[detroitm2]

Originally Posted by bjams

FWIW I used Bimmercode to get full adaptive functionality out of my ‘18 LCI and as far as I can tell it works perfectly. The headlights move all over the place and I’ve never been flashed by oncoming traffic. Not sure if this is the same way they work in Europe but it sure seems like it’s doing all the things as advertised.

I will say, though, that certain behaviors such as tunneling only seem to work above certain speeds, and obviously only on much darker roads which is hard to find living in a big city.

Can you share the changes you made in bimmercode to enable this? Also have an '18 LCI. My headlights move a little bit, but not much.

[bmxcamel]

Originally Posted by bjams

FWIW I used Bimmercode to get full adaptive functionality out of my '18 LCI and as far as I can tell it works perfectly. The headlights move all over the place and I've never been flashed by oncoming traffic. Not sure if this is the same way they work in Europe but it sure seems like it's doing all the things as advertised.

I will say, though, that certain behaviors such as tunneling only seem to work above certain speeds, and obviously only on much darker roads which is hard to find living in a big city.

I suspect you just haven't had the "tunnel" feature activated enough to be flashed. That is correct that it only works on darker back roads for the most part.

Try turning on auto lights on the freeway and you'll get flashed for sure. With my F80 I could roll all day with just the right beam on and never get flashed. With my F87 I got flashed 30s after entering the freeway.

[bjams]

Originally Posted by bmxcamel

I suspect you just haven't had the "tunnel" feature activated enough to be flashed. That is correct that it only works on darker back roads for the most part.

Try turning on auto lights on the freeway and you'll get flashed for sure. With my F80 I could roll all day with just the right beam on and never get flashed. With my F87 I got flashed 30s after entering the freeway.

Dunno, I’ve had it coded since July and have driven on the freeway with it plenty of times, and I always turn auto on as soon as I start driving at night. I’ve had it on the expressway, as well as smaller 2 lane roads at night. Never been flashed!

[GregoryK]

Back onto the difference between US and Euro headlamps.
I am in Canada so read the posted bulletin from Transport Canada. Call me stupid but I don't see any reference to tunneling headlamps. Also everything that they mention seems to be on my car now (before coding)...Also the M2C has the same headlamps as our cars and you would think that if they where gong to bring in this feature wouldn't they do it now?
ALSO everything here that is being discussed is for the F80. Almaretto (who I have the upmost respect for) has stated that the headlamps from the newer 2018 Cars with LCI LED headlamps can not be coded. I am not sure why this would be so as they still have the same part #. Anyone here have an opinion?....

[bmxcamel]

Originally Posted by bjams

Dunno, I’ve had it coded since July and have driven on the freeway with it plenty of times, and I always turn auto on as soon as I start driving at night. I’ve had it on the expressway, as well as smaller 2 lane roads at night. Never been flashed!

What did you code specifically to activate this feature?

[bjams]

I’m sorry, I should have written it down because I don’t remember exactly what I coded. I believe I got it from a spreadsheet that I found on here, through a bit of searching.

For example, check out this video of a German dude showing off his adaptive LED at night (M240i LCI). This is exactly what my headlights do on similar roads. I think you guys may be overestimating the “tunneling” ability of the fully functional lights. They looked super responsive in that one promotional video released by BMW, but the reality is a bit more clunky (but still super cool!)

[bmxcamel]

Originally Posted by bjams

I’m sorry, I should have written it down because I don’t remember exactly what I coded. I believe I got it from a spreadsheet that I found on here, through a bit of searching.

For example, check out this video of a German dude showing off his adaptive LED at night (M240i LCI). This is exactly what my headlights do on similar roads. I think you guys may be overestimating the “tunneling” ability of the fully functional lights. They looked super responsive in that one promotional video released by BMW, but the reality is a bit more clunky (but still super cool!)

Again, having owned an F80 with this feature enabled, the tunneling is very obvious when it works.

When I coded this on in my F87, I could see the lights moving horizontally as though they were in position to tunnel, however the light pattern they produced was just an all-out blast of high beams.

Perhaps you can find the coding you used specifically and share in case I missed something when I attempted this.

[Nezil]

As the OP of this thread, I'm still getting updates. I did a lot of experimenting with 5AP and 8S4 coding, and found that for my car (2017 September Build; 2018 MY LCI M2), VLD worked fantastic, and is enabled by a single coding change.

NGHB appeared as though it was working, but a tunnel would not be formed. If traffic was oncoming, you only get the drivers side High Beam pointed at the side of the road, which is great. The problem is when there is no oncoming traffic, but you're following a vehicle. The lights should form a tunnel around the car in front, and not be high beaming them into their rear view mirror and this simple doesn't happen on my car.

There are some situations where this can dazzle oncoming drivers, but the more common issue is dazzling the car in front through their rear view mirror.

I posted a video of my finding in another thread, but here it is again to save you searching:

First off, an example of the NGHB high beam to the right behaviour. In this clip, you can see the beam come on, go off, move around etc.

This next video gives an example of where I think the tunneling isn't happening. From around 18 seconds, I come up on another car, and I seem to have full high beams on it.

And a link to the original thread where i worked through the coding options with the help of Almaretto:

https://f87.bimmerpost.com/forums/sh....php?t=1427376

I'm prepared to believe that later LCI cars have different hardware than mine, simply because I can only speak from experience with my car's hardware, but I'd be very very surprised.

One other point... There is no real need to VO code a module; you can find out what the changes will be by creating a file that is effectively a VO code for the module, after you've made changes to the FA in E-Sys, and then compare the result to what you have by default. You can do all of this off-line, make the changes to the single coding items offline, then flash only the FDL with the minor changes. I'm always wary of VO coding because there is always the potential that other things change that you weren't expecting, potentially causing problems if your vehicle has different hardware.

[Poochie]

Originally Posted by GregoryK

Back onto the difference between US and Euro headlamps.
I am in Canada so read the posted bulletin from Transport Canada. Call me stupid but I don't see any reference to tunneling headlamps. Also everything that they mention seems to be on my car now (before coding)...Also the M2C has the same headlamps as our cars and you would think that if they where gong to bring in this feature wouldn't they do it now?
ALSO everything here that is being discussed is for the F80. Almaretto (who I have the upmost respect for) has stated that the headlamps from the newer 2018 Cars with LCI LED headlamps can not be coded. I am not sure why this would be so as they still have the same part #. Anyone here have an opinion?....

"Tunneling" is an informal name for the feature. "ADB" - is what Canada officially refers to as.

Canada currently follows US lighting standards to prevent trade barriers between the two countries, so they don't have to alter the headlights to suit different standards.

Canada has now decided to instead follow European standards, which allows for more advance lightening (VLD & Anti-Dazzle) but they still trying to get the US to adapt to their changes, allowing for the same trade agreement but US is dragging their feet on the issue. The changes only when to affect March 2018, so manufactures have until 2021 to comply with Canada's new headlight requirement.

As far as if the current BMW headlight hardware are internally different between the US/Canada and Europe is still yet undetermined.

Some folks claim they can code it to work successfully but the previously member claims that it's not actually working properly but merely appears that way to us, due to the hardware limitation.

The person who claim that their is a hardware difference adamantly refuse to provide any further proof, other than some random photos without any context because he claims he's sworn to secrecy by the US government

How does someone who supposedly work for the US government knows how BMW engineers in Germany designed their headlights is beyond me. : But this is the Internet, so I'm Batman here..


From Canada's new regulation amendment:

[bjams]

I will try and find what I coded to share, or at least what I based my coding off of. It’s very possible it was all based on Nezil’s suggestions.

I definitely have seen it form a tunnel on my car, but I’ve also found that it only does so under *very* specific conditions that I have rarely been in (dark road, leading car, no oncoming traffic, speed above ~40mph). In my above M240i video, the driver never hits that condition. In Nezil’s second video I think it is too bright on the road for the camera to recognize the car in front. By the time it is close enough to form a tunnel, the car has slowed to the point at which I don’t believe tunneling will function (~40MPH), and the car just turns all HB off.

[GregoryK]

Well my friend has been able to successfully do it on the G30 and G01 and now has the EU VO's for the M2. Will be interesting to see what happens. I'll report back.

[Poochie]

Originally Posted by Nezil

I'm prepared to believe that later LCI cars have different hardware than mine

Based on the second video, the headlight is definitely blinding the vehicle in front of it, no doubt about that..

Not sure if it's a hardware issue or coding but it's not working like my coded Xenon.

My headlights in that situation would dim the left beam and move the right beam more towards the opposite direction, to avoid blinding the driver in front. I've never been flashed and I've tested it extensively.

It also responds much more quicker to illuminated brake lights in front of it, almost half the distance than the vehicle demonstrated in the video.

There really might of been a hardware change in the US market for LCI vehicles. We just can't factually confirm it yet.

Like for instance, the Euro headlight switch with the rear fog button illuminates.

The US switch has a LED for it to illuminate behind the dead button but even with coding, does not illuminate. I open up both switches and saw their is different number for the ROM chip.

So BMW built them with the same circuit board but but didn't not include the proper chip for illumination in the US switch because it's not needed. Not exact science but it's something to think about..

[GregoryK]

You might believe that they have different hardware for the adaptive LED's but the part numbers are the same. So I doubt that is so.
Did you guys code the FLE(43) and FLE(44) modules?

[Poochie]

Originally Posted by GregoryK

You might believe that they have different hardware for the adaptive LED's but the part numbers are the same. So I doubt that is so.
Did you guys code the FLE(43) and FLE(44) modules?

The LED headlight part numbers for the US and European market are different..

That's the whole point of this dispute; if they were exactly the same, this thread wouldn't need to exist..

[akkando]

What would be great is if a US military person in Europe could do the required coding on their car, and then directly compare it to a local Euro car. Then they could do a back to back test to see if the lights have the exact same behavior or not.

[GregoryK]

Originally Posted by Poochie

The LED headlight part numbers for the US and European market are different..

That's the whole point of this dispute; if they were exactly the same, this thread wouldn't need to exist..

Sorry I realise that - I thought that you were referring to the fact that some say that later LCI's were not able to be coded but earlier were.

[Poochie]

Originally Posted by GregoryK

Sorry I realise that - I thought that you were referring to the fact that some say that later LCI's were not able to be coded but earlier were.

There where also different part numbers for Xenon also but Xenon headlights used a different technology to create the separation of the Anti-dazzle beam.

Xenon headlight used a shutter.

LCI uses a cluster of LEDs in which each individual LED diode switches on/off, independently, based what function is in operation.

The lower beam would use let's say 6 lower LEDs

and high beam would add to it and use the additional upper 6 LEDs.

My assumption is that BMW might of designed the European market headlight with more LEDs, since it's going be utilize for Anti-Dazzle.

Since the US market isn't going utilize Anti-Dazzle or VLD, no need for the extra LEDs, so they probably designed it with a lesser amount of LEDs.

[GregoryK]

Well just coded the FLE modules as they are in a European M2 - as a result I now have no side marker lights. Drove around the city for an hour trying to see if they worked. There are just no roads dark enough. It could be weeks before I can really test this. My high beams come on at 40kph on dark back streets but all main road have some sort of lighting.
Does the tunneling work at low speeds like 30mph? Or do you need to be going at higher speeds?

[bmxcamel]

Originally Posted by GregoryK

Well just coded the FLE modules as they are in a European M2 - as a result I now have no side marker lights. Drove around the city for an hour trying to see if they worked. There are just no roads dark enough. It could be weeks before I can really test this. My high beams come on at 40kph on dark back streets but all main road have some sort of lighting.
Does the tunneling work at low speeds like 30mph? Or do you need to be going at higher speeds?

Yes tunneling and beam splitting should work around 30mph. Or at least they did in my F80. You'll need a back road or smaller highway to test the beam splitting

From what I remember there are three distinct features to watch for:

1. Single high beam on, either right or left. Most commonly right beam is on while left beam is low (ie. when you're in moderate traffic perhaps on highway or freeway)

2. Tunneling, where oncoming traffic approaches but no car in your lane in front of you. The beam will split around oncoming traffic, and continue to widen until the headlight reaches its max travel. Then the beams shut off.

3. Tunneling, where you approach a car in your lane from behind. Both beams stay on and shape around the car in front of you.

[ZPrime]

Originally Posted by lemetier

The obvious part was aimed right at Poochie since he continues to reference a Russian website that utilizes decrypted generic TIS data. I've gone far out of my way in the past 4 years to document everything without breaching my responsibilities under Oath as an appointed representative to UN WP.29, SAE, and NHTSA Officer.

Poochie Reading slightly into this, I'd guess that lemetier is either working for NHTSA or some other similar job where he sees lighting hardware (possibly for a lighting OEM).

Originally Posted by lemetier

For everyone else, image 1&3 are RoW ADB LED (16 1x1COB mounted vertically) shown with and without the Microoptic Lens. Image 2&4 are the Global Non-Adaptive and US/CAN* Adaptive LED Projector (horizontal mounted with PES reflector - 2x COB for low, 1x COB for High).

*Canada legalized ADB in April and models capable of retroactive enabling with existing hardware can be done via dealer programming. Cars with HBA or KAFAS but lacking correct headlamps can be enabled after headlamp retrofit.

To help clear this up, I'm going to re-link the originally attached images here.
Also to be clear - I am talking solely about LCI 2er LED lighting here.

Original images "1 & 3" - again, per lemetier, these are the RoW lights, just one has the micro-lenses installed and the other doesn't:
"Image 1" (with lenses installed):


"Image 3" (lenses removed):




Now we have "Image 2 & 4": these are the US/CAN "Adaptive" light module
"Image 2":


"Image 4": note that this metal portion appears to be the "underside" of the metal section in the previous image


So, from these images, assuming they are actually from a 2er, we can definitively tell - the US-spec "Adaptive" light is lacking in hardware necessary to properly tunnel. There are only 3 little LED COB assemblies in there. It can give you some amount of swivel (presumably the lens is also moving mechanically to allow for this), but it's not going to be able to "tunnel" for proper GFHB. You can safely code this system for VLD, but I'm guessing that the distribution isn't going to be as good as it would be with the RoW-spec lights.

Note that the presence of only 3 LED sources does jive with what you can observe from the outside of the assembly. Turn on your lights and look at them from up close and the side. You'll be able to make out the three "blobs" of light on the lens.

The question in my head is now moving to, "how much are the RoW spec lights going to cost when they become available in Canada, and if I install them, how do I code to I enable all the fancy light features but otherwise maintain US-spec lighting [e.g. keep my sidemarker lights]?"

[Poochie]

@ZPrime

Thanks for the analysts, I already figure that much from what you stated and I do notice the three LEDs vs 16.

My question for the Lemetier is if it's in fact from a 2 series, with or without the adaptive feature?

Without the proper context, it's all just conjecture and sort of pointless to just give us half the puzzle.

I respect the source's discretion if he does indeed work for Uncle Sam but I honestly don't believe he's divulging any classified information by just confirming a little more context on the photo he already posted. It would help put this debate to rest and I'm sure a lot members would appreciate it.

Hell, PM me the answer, I'll blow it up and if the MIB kick in my door, I won't talk.. Pinky promise..

BTW, Canada gave the manufactures until 2021 model year to comply with the new ABD regulations, so you going have to wait to purchase those Canada/Euro spec headlight units..

[GregoryK]

Originally Posted by ZPrime

Poochie Reading slightly into this, I'd guess that lemetier is either working for NHTSA or some other similar job where he sees lighting hardware (possibly for a lighting OEM).



To help clear this up, I'm going to re-link the originally attached images here.
Also to be clear - I am talking solely about LCI 2er LED lighting here.

Original images "1 & 3" - again, per lemetier, these are the RoW lights, just one has the micro-lenses installed and the other doesn't:
"Image 1" (with lenses installed):


"Image 3" (lenses removed):




Now we have "Image 2 & 4": these are the US/CAN "Adaptive" light module
"Image 2":


"Image 4": note that this metal portion appears to be the "underside" of the metal section in the previous image


So, from these images, assuming they are actually from a 2er, we can definitively tell - the US-spec "Adaptive" light is lacking in hardware necessary to properly tunnel. There are only 3 little LED COB assemblies in there. It can give you some amount of swivel (presumably the lens is also moving mechanically to allow for this), but it's not going to be able to "tunnel" for proper GFHB. You can safely code this system for VLD, but I'm guessing that the distribution isn't going to be as good as it would be with the RoW-spec lights.

Note that the presence of only 3 LED sources does jive with what you can observe from the outside of the assembly. Turn on your lights and look at them from up close and the side. You'll be able to make out the three "blobs" of light on the lens.

The question in my head is now moving to, "how much are the RoW spec lights going to cost when they become available in Canada, and if I install them, how do I code to I enable all the fancy light features but otherwise maintain US-spec lighting [e.g. keep my sidemarker lights]?"

Thanks for your interpretation. I am not sure what exactly we are looking at here but one thing is for sure the last 2 images are not different sides of the same piece. They are 2 different parts.
Also my understanding of LED lights are that you generally need more of them. I doubt that 3 would be enough. Big LED's mean way more heat so the reduction in cost with less heat argument is not that compelling to me.
And one more thing. As the US and EU headlamps look the same from the outside I would argue that the interiors would look similar (the mounting points and such would be the same. So am I missing something here? These 2 units are not replacement of each other surely. As stated above we have less than half the puzzle. These pictures just add to the confusion IMHO.