activating DRLs in a USA built Ram

How about buying some white LED DRL aftermarket lights.
I am thinking about putting them on my 2014 Laramie. There is a perfect place in the plastic bumper.
They also have control modules which only need to be hooked to +12V and a ign. on connection.

I suspect the current running lights are amber LED's. Normally you would want DRL to be brighter than the LED's at night. So this means you need a special controller to control the brightness of the LED's. You would need dim for night time, and bright for turn/DRL I think.

Dan

like these?

http://www.ramforum.com/f41/drls_installed-27806/

Which I sell here - Morimoto x.DRLs / Backup lights

The current DRLs on the trucks with the OEM projectors is the LED parking lights. At night.....DRLs aren't on anymore, they go off when you turn the headlights on. On my DRLs, I have them set to turn off when I turn the parking lights on - simply because they are so damn bright, and they "throw" light everywhere - I didn't want to blind anyone. And.......I don't need an officer giving me trouble for having my low / fog / drl on at the same time........as in my state (and most) - you can only legally have 2 sets of forward facing lights on at a time.

Has anyone looked at the truck wiring for the LED parking/Turn lights.
Since these have two brightness levels, there could be two wires for +12 (one for parking & one for Turn), OR..they may only have one wire and control the brightness in a control module.

Dan

HLram said:

I don't know if it is possible to turn urs on or not, but if it isn't, then you can either turn the switch every time you get in truck (not being a smarta$$), OR, a better, easier idea is to maybe put some black tape over the sensor that tells it it is daylight/dark outside? I know that is kinda ghetto, but it has got to be a lot cheaper than an aftermarket system. Good luck! On edit: maybe the dealer can just bypass the sensor or wire it directly?

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I believe the parking lights are dimmer then the DRL's as they are not bright enough to be easily scene in high daylight conditions, the DRL's will light up the same brightness of when your turn signal is on.

I have been searching far and low for how to get my DRLs activated on my '13 sport...I've been to two local dealers. My main dealer has attempted twice with me standing right behind the tech as he had the truck hooked up to the computer with no luck. I followed steps mentioned on another forum as to how they are activated but still no luck. I really would like to have the amber LEDs powered up full power when I'm driving, but it just doesn't look like it's going to happen.

firemedic10584 said:

I have been searching far and low for how to get my DRLs activated on my '13 sport...I've been to two local dealers. My main dealer has attempted twice with me standing right behind the tech as he had the truck hooked up to the computer with no luck. I followed steps mentioned on another forum as to how they are activated but still no luck. I really would like to have the amber LEDs powered up full power when I'm driving, but it just doesn't look like it's going to happen.

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Hope they figure something out for you, Mine finally came in with the factory installed DRLs, it was a harness problem. Only way to fix it as far as I can tell was with a new harness or cut the proper wires into the existing harness. Best of luck.

Well I've got a wiring diagram I'm going to try tomorrow using a 5 pin relay. I'm no expert when it comes to wiring but I got a good idea. I'll give it a shot and report back.

firemedic10584 said:

Well I've got a wiring diagram I'm going to try tomorrow using a 5 pin relay. I'm no expert when it comes to wiring but I got a good idea. I'll give it a shot and report back.

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0212353 said:

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I attempted...getting closer to figuring it out. Think I need a smaller relay that doesn't require 12v to close the circuit.

yeah, after thinking about it........

Power isn't sent to the turns ALL the time....when in turn signal mode. That kinda jacks **** up now doesn't it?

Something you should do first, is check what voltage is going to the LED array (amber LEDS).

Regular bulbs have two filaments, one is bright for turn-sig, the other is less power for parking light…but each filament takes 12 volts.

LED’s are different, they need to have a minimum voltage to turn on, AND you can’t give extra voltage to control brightness …although the brightness does change a little when the voltage changes.
The way you control LED brightness is with PWM (Pulse Width Modulation).
Think of it like this…if you toggle a switch off & on very quickly, you are modulating the power. 50% on & 50% off will equal ½ brightness.

Here is what you need to find out….where is the electronics that actually does this.
They “MIGHT” have the electronics inside the Parking light housing. If they did, there could be a three wire connection (ground, +12 for Park, +12 for turn).
OR…They may just have a 2 wire connection (ground & control) The control would come from an electronics module elsewhere.

If you only have a two wire connection, you won’t be able to get DRL operation with a relay.

Hope this makes sense….let us know what you find.
Could you post your wiring diagram, I would be very interested in seeing it.

Dan

dpinvidic said:

Something you should do first, is check what voltage is going to the LED array (amber LEDS).

Regular bulbs have two filaments, one is bright for turn-sig, the other is less power for parking light…but each filament takes 12 volts.

LED’s are different, they need to have a minimum voltage to turn on, AND you can’t give extra voltage to control brightness …although the brightness does change a little when the voltage changes.
The way you control LED brightness is with PWM (Pulse Width Modulation).
Think of it like this…if you toggle a switch off & on very quickly, you are modulating the power. 50% on & 50% off will equal ½ brightness.

Here is what you need to find out….where is the electronics that actually does this.
They “MIGHT” have the electronics inside the Parking light housing. If they did, there could be a three wire connection (ground, +12 for Park, +12 for turn).
OR…They may just have a 2 wire connection (ground & control) The control would come from an electronics module elsewhere.

If you only have a two wire connection, you won’t be able to get DRL operation with a relay.

Hope this makes sense….let us know what you find.
Could you post your wiring diagram, I would be very interested in seeing it.

Dan

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OK, well ya lost me there for a little bit. As for the wiring to the lights themselves...I'm not sure. I'm just using the stock wiring in the back of the headlight harness to tap into. Here's how I wired things so far. (I started a thread on this in the general discussion section also).

I used a regular 12v 5 pin automotive relay.

On the headlight harness -
Pin 4- 12v to that powers the amber LEDs at full, constant power.
Pin 12 - that is the power wire for the turn signal
Pin 2 - Parking light power

From the Relay -

Pin 86 - I ran this to the parking light wire to act as the "off" trigger to test.
Pin 87A - I ran this to pin 4 on the headlight harness to power the ambers at full power.
Pin 30 - I ran this to a fuse on the fuse block that only comes on with the truck.
Pin 85 - Grounded to a reliable ground point.

This is what happened after the above connections were made.

I turned the truck on and the amber LEDs fired up at full power. I activated the parking lights and I could see the smaller side amber light come on in the headlight indicating the parking light function was activated, but the ambers did not dim down to parking light mode as they should have. I could hear the relay clicking as if the connection was closing...but the lights did not dim. So that's where I'm at so far.

I was going to see what the volts were coming from the parking light wire, but I couldn't get the dang harness off the headlight this morning. I got aggravated and have had the truck apart 10 times in the past 4 days..so I'm putting it on hold for a bit. But, if you can give me some advice on if I did something wrong, or you know something else I should do, I'll try it.

Since you see extra LED's for parking, I wonder if you really have two sets of LED's (one for high and one for low).
We really need to figure out how they are controlled before hooking up a relay.
What year is your truck?
I have a 2014 Laramie, and when I turn on the 4-way flashers & the parking lights, I see the same LED's alternating brightness (never see any extra LED's like you saw).

I also don't understand why you have 3 wires that provide 12v to the housing.
Is one of them 12v ALL THE TIME?
I would have expected two 12v wires. one each for park & turn.

Dan

dpinvidic said:

Since you see extra LED's for parking, I wonder if you really have two sets of LED's (one for high and one for low).
We really need to figure out how they are controlled before hooking up a relay.
What year is your truck?
I have a 2014 Laramie, and when I turn on the 4-way flashers & the parking lights, I see the same LED's alternating brightness (never see any extra LED's like you saw).

I also don't understand why you have 3 wires that provide 12v to the housing.
Is one of them 12v ALL THE TIME?
I would have expected two 12v wires. one each for park & turn.

Dan

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I PMed you back, but so everyone else can follow along with us -

When I said extra lighting, I didn't mean another row of LEDs, there is one small amber LED that powers on in the corner of the headlight housing when u turn the parking lights on.

But as for the wiring in the back of the headlight housing -

Pin 4 - 12v to that provides constant full power to the amber LEDs.
Pin 2- parking light power
Pin 12 - turn signal power.

If people are still trying to do this look here..........


www.ramtrucks.com/assets/bbg/pdf/dddpdrl.pdf

^^^^^^ My dealer followed the above instructions and now my truck (with projectors) has amber DRLs! Loving the look!

I wished we could do this ourselves without going to the dealer. Does the dealer charger for this? I do wish the LEDs were white but it would be better than nothing.

ncbeast said:

I wished we could do this ourselves without going to the dealer. Does the dealer charger for this? I do wish the LEDs were white but it would be better than nothing.

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EVIC option would be great.

Thank you

i know this is an old thread but i had a bully dog programmer in 2013 and it had the option to turn drls on and it worked perfectly as did the fogs staying on with the high beams which even after returning to stock the fogs stayed on with the high beams its one of the adjustable features not in the tune itself so it is possible on us built rams mine is a 2013 ram 1500 express rcsb with ramboxes