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      06-24-2014, 04:03 PM   #1
haspi
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Lux H8 Angel Eyes Review

It's been six months since I've purchased Lux H8 V4 Angel Eye replacement kit. Here are my thoughts so far:

* Significantly more expensive then alternatives in the market
* Easy setup, lots of installation videos available
* The kit allows to change the brightness of the color. Good option to have but but absolutely necessary
* Lights flicker when turned off - Not as advertised. Horrible!
* Outer rings are significantly dimmer that inside rings. No way to get around it. - Not as advertised either

Overall I'm not happy with this product. I think I just made $60K+ car look like a $15K rice rocket.

What do you guys think?
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      06-24-2014, 05:17 PM   #2
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Quote:
Originally Posted by haspi View Post
What do you guys think?
I tried several different brands of H8 LED bulbs and decided to go back to the stock halogen bulbs since I was annoyed with "Outer rings significantly dimmer that inside rings."

The cheaper alternatives that I tried weren't bright enough during the day time, so I think you have probably made the best of what is possible.
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      06-24-2014, 05:22 PM   #3
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I bought some 6000K LEDs from eBay. there's many threads on this topic if you search. the difference in brightness of the inner and outer rings is not due to the kit you buy but rather the mechanism BMW uses to light both rings with one bulb. I'm OK with that. The only way you'll get even light distribution is with OEM headlight assemblies. And I'm happy with the $60 I paid; LUX is def a rip off, IMO.
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      06-30-2014, 11:46 AM   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by haspi View Post
It's been six months since I've purchased Lux H8 V4 Angel Eye replacement kit. Here are my thoughts so far:

* Significantly more expensive then alternatives in the market
* Easy setup, lots of installation videos available
* The kit allows to change the brightness of the color. Good option to have but but absolutely necessary
* Lights flicker when turned off - Not as advertised. Horrible!
* Outer rings are significantly dimmer that inside rings. No way to get around it. - Not as advertised either

Overall I'm not happy with this product. I think I just made $60K+ car look like a $15K rice rocket.

What do you guys think?
I'm sorry that you are unhappy with the lights, but the outer rings will always be dimmer than the inner rings. This is due to the design of the headlight itself and there is no way to overcome with with a plug and play bulb. We have designed our lights however to be as bright as possible and to focus as much light into the outer rings. There is just no way to get the outer rings any brighter.
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      06-30-2014, 01:43 PM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by haspi View Post
1. Significantly more expensive then alternatives in the market
2. Easy setup, lots of installation videos available
3. The kit allows to change the brightness of the color. Good option to have but but absolutely necessary
4. Lights flicker when turned off - Not as advertised. Horrible!
5. Outer rings are significantly dimmer that inside rings. No way to get around it. - Not as advertised either
1. Agree.They are very expensive.In Germany they cost 275 Euros.
2. Agree.
3. Agree.And take a look at different Dipswitch settings.Blue LEDs are always turned on.Why?
4. Flickering depends on Software level of the Z4!Itīs not an LUX issue.
5. Read Answer from LuxAngelEyes.

I switched from LUX V4 to LUX V3.
LUX V4 are brighter than LUX V3.But, who cares...

regards from Germany
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      06-30-2014, 01:54 PM   #6
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The lights are the same as the E92. I tried lots of different bulbs and no matter what they promise they all end up looking dim in the daylight and rice at night.

One issue I found with most of the LED solutions is that they tend to either cause radio interference, flicker, cause bulb faults or even worse cause excessive heat in the light housing! The LuX bulbs are no different. Don't let the massive price-tag fool you.

The only way you can get the LCI style rings is to physically change the lights to LCI lights or pay someone to open the housing up and replace the optical rings with LEDs.


I found a solution that not only costs very little but retains the OEM appearance. Brighter and whiter than stock but a softer light that the LEDs. I've done it on my E89 now and it's such an improvement over stock.
You either need some MTEC H8 bulbs or Arc Angels to replace the OEM H8 bulbs. These are basically just brighter bulbs with a whiter light output and look pretty good when only the DRL lights are on. As soon as the main lights are switched on the car drops the voltage of the bulbs down to 5v, thus making the bulbs look dim and orange again!

To get around this issue you need to re-code your car so that the ring lights are running at a higher voltage. This can be done with NCS Expert if you are handy with BMW coding or with a iPhone/Android app called 'BMWhat' which costs around Ģ40 and a Ģ10 bluetooth/wifi dongle.

There's 3 voltage settings for the ring lights. DRL mode, sidelight mode and main-beam mode. I upped all three of mine to 14v. I think the stock voltage is around 12v for DRL and sidelight mode and 5v for main-beam mode.

I would upload some pictures but I don't have any with the lights on. I'll have to remember to take some on the weekend so you can judge for yourself.

The bonus of buying the app is that you can code all sorts of other little changes to the car and check and reset fault codes.

Last edited by CarAbuser; 06-30-2014 at 02:01 PM..
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      06-30-2014, 02:22 PM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CarAbuser View Post
One issue I found with most of the LED solutions is that they tend to either cause radio interference, flicker, cause bulb faults or even worse cause excessive heat in the light housing!


To get around this issue you need to re-code your car so that the ring lights are running at a higher voltage. Ts.
For what it is worth, when you are running the ring lights at the higher voltage, that could be could be contributing to the heat issues you were warning about.

Also, are you suggesting running a higher wattage H8 halogen bulb? If so, that will definitely run the risk of overheating
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      06-30-2014, 05:29 PM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nicknaz View Post
For what it is worth, when you are running the ring lights at the higher voltage, that could be could be contributing to the heat issues you were warning about.

Also, are you suggesting running a higher wattage H8 halogen bulb? If so, that will definitely run the risk of overheating
2v higher isn't going to make any difference, I have checked after a long drive and there was no noticeable heat difference. You can keep it at 12v if you're worried.

The H8 bulbs are the same wattage. 35W with both the Arc Angels and MTEC H8s Halogens.

I think it's a much better solution than having a ballast hanging down inside your headlight assembly! And the heat that some LED units pump out from the ballast is shocking.

Some LED units require you to fit the ballast externally to the light housing which is risking getting moisture into your headlight as the light will no longer correctly seal.

Here's some pictures of the bulbs without the voltage bump.
http://www.bmwland.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=108794

They look whiter but not rice-white.
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      06-30-2014, 06:15 PM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CarAbuser View Post
2v higher isn't going to make any difference, I have checked after a long drive and there was no noticeable heat difference. You can keep it at 12v if you're worried.

The H8 bulbs are the same wattage. 35W with both the Arc Angels and MTEC H8s Halogens.

I think it's a much better solution than having a ballast hanging down inside your headlight assembly! And the heat that some LED units pump out from the ballast is shocking.

Some LED units require you to fit the ballast externally to the light housing which is risking getting moisture into your headlight as the light will no longer correctly seal.

Here's some pictures of the bulbs without the voltage bump.
http://www.bmwland.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=108794

They look whiter but not rice-white.
Agreed. I was definitely not comfortable with the ballasts in the headlight assembly or hanging out of the housing for the exact reasons you pointed out.

Do you have a picture? I haven't seen any blue tinted halogen bulb look good enough to make the coding worth my while (and I tried a few of those too!)
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      06-30-2014, 06:59 PM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CarAbuser View Post
2v higher isn't going to make any difference, I have checked after a long drive and there was no noticeable heat difference. You can keep it at 12v if you're worried.

The H8 bulbs are the same wattage. 35W with both the Arc Angels and MTEC H8s Halogens.

I think it's a much better solution than having a ballast hanging down inside your headlight assembly! And the heat that some LED units pump out from the ballast is shocking.

Some LED units require you to fit the ballast externally to the light housing which is risking getting moisture into your headlight as the light will no longer correctly seal.

Here's some pictures of the bulbs without the voltage bump.
http://www.bmwland.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=108794

They look whiter but not rice-white.
When you code the car to run them at full power it isnt just 2V difference. When the lights are on normally they are only around 80% brightness, and when the headlights turn on the angel eyes are then around 30% brightness. You are actually adding an significant amount of heat. With LED Angel Eyes they utilize much less heat. Even with the LUX H8 V4 lights being on 100% of the time you are only consuming about 9 watts total, but a fraction of that is going to heat since LED's are more efficient then halogen bulbs
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      07-01-2014, 12:07 PM   #11
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ZettVier View Post
4. Flickering depends on Software level of the Z4!Itīs not an LUX issue.
ZettVier
What's the fix? Is it related to voltage issue?
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      07-02-2014, 01:52 AM   #12
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Ordered my Lux the week they came out for Z4 and have no regrets.
I always drive with headlamps on which washout the outer rings and eliminates oe design issue. The price, well it wasn't the $2k+ I spent making the first quad projectors with quad xenons and angel eyes for my e46. Love my LUX.
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Last edited by z4z4z4; 02-04-2015 at 01:38 AM..
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      07-02-2014, 12:42 PM   #13
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For those looking to spend $2k, I think putting in the OEM LCI headlights is the way to go for the Z4
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      07-02-2014, 02:49 PM   #14
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Quote:
Originally Posted by haspi View Post
What's the fix? Is it related to voltage issue?
Go to your dealer and ask for an firmware update.
Most dealer will tell you : Update by your own risk....and they will charge you.
Firmwareupdate needs round about 8 hours.
Check your Softwarelevel of your Z.
If you see an "A" as first letter, you know it is an very old level.
Level "E" is the latest one, depends on your model.
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      07-02-2014, 03:40 PM   #15
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CarAbuser View Post
...The H8 bulbs are the same wattage. 35W with both the Arc Angels and MTEC H8s Halogens...
Rules of electronics circuits is heat is disipated by the release of the light that is emitted from the bulb. Hiking up the volts doesnt really increase the output of heat. It is actually a combination of amps versus watts of the bulb that does this. So if you have a 35W bulb running at say 3 amps at 14V it wouldn't emit the same amount of heat as a 12V bulb at 3 amps and 35W. There is an increase in amps as well if you increase the volts of the circuit via software. All of this is governed by

Ohms law
I = E / R
E = I R
R = E / I

or

Joule Law
P = IE
P = E2 / R
P = I2 R


Note the following
E = Voltage in volts
I = Current in amps
R = Resistance in ohms
P = Power in Watts
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Last edited by rking117; 07-02-2014 at 03:57 PM..
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      07-02-2014, 04:57 PM   #16
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Quote:
Originally Posted by haspi View Post
It's been six months since I've purchased Lux H8 V4 Angel Eye replacement kit. Here are my thoughts so far:

* Significantly more expensive then alternatives in the market
* Easy setup, lots of installation videos available
* The kit allows to change the brightness of the color. Good option to have but but absolutely necessary
* Lights flicker when turned off - Not as advertised. Horrible!
* Outer rings are significantly dimmer that inside rings. No way to get around it. - Not as advertised either

Overall I'm not happy with this product. I think I just made $60K+ car look like a $15K rice rocket.

What do you guys think?
I have the F30 with OEM LED angel eyes and I did the LUX on my 2011 E89. Obviously they are not the same. The LUX are not as bright or "white" or have the consistency of intensity between inner and outer rings as the OEM.

However, mine are bright enough to see in the day light (even when it is very sunny here in Louisiana), they DO NOT flicker and are indeed white. Most people who see them, including other BMW owners, like them. I don't think they are "ricer". They're just not like the newer BMW LED. Better to think of them as a change of the original color...from a dull yellowy white to a bright white white if that makes sense.
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      07-03-2014, 10:36 AM   #17
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Is it possible for me to check the software level ? How?

Quote:
Originally Posted by ZettVier View Post
Go to your dealer and ask for an firmware update.
Most dealer will tell you : Update by your own risk....and they will charge you.
Firmwareupdate needs round about 8 hours.
Check your Softwarelevel of your Z.
If you see an "A" as first letter, you know it is an very old level.
Level "E" is the latest one, depends on your model.
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      07-05-2014, 06:12 AM   #18
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@ haspi
Sure:
Keep Daily Mileage Reset Button pushed.
Put Key into the Lock.
For scrolling in the Main menu, push the Daily Mileage Reset Button step by step, until you find Menu Point 1.06.
Wait 2 Seonds and it should display the SW Level.
To skip back to Main menu, push Daily Mileage Reset Button for 2 seconds.

I hope there is no difference between US and Europe Z4....try and confirm.
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