Homemade LED DRL (Daytime Running Light)

This is my first instructable and I'm from Portugal, so, please be kind with me and sorry for my english because it's not perfect.

So, the idea here is to make a LED DRL but all by myself and, it's easy, cheap and the final result is awesome!

I will try to explain all steps, one by one so you can understand and try to make your own ;)

List of materials and tools that you need to make 1 DRL

• 4x 1W Led beads

• 4x Heatsinks

• Piece of aluminium (this will be your DRL base)

• Epoxy glue

• Drill machine

• Deburr Machine (to cut the piece of aluminium)

• Hot glue gun

• Soldering iron

• Bunch of old wires

The LED's and the Heatsinks you can find easly on ebay, just search for "1W led beads" and "1w led heatsink" and you can find them on the links below:

LEDs: http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0...

Heatsinks: http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0...

Now you have to cut the aluminium piece with the size that you want.

My piece of aluminium will have 10cm of length

On this step, you have to solder the LED Beads to the heatsinks.

Be careful to solder all in the same position as I show you in the pic above, so it can be fine in the end ;)

By the way, I will use 4x 1W LEDs in each DRL, and every LED "need" 3/4V so, 3x 1W LEDs would be enough but with only 3 LEDs, the brightness is too much and the whole thing heat up so fast so I added 1 more LED and it works really fine and the brightness is equally fine too ;)

Now you have to solder all the 4LED's, in series as you can see in the pic above.

If you solder them in the wrong position it won't work!

Test the LEDs with any 12v source to check if they are working fine. If they work as mine, move to the next step.

On this step you have to glue the LEDs on the piece of aluminium.

This piece of aluminium will work as heatsink and will help to cool down the temperature of the LEDs

Mix the epoxy glue and be sure that the LEDs are secure on the aluminium piece so they do not fall from your car :O

Make 2 holes on the aluminium piece with the drill machine, 1 in each side of it, just like you can see in the picture.

Now, grab some wires and solder 1 on each side.
1 Red wire on the positive side (+)

1 Black wire on the negative side (-)

I recommend you to put some hot glue on these 2 solders points, where you put the wires, so they become safer and never break ;)

Check the next step to see what i'm talking about the hot glue.

Put some hot glue on each solder point too because these little bits of hot glue will protect the LEDs from rust and apply as much as you can because as you see in the picture above i'm getting some little points of rust.

If you want, instead of hot glue you can apply some paint and it will protect it too ;)

The process is almost done!
Now you just have to make another DRL so you have 2 of them and then, just applly the DRLs on your car.

It's easy, if you have space enough you can fix it with some screws, but if not, like me, put some epoxy below the DRLs and finish the work with some hot glue in front and in each side of the DRLs ;)

This is the easiest part but for some of you guys this could be a little hard because in some vehicles the fuses are hidden and are hard to find :O

You just have to connect the (- negative) wire to some negative part of your car and then the (+ positive) wire of the 2 DRLs together in some fuse of your car that only work when you turn on the ignition.

You have to test the fuses to see what fuses work with the ignition off and what fuses work with the ignition on.

But if you want you can connect directly to the battery and put 1 switch inside your car so you can control it and turn on/off when you want, but I prefer to turn on the ignition and they turn on automaticly and when I turn off the car the DRLs turn off automaticly too ;)

And this is the final result.
In my opinion it looks great, better than some cheap chinese DRLs kits, cheaper and it's all made by ourselves, and I think that is the point ;)

I have made another pair of DRLs to our work truck and it looks awesome too!

So that's it, hope you guys enjoy this Instructable and every question that you have or any error that you find please tell me.

Please comment and make suggestions! Thanks!

Have a nice day everyone, and a big hug for all =D