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Angel Eyes Mod |
Angel Eye? What is that? 'Angel Eye' is a cool
headlight feature found on the new BMW 5 Series (2001+) and
BMW 7 Series (2002+). The ellipsoidal/projector
headlamp unit on the BMW 5 series has a pair of circular
shape rings that, when lit up, produce a pair of halos.
BMW calls these luminous rings 'Angel Eyes'. They are
also referred to as 'Demon Eyes' and they look very nice on
the BMW.
They dont serve any purpose other than for the nice and
aggressive look, and to distinguish the newer 5 and 7 Series
from older models. Great design for an already great
looking car! Would definitely look great if BMW also
used them on the 3 Series. This page shows the general
process of creating the 'Angel Eyes' and can be applied to
most vehicles. |
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Creating Angel Eye Rings
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| Instead of a round
glass rod used by BMW, we used a clear acrylic/plastic
rod. You can buy them for $1.97 at Home Depot,
or other home improvement stores. The rod
is actually made for your window blind to open/close
the blind when you turn it left/right. It
is about 30 inches long with a diameter of 8mm,
and you can create two Angel Rings out of it.
The rod has a hex-shape structure, not a round shape
like the BMW, but it will do just fine. |
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The
first thing we did was to create a circular
ring out of it. To determine the circumference
of the ring, we measured the diameter of
our high-beam projector housing, which somes
out to be 4" (or 2" radius).
You will have to cut your rod about 12"
long. We suggest cutting it 15"
long, and use the extra inches as handles
to help in the modling process. |
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| Next,
we found an aluminum can or jar that has about
the same diameter as the ring (we used a peanut
jar). After heating the rod in a small
toaster oven for about 5-7 minutes at 300
degrees, we held the two ends of the now flexible
rod with a pair of pliers, and wrapped them
around the peanut jar with one end crossing
over the other end. For better control,
you can wear your winter gloves or use your
socks. The flexible rod will harden
within 30 seconds. So, you may have
to repeat this step 1 more time to mold it
into a perfect ring. |
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| As
you wrap the rod around the jar, make sure
that one of the flat sides is facing down.
This is important in a later process.
This can be done by putting the rod on a flat
smooth surface. With one of the sides
facing down, wrap the rod around the jar.
As you wrap, make sure you dont twist the
two ends. |
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| Once
done, you can use a Dremel Tool to cut the
extra handles that were used during the molding
process . You will end up with one end
above the other, as shown. Don't worry,
later when you wrap electrical tape around
the rod to hide the LED bulbs, the two open
ends will re-align themselves. If you
like to be perfect, you can simply put it
back in the oven one last time and allow the
ends to soften and flatten |
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To
test out how it lights up, we put a small
halogen bulb between the open ends of the
ring. "Wait a minute here, youg
man, or woman" It doesnt look like
an 'Angel Eye'. No halo ring effect!
Yes, we know. That is because light
goes in a straight line, and it takes the
shape of whatever object it goes through.
In this case, it goes through one end of the
rod and out the other end, like fiber optic
cables. |
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| Making
the Angel Rings Light Up |
In order to make it
light up like the true 'Angel Eye', we had to retract
the light as it goes through the rod by making multiple
cuts (scratches) along the rod, using a Dremel or
RotorMatic tool. Each cut/groove allows the
light to 'escape' the ring. Each cut is about
2 ~ 3mm appart and 1mm deep. Don't make the
cuts too close to one another. This will make
your ring look like a continuous band of light.
In our opinion, the rings look better and more sophisticated
with the cuts evenly spaced out.
It will take about 2 minutes to make the cuts using
a dremel tool. If you dont have a dremel tool,
you can use a small saw or a butter knife, but it
will take you longer. A Dremel tool set will
cost about $30 USD. It has many uses, such
as cutting, sanding, carving, buffing, etc.
Good tool to have for hobbies. You can also
buy the new RotorMatic tool set for only $19.99.
It works the same way as the dremmel.
Hint:
To get
the cuts to look perfect, you can do the cuts ahead
of time before making a circular ring out of it.
You only need to make the cuts along 1 of the 6
sided rod. Doing 2 or more sides will make
your ring look dimmer, because most of the light
has escaped before it reaches the other end of the
rod. Also, let the cutted side be the back
side. When you turn it over to the front,
the cuts will be multiplied by the hex shape which
acts like mirrors, and they are brighter to compared
to the back. The light appears to be refracted
inward. |
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| Light
is being refracted as it hits surface |
Create
the cuts with a dremel tool |
Cuts
along the back-side of the rod |
On
the front side, cuts multiplied by hex shape. |
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| Full
view of angel eye rod |
Angel
eye with some foreground light |
Closeup
of light being refracted through cuts |
Cuts
2 sides vs. 1 side. |
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| LED
Light For the Angel Eyes |
We suggest you use
LED light for your Angel Eyes. Unlike halogen
bulbs, LED bulbs are very efficient, last very long
(no filament to burn out), and produce very little
heat. The LED bulb along with the resistor
use less than 1watt of power, compare to a 35 watt
halogen bulb used in the real BMW Angel Eyes.
LED bulbs are bright too even though they are only
1 mcd. If you ever pointed a keychain with
LED light toward your eyes, you would know what
we mean. Besides, the purpose of Angel Eyes
is for look and style, not to light up the road.
LED bulbs are used in street signal lights, jumbo
television, car alarm indicator etc., for their
efficiency and reliability. They are bright
in the day too. Hence, they are now being
use in tail-lights and stop-lights, as found on
new Mercedes S Class, Infiniti G35 and other luxury
cars. One distinctive feature of LED bulbs
is that they come on/off instantly. Next time
when you follow an S430 or a G35, you will notice
that as the driver steps on or realeses the brake,
the stop-light comes on and off instantly.
It doesn't dim in and out light halogen lights.
LED light comes in many different colors, red, blue,
orange, yellow, green, and white. Red is really
nice and will definitely make your car stand out,
but we used white LED in compliance with state laws.
They even come in multi-blinking colors too, and
we think cops probably love them. They'll
be happy to turn on their version of multi-blinking
light! |
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| Angel
Eye with Yellow LED |
Angel
eye with Blue LED |
Angel
Eye with Red LED |
Angel
Eye with White LED |
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They cost about $4
to $5 each at your local Radio Shack store.
Note that LED bulbs are not like halogen bulbs where
you can just connect positive and negative wires
for them to light up. You must use a resistor.
The purpose of the resistor is to limit/resist high
current going through the LED bulbs. LED bulbs
require only a small amount of current to light
up. Hence the efficiency. Resistors
should cost about $1 for a set of 5. Very
Cheap!
Resistors have different resistance which is measured
in OHM's. To get the correct resistance for
your LED lights use the following format.
When you buy the LED bulb it will tell you the voltage
and amp used. In our case we have a 12V car
battery and a 3.6V LED with 20mA (or .02A).
So, we used a resistor of 420 ohms [(12V - 3.6V)/.02A]
You can use a lower ohms resistor, eg 220 ohms,
to light up your LED. In fact, it will make
your LED brighter because a low resistance allows
more current to go through the bulb. We have
been doing this for over 5 months now and still
have not had a problem. |
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A
white LED bulb, positive is the longer
terminal. |
A
1100 vs. a 2000 mcd LED bulbs. mcd
(milli-candela) measures brightness. |
220ohms
resistor. Restrict current going through
a bulb. |
Resistor
connected to positive lead, which is the
longer one. |
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| Securing
LED Bulbs Inside Angel Eye Rings |
To secure the LED bulbs
into the Angel Eye rings, we drilled a hole in both
ends of the ring, about 6mm wide and 5mm deep.
We used 2 white LED bulbs and parallely paired them
together. After soldering foot-long wires
to the positive and negative legs of the LED bulbs,
we wrapped black electrical tape around the legs
to keep them appart. We will attach the resistor
to the end of the wire later when we connect the
wire to our parking light.
Next, we inserted the bulbs inside the holes of
the ring, and wrapped black electric tape around
it to hide the LED bulbs. This will also hold
the bulbs and the two ends of the rod in place.
DO NOT paint the rod black. For some reason,
the black paint will absorb the light and will make
your angel ring look dim. If you plan to wrap
the black tape around the uncut/unused part of the
ring, make sure you wrap some aluminum foil around
them first before wrapping the black tape.
The aluminum foil will reflect the escaping light
back into the ring, making the ring brighter. |
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| Angel
Ring with 5mm hole. |
LED
bulbs inside ring. |
Use
black electrical tape to secure and hide
the bulbs. |
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| Taking
Apart Our Projector Headlight |
Next, it was time for
us to put them into our HID projector headlight
unit. First, we had to open appart the headlight
unit. This is done by heating it in a cooking
oven (or with heat gun) for about 10-15 minutes
at 275 degree fahrenheit or until the glue loosens.
It may be a longer or shorter time to soften the
glue with different headlamp units. Remove
any attachments, like your bulb or wire harness,
that may not be able to withstand the heat.
Be very careful when separting the units because
the glue will stick to anything it can get a hold
of. Think of hot melted cheese on a slice
of pizza when you pull it apart. Use a butter
knife or a flat-head screwdriver to pry the headlight
apart. Once you've pried it open, you can
use your hands to do the rest of the job.
Here's our recommendation: As you pull apart
the front cover from the headlight unit, separate/trim
the cheesy web-like glue using your hand.
Don't worry, the glue is not that hot, but the headlight
unit is. Remember, pull a little and then
trim a little, and repeat this step.
Take your time and do it SLOWLY. You have
about 20 ~ 30 minutes before the glue hardens.
Plenty of time. As you trim, the glue will
retract, and you can reuse the glue later when re-attaching
the headlight back together. We have done
this process about 4 or more times already with
the same headlight, and the glue is still good and
we have had no problems with rain fogging up the
headlight. |
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| Cheesy-like
glue. |
Components
of our projector headlight with angel eyes
glue to black frame. |
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| Our aftermarketing
headlight was divided into 3 components, a reflective
housing, an internal black frame, and a clear front
cover. We glued our angel rings to the black
frame, using clear silocon adhesive or krazy/super
glue. We applied only a very small amount
of glue to the un-scratch/un-cut part of the ring.
The inner black frame acts as a barrier and helps
protect our angel eyes from the heat coming from
the reflective housing. |
| Putting
the Headlight Back Together |
Next, it was time for
us to re-attach the front cover back onto the headlight
unit, using the same glue. Just reheat them
in the oven until the glue softens again.
Very Important, we only had to heat the reflective
housing and the front cover. You dont need
to re-heat the black internal frame. Doing
so may deform your angel rings. Actually,
the rings didnt get deformed when we first did it.
The silocon glue helps maintain the ring in its
shape.
Once the glue has softened again, we took out the
reflective housing and the clear front cover.
We put the black frame with the angel rings back
onto the reflective housing. Then we ran the
wire from the angel ring through the water drainage
opening in the housing. Now, we put the clear
front cover back onto the headlight housing.
Remember to apply pressure to get an air-tight hold.
We used clamps to make a tight seal. You can
also use a wide-mouth plier for this procedure. |
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| High
beam housing with Angel Eye |
High
beam housing with Angel Eye |
Angel
Eye originally with halogen light |
Use
clamps or pliers for a tight seal |
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| Finally, we put the
headlight unit back into our car. With a 220ohm
resistor attached to the positive terminal of the
LED wire, we made a parallel connection to our parking
lights. You can connect it to anything, an
external light switch, low-beam, high-beam, running
light, etc. This is really neat! Our
alarm system was also connected to the parking lights.
Everytime the car is armed, the rings blink once.
Twice when we disarm, and continuous blinking when
in panic mode. |
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