1st Gen R50 Cooper Most liked posts in thread: Needed a little more light...

Here are the dim lights on a backroad.


Here are the brights.



And here are the brights with the LED bar.



The pictures don't really do justice to how much light these put out. I'm pretty impressed with the output per $.

 

Here's the final result.

 

Thanks! We did our best to hide as much wiring as possible. I'm really happy with the stability of the mount. There is literally no bounce when you hit a bump.

 

Thanks Don. The lightbar is completely independent of the headlights. I wired it to the cigarette lighter/12V accessory port so I can only use the bar if the key is on. This makes it impossible to accidentally leave the lightbar on and drain the battery as long as the key is not in the ignition. If the ignition is on, the lightbar still has no power unless the button next to the power mirror switch is pushed down into the "ON" position. If the switch is on, the button lights up Orange so I know that power is available to the relay IF I push the foot switch.
So, TWO switches have to be in the ON position to get the light bar to work.

 

I would have used the high beam to trigger it but the high beams are used at half power for the Daytime Running Lights. This makes them unusable as a trigger unless you have the drl's turned off at the dealer. I think the only other way to do it would be to find the lead to the high beam indicator in the dash, but I don't know if it would have enough power to throw the relay.

(You have two more stripes than I did when I got my DD214) well done!

 

Thanks for the replies! Aslondon, I've got four Hella's sitting in the garage. Two fog and two driving. I was going to put them on the Mini but the mounts alone would've cost me more than my whole led setup. Plus, I just liked the look of the flat bar and wanted to see how it'd look. In pretty happy with it. It shouldn't have any issues staying aimed.

 

What I've found so far:

They're pulling less than 10 amps or 120w. I installed a 10A fuse at the relay from the battery.

They light up a bunch of the surrounding area, not just the roadway. While I don't necessarily need to see what's up in a tree ahead of me, I DO like to see what's 40' off of the roadway in the fields. I was heading home around midnight the other night and the LED bar lit up a deer off in a field but looking at the road with that "Can I make it?" look. It was 50, 60' off of the road and probably 250-300' down the road. I hit the switch to shut off the lightbar and it was completely invisible. Never would've known it was there. Kicked the LEDs back on and there it was again.

I like how the bar LOOKS on the car, but the low mounting point kills some of the distance I think I'd get if it was mounted higher.

All in all, it's leaps and bounds better than the stock headlights and it didn't cost me an arm and a leg.