e92/e93 Angel Eye Overview and inner workings
The LEDs being used in the AiB assemblies are a 10W SMT LED 5500K equivalent which give off a bright white light. There have been a LOT of contenders in the Angel Eyes for coming up with a possible solution - most of them were failures for a number of reasons:
- Insufficient direction of LED light
- HID systems providing too much light/glare or excessive heat
- Insufficient LED power
- Little or no heatsink used
- Expecting drastic results with tinted or "Xenon" type bulbs
- Uneven brightness between rings
Here's a diagram of the fiber path used in the e92 setup:
The inner lamp will always get a direct shot from the bulb (H8). However, the outer projector will always be weaker due to the travel path needed in the fiber lines to illuminate the ring. This is why the outer rings are always dimmer than the inner.
All the latest and greatest bulbs on the market will not correct this design. This HID kits are interesting as they use a very high color temperature, reducing the lumen output in order to illuminate the rings. Unfortunately - this gives a very blue color, which is not what we're looking for. Also - HIDs run at very high temperatures. These headlamps are by no means cheap to replace.
Voltage Requirements:
E9x M3 headlights are very sensitive to voltage and can give off errors if the proper resistance is not detected as what the system would expect from a H8 bulb - a reason to why "resistor packs" are required on the HID setups. LED systems use a driver pack, which will be integrated into the system to keep these errors from appearing.
System uses very little power and is double the output (10W) than most kits with no flickering experienced from the vehicle's bulbcheck system
Durability Testing:
We have had 4 vehicles in testing since late December '07 before our initial release in June '08 with no errors produced. One car you haven't seen would be our Project1 from the 1Addicts forums:
Features:
- 5500-6000K temperature for a bright,
white light.
- Easy 10-minute installation
- 100% Plug and Play, without the need for wire splicing, tapping or additional wire harnesses
- OEM-like integration
- Low heat output, unlike colored bulbs or HID kits
There's no need to complicate a mod that should be relatively simple on the end-user's side.
