Change LED eyebrows on pre-facelift E60

[chris30o0]

DISCLAIMER!
I do not have any kind of technical experience in that area! I just wanted to do this, so I did.
This only represents what I did and what my experience is so far. I can not guarantee that your headlights will be waterproof after this!
Work responsibly and think before you do something!

Since there's not much available on this topic I'd like to pass on some insight on what I did to change my eyebrows' color.
Unfortunately I had no nerve for taking many pictures (actually planned on making a video but dear god.. no). I'm trying to describe everything even more detailed.
I advise you to first read this as some hints might come too late if you just follow step-by-step.

Things you'll need:

• (optional) extra set of eyebrows (I bought two cheap headlights off eBay)
• 12 4-pin LEDs - 6 for each side - in the color you want (I used OVFSxxC8, red does not work due do too low voltage - white and green work fine)
• soldering iron + accessories
• heat gun
• Silicon to reseal the headlights (I used ordinary silicon for outdoor usage)

Now this is what you'll need to do:

1. Get to the eyebrows
To get to the eyebrows you do not neccessarily have to remove the headlights (I did not).
Simply remove the cover which sits right on top and use the heat gun (mine claimed to do 300°C/570°F) to soften the silicon around the eyebrow-panel (the one where the cable goes in - should be obvious).
Be very careful to not apply too much heat since some plastic parts in the area also easily melt at that temperature. Also don't wait too long as it gets harder every second.
I used a screwdrive to remove the silicon in the area completely, whereas other tutorials suggest to just cut out the panel.
After having removed all silicon which covers the panel it should be removeable with little force.

In your hands you'll have a part like this:
20161118_204543.jpg
Apparently there are minor differences in the panels since one I got from eBay was a little different from a second one from eBay.
This shouldn't harm the project.

2. Remove the old LEDs
To remove the LEDs there may be some force needed first: The circuit board might be held by some kind of plastic spike (you'll know if it is) which I forcibly removed with a screwdriver.
I did not see a different way of removing the board.
Once having the board in your hands you may start to desolder the LEDs. This is very tricky and time-consuming because of the four pins. Also note that half of the pins have solder on both sides of the board.
I spent most of my time with this. A desoldering pump most definitely helps a lot and I encourage you to use one. If you don't have it, go buy it. It saves time!
While removing, you might notice that plus and minus are marked on the LED by small holes within the conductor. Save that info for the next step.

3. Place the new LEDs
This task should be comparatively easy. Just do step 2 in reverse but be careful to put in the LEDs the right way round! Testing before soldering might not be possible due to too little contact. Also you do not want to desolder again - you really don't, so just check it beforehand!
If you have some kind of 12V-power supply you can test the eyebrows now. You can also measure that the power consumption will be the same as before so errors are unlikely.
At this point, testing it directly on your headlight is possible and advised.

4. Replace the eyebrows
During soldering on three of the four eyebrows I had the isolation of the two cables was so porous that it just fell off. Be sure to use some tape or similar to fix this. In my case there most definetly would've been a short circuit!
If everything looks well clip in the circuit board so it sits tight and place the panel where it was before.
Use the silicon to seal the area where you removed the old silicon.
Ideally you'd have something to apply pressure with for at least a few hours. I did not and I'm not completely happy with the result.
Also be careful to not do this during cold and/or rainy weather. I had both and again - I'm not completely happy with the result.
The silicon needs warm and dry surroundings to dry perfectly. The exact time for drying varies and usually is printed onto the silicon (including ideal temperature and so on).


Done!

Before:
20161112_122147.jpg

After:
20161112_133452.jpg 20161112_162811_001.jpg
(exlcuding the green Angel Eyes which is a separate project)


If you have any questions or hints for others, please share them here!

[kuwacs]

Looks pretty good, man! My only concern is in my area, police aren't trilled with anything other than orange and white up front, and orange and red lights in the back. I like seeing the Honda Civics with 55watt HID kits getting pulled over for blinding a cop.

I would definitely consider doing this with white LEDs along with the LEDs angel eyes!

[chris30o0]

Same thing here, which is why I did those two sets: The green one for fun / whenever I feel like switching again and the white/orange set for daily use.

[iman760]

Good Job,

Looking at your panel picture I am sure you did the project very neat and so clean.

Here is my story :

One of my eyebrows blacked out while I was messing with it to white up my parking lights, so I decide to change them both to white now that I am getting my hands dirty!

I didn't want the whole(all six leds) eyebrow to be white, only the arc (6th led) so I desolder the 6th one but it needed 5th led to be get out first, since I cutted the original leds legs with a tiny wire cutter cause I was unable to suck solder with a desolderig decice,I believe solders are too small and not enough to makes the desoldering pump work) and since I had only bought white leds I had no choice but to have both 5th and 6th leds replaced with white. I left the others yellow and untouched.
During the desoldering process I accidentally removed a small part of the copper board that was linking two legs of 6th led, to correct and connect the disconnection(Which was unnecessary I tell you why) I used a small string of a wire and solder that to the legs I wish connect.
there are two cathode and two anodes in a four leg LED and they are connected to each other, cathode to cathode and anode to anode, so if you accidentally removed a piece of copper from led board, dont panic, At most, youve not disconnected anything!
I couldn't test the result and plugged it and it worked.Ive just made a total mess in gettng the panel out, getting ride of silicon is not that easy!

Now My Problem : The one that wasn't working(left)still doesnt work, I checked both panels boards and they both lit up at the correct side(right).so that nothing is wrong with the boards,I believed the internal wiring (of left light) was the culprit.
Unfortunately I couldnt find where the other side of those black wires that goes into the black panel (eyebrow leds) harness will go,They just goes to the light cover and vanish!, I don't know how to check the route and possible disconnection(s).
Using an ohm meter, I found out that both black wires of eyebrow harness are connected to main harness pin 1 and 4 (or 7 if you count zig zag)

I found the main harness pinout in the follwoing picture, however my ground pin was 1(down right) and not the one shows in picture
http://5series.net/forums/attachment...1169992891.jpg

So there should be no disconnection!

what is wrong with my eyebrow?

[chris30o0]

Don't worry, if I had written down all the mistakes I did nobody would read my post due to its length
In fact I did something similar - created a shortcut and didn't notice it. I also thought that I had damaged the copper somewhere and soldered a wire in.
Took me a about 2 hours to figure it out.

Unfortunately I can't help with the wiring as I didn't do anything around there.

[Nick91303]

Chris I have a 07 E60 I'm assuming it's pre LCI. I'm new to the BMW world lol. But I want to change those ugly amber lights to white. But I have noticed on mine I look threw the light and there are 2 rows of leds in that eyebrow piece. Do you know anything about that or is it mirroring it and I'm just seeing double lol?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G891A using Tapatalk

[chris30o0]

Hi, if it's actually is a pre LCI they are 'mirrored'.
It's one LED in the back but the light comes out through two holes in the front.

[Nick91303]

Great thank you Chris. I had a feeling it might of been mirrored lol. I'm new to BMW so not very knowledgeable YET lol. I have changed the angle eyes already witch the inventor of it needs to be shot lol. But do you know anything about coding? I want to have the angle eyes on with the DRL and also want to change drl and fog to LED but not sure about bulb brightness. I want them bright lol. Any info would be greatly appreciated.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G891A using Tapatalk

[chris30o0]

I don't know how to achieve this by coding.
However, if you don't use CAN-bus LEDs you'll need to code some things so you won't get any error messages.

[robert334]

my right eyebrow is daed, but sometimes it is turning on, I think moisture is the cause, the guy from service said that if I can take it out he will solve is .The problem is that I am verry afraid to heat it up because of the plastic around it, it did not suffer anything?

[chris30o0]

Be very careful to not apply too much heat since some plastic parts in the area also easily melt at that temperature.

As I stated in the first post, it is possible to damage some softer plastic parts. What I molt was one holder of the cover of the eyebrows. I had to melt it again and form it roughly to how it looked before. It's not that bad, still fits.
If you're worried about the headlight itself: It doesn't melt (at least not at the temperature I used).
It is totally sufficient to go slow on that and apply only little heat. You can increase it little by little when you realize it won't melt.
Also, don't expect the silicon to become liquid, it just gets a bit softer so you can cut it out easily.