Alright. And another thing. Doesn't this mean you won't have high beam anymore?

 

some HID projectors have a variable shield. That is, hibeam just flips the cutoff out of the way, for a full-area beam, rather than a cut-off beam. His has those little wires out the bottom of the projector so MAYBE that's what his do. Looking at his pictures, his shield must rotate 90 degrees and be in-line with the light, which since it's a thin piece, shouldn't mess up the upper portion of the beam too terribly badly.

 

Ahh I see. I assumed that thouse were power wires for the bulb. So that solenoid wire would be connected to the normal high beam wire?

 

well..... see.... you can't just... do that. You actually have to wire it in such a way that when you put on the hibeams that the bulb never actually cuts off during the lo-hi transfer since the maxima's 9004 bulb (stock OE setup) toggles between the two, meaning hi and lo are NEVER active at the same time. So when you hit your highs, the solenoid will fire, and the bulb will turn off. Sucks, right? So it'll take some playing to get that to work.

IMO it's best to have separate hibeams. because HIDs use a ballast, and if you flash someone who like, has their brights on, or for whatever reason that you are going to flash someone, the bulb won't really come on right away like an incandescent bulb will, and constant firing of the HID bulb will wear down something (don't ask me what b/c i don't know) and you'll have to replace whatever it is way more often than you should have to. incandescent bulbs are cheap and light up mostly right away, though not quite like LEDs which are truly instantaneous. THEREFORE, if you have separate setups, when HIDs are off, you hit the stick forward and nothing happens, you pull the stick back and you flash your highs which are incandescent and can take the flashing with no problem. When HIDs are on, push the stick forward and the High adds in with the HID, and pull it back and it does the same. Problem is wiring it to do that without shutting the lowbeam off whenever you switch from low to high either direction.

 

Sounds like it's gonna take a lot of work to get this thing wired up right. This is a bit off subject, but hypothetically speaking what would happen if the 9004 bulb was wired to have both high and low beams come on at the same time? Would it just burn out? And yet another question about this particular mod. I heard that HIDs generate way more heat than incandescent bulbs, so can the stock headlight housing take that kind of heat? I gotta say I'm beginning to like this idea more than an E36 retrofit, since none of the frame has to be cut. I still wanna know how to wire this thing.

 

the 9004 bulb. shared ground. combined you will pull 110 watts through the ground pin. no way to avoid it. 9004 is 45w/65w. i run 9007s now. 120w pull if both are engaged. If you hold the switch on the transfer point there is some overlap. I like the lighting, but don't want to risk my car's wiring pulling 120w through a 65w-rated wire.

as for the wiring. honestly the best way would be an attempt at intensely studying the switch itself, internally, then maybe bending a few contacts so that they stay touching the lows even when highs are blipped.

 

From what I've read, HID runs cooler than incandescent

 

Then this could be something an upgraded wire harness could solve. Craig's brace page has a writeup for making a stronger harness for the 9004 bulb. I'll bet the light from both filaments would be just about as bright as the HID when it's on high beams. I'm gonna try that on my parts car.

I thought since it was an actual high voltage electric arc, then it would give off about the same amount of heat as a low power welder. But that can't be right, since the whole thing would just melt.

 

HID systems produce about 150 watts of light while using only 35 watts and they also produce less heat than your stock bulbs.

stock incandesents use 45 watts/65 watts as where hids use only 35 watts and have a cut off shield and also have the ability if it is a bi xenon set up to retract the cut off shield there for same amount of power still and running cooler then incandesent bulbs while producing more light then a incandesent bulb can produce. incandesents total amps being drawn at low and high beam settings is low = 0.53333333 A and high = 0.369230769 A. HID's 0.685714286 A (factor in i did the equations for a single side then times it by 2 to get these numbers for highs lows and hid amp draws.) and if your wondering how your figure out how you can find the amperage being drawn then here is the equation for finding it out.


so if your looking for amps you would take volts divided by watts and you would get your amperage for what your trying to figure out.

say you wanna know the volts you take amps x watts= volts.

 

umm...
wouldnt a relay system work for this?
seems like the easiest, and a couple of relays(or however many) would fit right into an engine bay.

 

relays wont work in this instance becuase the hid doesnt take alot of power it only has power going to the ballistics and from there it converts the power from the line to the HID lamp.

 

technically yes since it's a lower wattage...but during start up it draws a lot more juice/amps.

 

ive done the test and found it to draw 3 amps when it first ignites the HID lamp. after that it runs really low power far cooler then an incandesent.

 

hmmm....so about 6 amps (left and right headlight)...kinda high for dental floss stock wiring..no?

 

"incandesents total amps being drawn at low and high beam settings is low = 0.53333333 A and high = 0.369230769 A. HID's 0.685714286"

I believe these numbers are very wrong! Try running just one low beam headlight with a 1 Amp inline fuse, and I believe you will find that the fuse blows pretty quickly. According to Ohm's Law, Amperage = Wattage / Voltage. One low beam headlight at 45 Watts / 12 Volts (the nominal operating Voltage of a car, and the voltage that all things are calculated at) = 3.75 Amps. With two low beams, the total draw would be 7.5 Amps.

A high beam at 65 Watts will use 5.4 Amps, or 10.8 Amps for a pair. Your HID at 35 Watts will use 2.9 Amps, or 5.8 Amps per pair.

Even if you used 14.2 Volts (the charging voltage of the alternator) you would still have 6.4 Amps for your low beams, 9.2 Amps for the high beams, and 5.8 Amps for the HID's.

 

i might have gotten that wrong but its also due to the fact i did my basic electrical last quater and right now im doing brakes steer and suspension.

 

Hey just wondering...I'm trying to learn something off this so I gotta make sure its right.

Is it ballistics or ballasts?

 

That's what I was thinking too. A relay could split the high beam power and direct it into both, the HID ballast and into the shield to make high beam work with this setup.

 

I thought ballistics was something you shoot out of a cannon...

 

I thought ballistics was a test detectives use to match if bullets were fired from a certain weapon but I guess they got that **** in HID too

 

ok how about this
http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u...g?t=1196663306
this is only one side. you'll need to double this for the whole car, since you've got 2 headlights.

relays for both circuits so you can use beefier wiring (bolded lines are thicker wire)
relay near the HID light (well, the ballast) will be ON when the HIDs are on, aww crap i just noticed 2 errors. i'll fix it tomorrow. basically the hi-to-low wire needs a diode, and the low-relay-to-low should actually send power BEFORE the relay, not after it, so the relay will stay open when you have the brights on.

anyhow, in Onyx's setup, replace the hibeam light for the solenoid.

i'll have a fixed pic tomorrow.

 

I did something very similar with my 9007 conversion/re-wire. I just put a diode between the high and low beam signals (of course, before the relays). I did this so that the low beam signal turns on the low beam lights and the high beam signal turns on both the low and high beam lights. Since this is about hid's, I'm not sure how much this relates to what capedcadaver's trying to say...

 

basically identical, actually. Just that instead of hooking to a bulb on the lowbeam you are hooking into a ballast. and on the hibeam you might be actuating a solenoid. I prefer separate lights b/c if you hit a bump in the road w/HIDs it looks like you are flashing brights anyhow.

 

looks good but i'm concern about the split second where the transition from low to high would have a split second break in power. that would make the ballast do a hot restart..no?

don't know...just throwing it out there.

 

Hokay. Here's the fixed pic:
http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u...g?t=1196726201

the only difference from the 9007 setup that 505 spoke of is that i have a 3rd relay. that's because if your headlights are OFF and you flash your brights, you DO NOT want to keep igniting the HIDs. You just want to flash your brights. HOWEVER if the headlights are already on, the 3rd relay will allow hibeam current to in-flow and sustain the circuit of the HIDs as well.

 

I did my basic electrical in 1990.

 

i know exactly what you are talking about and it concerns me as well. +1 on the keen eye to catch it. HOWEVER... there is a very short overlap in the hi and low at the column stalk itself. so power will always be coming from one or the other, and during that short overlap the HI will start sending juice just in front of that questinable relay, thus sustaining the circuit as the switch moves into hi-only territory.

I'm 65% sure i'm right. I can test it in a mock-up setting first, for sure. i have some spare electrical bits that i can toss together, and some spare headlights as well that i can use for test purposes. i can remove the headlight switch from the car and wire it into the circuit, for the most realistic setup possible (using quick disconnects slid over the pins). just need a small 12v power supply and i'm set.

the only glitch i see is if you turn the headlight switch to Parking or Off while you have the stalk in Hibeam position, HIDs will stay on until you drop the highs for a split second. also HIDs may not fire if you leave the stalk pushed forward then turn on the headlight switch. basically, HIDs will only fire when lowbeam is selected, and will only shut off when hibeam is not active and headlight switch is off. but honestly if you are smart enough to wire all this crap, you should be smart enough to remember that. You can even have a pushbutton killswitch for the hids, and a pushbutton ignite switch if you DESPERATELY want to get around the rules.

 

this is my setup. except instead of running both lights off 1 harness, I would have two completely different harnesses for each bulb. If one bulb goes out for some reason, i retain usage of the other bulb till i get home.

 

your new pic doesn't look right to me. on your third relay, the trigger is the positive from the low beam relay, but the other (terminal 86) is connected to the ballast?...

 

onyx, your setup doesn't look like it'll solve the high beam flash when your lows are off. if i'm reading this correctly, it'll also flash your HID lows...

there has been some debate on the dangers of flashing your HID's. some OEM manufacturers have it set up where the HID's flash. i'm still in the camp that says they're bad to flash.

 

I must be missing something, but what's the purpose of the "a" and "b" diodes? Looks like the setup would work without them.

 

NEW PICS(12/26/07)
Had some time this week to do some things

 

this is what they call bi-xenon. its a flap that is in front of the bulb that when you toggle the switch from inside the flap will go down and therefore that will be your high beam. im still trying to make this work for mine as well. today i just went ahead and started removing the self-leveling components since i don't have the sensors and computer for that system and for more space for the shrouds that i need to make to seal them right up.

 

where did you get those fogs?

 

I really want to see those headlights installed, the wait is unbearable

 

Those G35 wheels look nice, yellow fogs look good too.

 

yes this is very true, he's only got one bulb therefore only one bulb can flash, that being the lowbeam HID and the shield simultaneously. Which kinda sucks.

i was just thinking the same thing about 1 minute and 13 seconds ago. the diodes a and b will only have backcurrent against them in the event that you reverse-wire your battery cables. Otherwise they shouldn't EVER have backcurrent on them.

 

im surprised heresmymind hasn't popped up in here to share his ideas and knowledge of this setup.

 

You mean copy and pasted from another forum?