I am thinking about disconnecting T4/1 (on the trunk) and leaving the 100 ohm resistor to fool the bulb out warning, while routing a wire from T6/2 (on the body) to T4/3 (on the trunk).

This should make the trunk light act exactly like the body light in all aspects.

It should light the eyebrow, ring, and middle in a dimmed fashion while giving full power for brake, turn, and hazards.

2 brake lights and turn signals per side would be awfully nice, wouldn't you say?

Fixmy59bug · Jan 6, 2013

vw_norm said:
I went through my entire BCM controller today and made screen shots of all of the settings as is, including Byte 18. A0 is not an option to choose from in the drop down menu. Did you directly enter HEX A0 as Binary 10100000? Or is there some other method?

You are correct, A0 is not a valid selection on the drop down box.

I copied my original coding and manually changed Byte 18 to A0.

If you are going to do this, remember when counting the pairs of digits the bytes start at 00 and count up.

So when looking at your original coding, you will change the 19th pair of digits.

compu_85 · Jan 7, 2013

I've pated the long code into a text editor and changed it there, the long coding helper only accepts "known" codings.

It *seems* that A0 is the proper coding for the US NMS, but remember guys when you change byte 18 it's hard to go back if you don't know what it was!

-J

Fixmy59bug · Jan 7, 2013

For reference, here is how I wired mine up...

This will make the inner lights act like the outer lights.

That means I will have 2 brake lights, 2 parking lights, 2 hazards, and 2 turn signals per side.

compu_85 · Jan 8, 2013

You should take some daytime / dusk videos

Oh, and with that setup you could also put the resistor at the outer tail light pin for the side marker, though I think it works good to put it in the trunk since you can strap it down securely.

-J

Fixmy59bug · Jan 8, 2013

I took another video in a bright parking lot so it doesn't dazzle the camera as much and you can actually see how they work...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v...6-A470-DA085F02575A-6586-000007003B4C6069.mp4

VeeDubTDI · Jan 8, 2013

Video looks great, Robert. I think we're going to have to do the clone mod, too. Talk about some seriously bright brake lights.

Fixmy59bug · Jan 8, 2013

They're not as dazzling as my iPhone camera makes them out to be

But .... 4 brake lights has got to better than 2.

Right? Lol

As a point of reference, you can see they are approximately the same brightness as the CHMSL.

tdiatlast · Jan 9, 2013

Fixmy59bug said:
They're not as dazzling as my iPhone camera makes them out to be

But .... 4 brake lights has got to better than 2.

Right? Lol

As a point of reference, you can see they are approximately the same brightness as the CHMSL.

Anything would be better than the stock brake lights. Under certain lighting conditions (as with many incandescent rear lights), they are hardly visible. I found this out while following my wife driving the Passat in the middle of the day...the reflector quality of the surface of the light fixture just overwhelms the brake light.

VeeDubTDI · Jan 9, 2013

Definitely. Ed - you should order a set of lights for your Passat and Jason and I can help you install them.

I have, in my possession, OEM LED taillights

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