Cornering lights installed

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I drive a lot on dark,desolate rural roads and trying to figure out where the road is on a turn can be an issue. If no one is around, I often use my spotlight to throw light to the left or right so I can see. But it would blind people if I hit someone with it so its of limited use.
I wanted something that wouldn't bother people so I purchased a pair of 10W LED "spot lights" off ebay. I mounted them low on the side of my push bumper and aimed them towards the oncoming corner. I ended up liking the right one at a much shallower angle than the left one, which makes sense. You can see the difference in the video.
Wiring is where I got lucky. I dont know if they thought about using it, or if it fell through the cracks but all 03-04 Crown Vics are wired for cornering lights all the way out to a 4 pin connector behind the side marker. The side marker then has a pigtail with only 2 wires that plugs into that connector. All I had to do was cut the cornering lamp wire at the connector, splice the ground, and run about 2 ft of my own wire to the light. Easy easy.
 
Cornering lights are the bomb. I wish manufacturers still installed them.
 
Originally Posted By: Garak
Colt, Town Cars had cornering lights. That wiring probably came across the platform.

Yes, Grand Marquis and Marauder also used them. Thing is, pretty much every body harness in the car is police specific, as they have a TON of extra power leads coming from the battery fuse box that are left open for police accessories. I think this wiring was overlooked when they designed the individual harnesses and got put into all of them.
 
Yes, that's probably what it is. A buddy had a Marauder, but never noticed whether it had cornering lights or not, and Grand Marquis was often too nice for taxis.
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They're on my Mercedes. Basically it has active curve illumination so when you turn the steering wheel, the fog light on the right or left comes on and then shuts off when you're done. The bixenons also swivel about 12 degrees. Helpful on curves, you end up illuminating the road, not the guard rail. Auto high beams are also pretty cool, I just leave it on all the time and it seems to know when to have them on or not. Goes from low to high slowly so sometimes you don't even notice that the high beams are on until you realize that it's a little brighter than normal.
 
After running around for a week, I can safely say this was the best $20 modding money Ive spent on the car.
Ive also thought about how to put them on another Vic, like my '02 or if I end up in a later car; neither of which have this weird wiring happenstance.
Ive been dabbling in electronics as of late, going as far as to make a few 555 timer circuits. So my mind went there. So what if I triggered a 555 on the high pulse of the turn signal, making it time out only to retrigger on the next.
Was thinking through some of the problems I might have when I came up with something even simpler that should work.
Bring the turn signal feed in through a diode, charging a capacitor, which discharges through a resistor into the base of a transistor. Each high pulse of the turn signal will charge up the cap, the diode will prevent the charge from backflowing into the turn circuit so it has to drain through the resistor and turn on the transistor. The values of the resistor and capacitor will take some playing with but I think it would be easy to do and very simple. Then the tranny would be turning on a relay. I have some circuit board mounted relays I can run with the 2N2222 NPN trans I have in stock. They are rated 2A@30VDC, so not much but should be enough for these 10W leds, or will easily run a common Bosch style relay if you wanted something heavier.
I might work on this at some point if I get bored.
 
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I put some clear sidemarker lights in my '97 Taurus. Then there was some simple wring mod to do to make them come constant on with the turn signal. I also wired them into the reverse light. This was nice in dark parking spaces.
 
Originally Posted By: Garak
Town Cars did them cheaply, but effectively. You turn on your left signal, the left cornering light turns on. Signal off, cornering light off.


Mercedes does it both ways. Either the turn signal or the steering wheel will turn them on/off. They do a nice fade on/off too so they don't really snap on or off. Very noticeable on a dark but not so much in the city.
 
No fade on the Town Cars, of course. The signal cancelled, the cornering light would at the same time. It wasn't obtrusive in the city, either, but helpful on a dark, secluded road.
 
My Saab 900s won the day. Not only did they have cornering lights, but right behind the front cornering lights were a pair of REVERSE lights. They would shine light down the side of the car while backing. Super handy.
 
Hmm. Was trying to think what that would be useful for, but probably seeing out your side mirrors. I usually have my whole body spun around or Im using my rearview mirror. My Side mirrors are set too wide to be useful in backing unless I lean way over to one side or the other.
Neat idea anyway!
 
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