DRLs in '22 Limited (and probably others with factory LED headlights)

q451990 · Oct 12, 2021

We took delivery of a '22 Limited last week to replace our '17. I spent a good bit of time with the '17 to integrate the LED fogs into the factory system. It definitely used a PWM scheme to operate the halogen high beams at partial brightness.

I read about some people trying LEDs in a '21 that came with LED headlights, and only uses halogens in the inner bulb location for DRLs. They noted that one LED bulb will work, but the other one would not, and that's as far as I saw it investigated.

I got out the multimeter, and found that Toyota has simplified the DRLs on the newer models, and are running 9005 bulbs in series to achieve half brightness, rather than PWM. This makes sense as the 9005s are no longer used as high beams. Battery voltage goes to the right bulb on the green wire, the negative pin on the right side feeds the positive side on the left bulb through the pink wire, then the left bulb grounds through the white/black wire on the left side.

Maybe this has been mentioned somewhere, but I didn't find it. I'm going to make up a sub-harness to send full battery voltage and ground to both bulb locations, and install LED 9005 bulbs. I'll post more when I'm done with that project.

I'm looking for some 9005 LEDs that are fanless, and relatively underpowered, so I'm not blasting everyone with super bright high beam DRLs all day. Does anyone have any thoughts on these?

9005 HB3 LED Bulb Kits Fanless Design｜Lasfit

or

Diode Dynamics 9005 HP48 LED Bulbs

Saker · Oct 12, 2021

q451990 said:
We took delivery of a '22 Limited last week to replace our '17. I spent a good bit of time with the '17 to integrate the LED fogs into the factory system. It definitely used a PWM scheme to operate the halogen high beams at partial brightness.

I read about some people trying LEDs in a '21 that came with LED headlights, and only uses halogens in the inner bulb location for DRLs. They noted that one LED bulb will work, but the other one would not, and that's as far as I saw it investigated.

I got out the multimeter, and found that Toyota has simplified the DRLs on the newer models, and are running 9005 bulbs in series to achieve half brightness, rather than PWM. This makes sense as the 9005s are no longer used as high beams. Battery voltage goes to the right bulb on the green wire, the negative pin on the right side feeds the positive side on the left bulb through the pink wire, then the left bulb grounds through the white/black wire on the left side.

Maybe this has been mentioned somewhere, but I didn't find it. I'm going to make up a sub-harness to send full battery voltage and ground to both bulb locations, and install LED 9005 bulbs. I'll post more when I'm done with that project.

I'm looking for some 9005 LEDs that are fanless, and relatively underpowered, so I'm not blasting everyone with super bright high beam DRLs all day. Does anyone have any thoughts on these?

9005 HB3 LED Bulb Kits Fanless Design｜Lasfit

or

Diode Dynamics 9005 HP48 LED Bulbs

Lasfit is 2000LM each vs DD 248LM each.

I think the 2000LM is going to be the opposite of what you want to achieve.

Let us know how this turns out!

ElectroBoy · Oct 12, 2021

q451990 said:
We took delivery of a '22 Limited last week to replace our '17. I spent a good bit of time with the '17 to integrate the LED fogs into the factory system. It definitely used a PWM scheme to operate the halogen high beams at partial brightness.

I read about some people trying LEDs in a '21 that came with LED headlights, and only uses halogens in the inner bulb location for DRLs. They noted that one LED bulb will work, but the other one would not, and that's as far as I saw it investigated.

I got out the multimeter, and found that Toyota has simplified the DRLs on the newer models, and are running 9005 bulbs in series to achieve half brightness, rather than PWM. This makes sense as the 9005s are no longer used as high beams. Battery voltage goes to the right bulb on the green wire, the negative pin on the right side feeds the positive side on the left bulb through the pink wire, then the left bulb grounds through the white/black wire on the left side.

Maybe this has been mentioned somewhere, but I didn't find it. I'm going to make up a sub-harness to send full battery voltage and ground to both bulb locations, and install LED 9005 bulbs. I'll post more when I'm done with that project.

I'm looking for some 9005 LEDs that are fanless, and relatively underpowered, so I'm not blasting everyone with super bright high beam DRLs all day. Does anyone have any thoughts on these?

9005 HB3 LED Bulb Kits Fanless Design｜Lasfit

or

Diode Dynamics 9005 HP48 LED Bulbs

Good catch on the series implementation of your halogen DRLs. It’s actually a decent design. It’s simple and powers the bulbs at half voltage so it will increase their lifetime. And it results in a low intensity yellowish light for making you visible. The one disadvantage is if one bulb burns out it opens the circuit and both will go out.

If you remember the 1990s when DRLs were installed in US cars there was big pushback. One problem cited was the early ones were often too bright and annoying and created a safety hazard for other drivers and pedestrians.

I think [MENTION=103267]Saker[/MENTION] is correct, high power LEDs will be too bright for DRLs. You may want to experiment with different lower intensity LED bulbs, like reverse light bulbs, and custom fit them into the housings, if you’re looking for a white color.

q451990 · Oct 13, 2021

I talked to Diode Dynamics today, and it sounds like the HP48 may fit the bill. He seems to think that at full power, it might be about equivalent to the 9005s running at half power. This sounds like the half a$$ performance I'm looking for for this application.

I'll post more when I get them installed. Knowing my track record, that will either be next week or sometime in 2025.

q451990 · Oct 18, 2021

I finished this project on Friday, but it was after dark. I was able to take some daylight pictures today. I think the Diode Dynamics bulbs were the right call. Somewhat brighter than the stock setup using 9005 bulbs at half brightness, but not overwhelmingly so. I think these work great for DRLs, but would be totally inadequate for high beams. Refreshingly, DD markets them honestly. Hopefully they'll last for a while.

I made a sub-harness with aftermarket 9005 connectors, picking up battery voltage on the right side off of the green wire, and sending it to the left side on the pink wire in the factory wiring. I then ran another wire back from the left side to pick up ground off of the factory white/black wire and send it to the right side. This can all be unplugged and returned to stock very easily, and didn't involve any splicing or tapping of the factory wiring.

Here are some pictures. I tried to a higher shot, and a head-on shot of each bulb style at the same angle. It's close, but the only way to really get that perfect would be to use a tripod.

Factory

LED

ElectroBoy · Oct 18, 2021

q451990 said:
I finished this project on Friday, but it was after dark. I was able to take some daylight pictures today. I think the Diode Dynamics bulbs were the right call. Somewhat brighter than the stock setup using 9005 bulbs at half brightness, but not overwhelmingly so. I think these work great for DRLs, but would be totally inadequate for high beams. Refreshingly, DD markets them honestly. Hopefully they'll last for a while.

I made a sub-harness with aftermarket 9005 connectors, picking up battery voltage on the right side off of the green wire, and sending it to the left side on the pink wire in the factory wiring. I then ran another wire back from the left side to pick up ground off of the factory white/black wire and send it to the right side. This can all be unplugged and returned to stock very easily, and didn't involve any splicing or tapping of the factory wiring.

Here are some pictures. I tried to a higher shot, and a head-on shot of each bulb style at the same angle. It's close, but the only way to really get that perfect would be to use a tripod.

Factory

LED

I think you got this absolutely correct. The DD H7 HP48 bulb is 250 lumens and is marketed as a cosmetic upgrade for DRLs. :thumb3:

H7 HP48 LED Bulbs

Maybe take some photos of your wiring if possible to assist anyone else wanting to do this.

DesertDune4x4 · Oct 20, 2021

Looks great! Nice work on this!

I'm currently on a waitlist for a 2022 Offroad Premium and have been looking for an LED DRL solution as my first mod. I'm also curious to see your wiring harness if it's not too much work to snap a couple pics. Any interest in creating some to sell?

CharlesNellis · Oct 20, 2021

This got me thinking about if there is a way of sending full power to the high beam housings when the projector shields are dropped to highbeam on the 2021s.

I miss the incredible halogen high beams on the pre-bi-led 4runners.

Jrunr · Oct 21, 2021

CharlesNellis said:
This got me thinking about if there is a way of sending full power to the high beam housings when the projector shields are dropped to highbeam on the 2021s.

I miss the incredible halogen high beams on the pre-bi-led 4runners.

Same here!!! Please let me know if you figure this out!!!

T-Runner · Oct 21, 2021

Pix or steps on how you got this to work ? I wanna put in drl led in my 22 trd sport too.

q451990 · Oct 21, 2021

I was a little vague on how to pick up the wiring, because Toyota seems to customize things between trim levels, and I would hate to be responsible for toasting someone's lighting system. But with the disclaimer that you should confirm everything with a multi-meter, and don't hunt me down if you fry something - here's what I did.

I bought an extension harness like this. Amazon.com: iJDMTOY (2) H11 H8 H9 Extension Wiring Harness Sockets Wires Compatible With Headlights or Fog Lights Use : Automotive

and modified them like this:

So the only wire I added is the black wire that takes ground back from the left side to the right side. I'll try to take some pictures of the harness at some point, but it may not look like much since the connections are covered in heat shrink and flexible tubing.

I will also mention that the aftermarket harness that I bought had the red and black wires reversed from the way Toyota does things, so I had to de-pin them and swap them. You could just use red for ground and black for hot if you didn't want to take the time to do that - or the one you buy may be set up correctly.

ElectroBoy · Oct 22, 2021

For a reference to the DRL wiring scheme here's a page from the 2021 headlight wiring diagram.

Legend:
∗13 : Halogen Headlight Type
∗14 : From Aug. 2020 Production High LED Type Headlight
∗15 : From Aug. 2020 Production High Halogen Type Headlight

q451990 · Oct 22, 2021

CharlesNellis said:
This got me thinking about if there is a way of sending full power to the high beam housings when the projector shields are dropped to highbeam on the 2021s.

I miss the incredible halogen high beams on the pre-bi-led 4runners.

I'd say it depends on what kind of signal they're sending to the LED units to change them to high beam. I'm pretty sure there's a solenoid operated shutter in them that lifts up to open the top part of the lens. If it's just a "send 12VDC (or Ground) to the light during high beam operation" type of setup you'd just have to pick that up to feed a relay. The new relay would feed new connectors to the 9005 bulbs. Now, if they're feeding the headlights with some kind of LAN signal, all bets are off.

q451990 · Oct 22, 2021

ElectroBoy said:
For a reference to the DRL wiring scheme here's a page from the 2021 headlight wiring diagram.

Legend:
∗13 : Halogen Headlight Type
∗14 : From Aug. 2020 Production High LED Type Headlight
∗15 : From Aug. 2020 Production High Halogen Type Headlight

Thanks for that! When I click on the link, I'm only seeing one page labeled "Headlight <From Aug 2019 Production>" Are there other pages?

ElectroBoy · Oct 22, 2021

q451990 said:
Thanks for that! When I click on the link, I'm only seeing one page labeled "Headlight <From Aug 2019 Production>" Are there other pages?

Yeah, that’s just page 4 of about 10 pages. I only included the page that shows the circuit you tapped into at A14 and A24. Toyota shows the three wiring variations for halogen/LED high beams in the diagram, designating the wires with (*) which makes it a little confusing at first glance. But with your cable diagram it should all make sense to anyone who wants to repeat your mod.

2021nightshade4x4 · Oct 22, 2021

q451990 said:
I'd say it depends on what kind of signal they're sending to the LED units to change them to high beam. I'm pretty sure there's a solenoid operated shutter in them that lifts up to open the top part of the lens. If it's just a "send 12VDC (or Ground) to the light during high beam operation" type of setup you'd just have to pick that up to feed a relay. The new relay would feed new connectors to the 9005 bulbs. Now, if they're feeding the headlights with some kind of LAN signal, all bets are off.

- In the 4Runner with Bi-LED? No.
There is no SOUND outside the vehicle when switching from low to hi beams. And the change happens in an instant. Hi beams are achieved by lighting ADDITIONAL chips in the same housing. I venture to say that’s why performance is so poor.

- In my 2012 Range Rover? Yes.
- In my 2012 Chevy Volt? Yes.
Both of these vehicles have a “knock” sound when switching to high beams, there is a physical “eyelid” that raises the cutoff to create a full beam. If you look closely you can see the transition of the mirror lifting the cutoff line. This is NOT what happens in the 4Runners.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

ElectroBoy · Oct 22, 2021

2021nightshade4x4 said:
- In the 4Runner with Bi-LED? No.
There is no SOUND outside the vehicle when switching from low to hi beams. And the change happens in an instant. Hi beams are achieved by lighting ADDITIONAL chips in the same housing. I venture to say that’s why performance is so poor.

- In my 2012 Range Rover? Yes.
- In my 2012 Chevy Volt? Yes.
Both of these vehicles have a “knock” sound when switching to high beams, there is a physical “eyelid” that raises the cutoff to create a full beam. If you look closely you can see the transition of the mirror lifting the cutoff line. This is NOT what happens in the 4Runners.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Looking at the headlight wiring diagram for the 2021 model, presuming it’s the same for 2022, it seems you’re correct that additional LED chips are lighted to implement the high beams. It looks like that function is controlled from the Main Body ECU, using the DIM output signal, which controls a relay that supplies power to the SOL input (pin 1) of each headlight. With SOL at 12V it probably lights up the high beam LEDs.
I’ll post up the whole diagram in case someone wants to look into this further.

q451990 · Oct 23, 2021

ElectroBoy said:
Toyota shows the three wiring variations for halogen/LED high beams in the diagram, designating the wires with (*) which makes it a little confusing at first glance.

That explains it. I was confused about the wires labeled (*13, *15) that I didn't remember seeing on my 4Runner!

ScottsBad · Oct 24, 2021

Thanks for the info and work you shared. I'm adding this to my list of mods for my 21 ORP. When I look at my mod list and prioritized it, I'm afraid this mod may not happen for a coupe years unfortunately.

There is a tremendous number of helpful people on this forum who love their 4Runners. I enjoy everyone's input

WonderingWhyToo · Oct 26, 2021

q451990 said:
We took delivery of a '22 Limited last week to replace our '17. I spent a good bit of time with the '17 to integrate the LED fogs into the factory system. It definitely used a PWM scheme to operate the halogen high beams at partial brightness.

I read about some people trying LEDs in a '21 that came with LED headlights, and only uses halogens in the inner bulb location for DRLs. They noted that one LED bulb will work, but the other one would not, and that's as far as I saw it investigated.

I got out the multimeter, and found that Toyota has simplified the DRLs on the newer models, and are running 9005 bulbs in series to achieve half brightness, rather than PWM. This makes sense as the 9005s are no longer used as high beams. Battery voltage goes to the right bulb on the green wire, the negative pin on the right side feeds the positive side on the left bulb through the pink wire, then the left bulb grounds through the white/black wire on the left side.

Maybe this has been mentioned somewhere, but I didn't find it. I'm going to make up a sub-harness to send full battery voltage and ground to both bulb locations, and install LED 9005 bulbs. I'll post more when I'm done with that project.

I'm looking for some 9005 LEDs that are fanless, and relatively underpowered, so I'm not blasting everyone with super bright high beam DRLs all day. Does anyone have any thoughts on these?

9005 HB3 LED Bulb Kits Fanless Design｜Lasfit

or

Diode Dynamics 9005 HP48 LED Bulbs

I’m might be late for this but you could try some $10-$15 pnp led bulbs from eBay those are usually very dim if you trying to use it as headlights.

DRLs in '22 Limited (and probably others with factory LED headlights)

Junior Member

Senior Member

Banned

Junior Member

Junior Member

Banned

New member

New member

New member

New member

Junior Member

Banned

Attachments

Junior Member

Junior Member

Banned

New member

Banned

Attachments

Junior Member

New member

New member

Similar threads

Forum statistics

Share this page

Trending content