DAMN! The HID went out, the bulb is fine, I swapped the kit from the working side to the non-working side and it started to work fine. So it's not the bulb or my car's wiring harness. Can it be the ballast, or the black relay?

 

it could be the ballast

 

Do they often go out?

 

Make sure the ballast is grounded good. I had the same problem today. It worked fine, I backed out of the garage...it was off. I set the ballast on the battery, on the negative terminal, and it worked. So what I did was connected a piece of 12-guage wire to a screw on the ballast case (a metal part, make sure it's metal) and then put the other end on the negative battery terminal.

This may not be your problem, but if insufficient grounding proves to be the issue, there's a potential solution.

 

Umm it's a plug and play kit, the ballast is a McCulloch, has 2 connectors which plug into the relay and headlight bulb. Would I have to open up the ballast to ground it?

 

Those plug and play kits pose alot of problems, that's why I always recommend oem for a retrofit. I've heard that there are sometimes problems with the connector, you may want to double check it where it plugs in.

 

If it is the plug and play it may be a faulty ballast. I also agree that OEM is the best way to go for HID retrofits

 

Yeah I'm assuming it is the ballast.

 

Non-oem are very iffy in terms of quality. Many ballasts seem to go out in the very first year. Hopefully you are covered in terms of warranty, but if not, you can probably keep an eye on ebay or find a supplier for parts.

 

You wouldn't need to open it, no. There should be screws somewhere on the metal casing (well, normally anyway...MOST ballasts). Just undo one of those screws, put a ring terminal over the hole, put the screw back in. Then put that ring terminal on the end of a length of 12 guage wire and put another ring terminal on the other end. Connect to negative battery terminal or some other good grounding point.

Somehow it doesn't seem like grounding is your problem, but hey, can't hurt.

 

its probably a ballast i had the same prob with my McCulloch kit about 2 months ago. went prolumen and i will never go back to a McCulloch kit again.

 

is it a oem hid system? if yes i got a oem ballast for sale.

 

^^^^

No it's a ZMax 10000K plug and play 9004 kit, well the actual kit came with 8000K bulbs, I swapped the bulbs to 10K. The original ZMax ballast went out so I swapped it with a McCulloch which is also out now.

 

it could also be the igniter...

 

10k is what, pure violet? So I've read, that bright of an HID bulb would actually be worse in visibility than a good halogen bulb.

 

+1 on OEM stuff. never get McCulloch, prolumen, whatever. this is one case where OEM equipment is best. i have BMW ballasts from ebay, like $170 but sooooo worth it. igniters are already in the housing, and as far as grounding i have the wiring in my harness to do that. good luck, get rid of that aftermarket hid crap, and 10k bulbs? that's good for show cars, but if you want to see at night it's not.

 

To those who have the OEM hardware: can I use any HID bulb? ie. are the connectors for these things standardized?

 

good question...i want to know this also!

 

As far as I know, the OEM HID Ballast(Hella, Matsu****a, Denso, etc) connectors/connections are not the same as Non-OEM HID Kits (Hanabi, Prolumen, Helios, etc).



- ßaller

 

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okay...

anyhow.... if not ground then the ballast prolly went out.. connect it directly to the bat terminal.. and see if it owrks.. if not.. then.. well its prolly ballast.. .. sorta gotta get a new ballast.. ur only real option.. unless ur a electronics guru.. and can actually fix it..

 

You would be correct. OEM ballasts use plugs (that go on the bulb) meant for D1S, D1R, D2S, D2R, etc. Kits for conversions use a differently based bulb, I believe, that wouldn't plug onto a typical OEM ballast connection.

Who knows, I may be wrong...I often am

 

i don't know about aftermarket ballasts, but oem stuff is all the same. like my ballasts will accept d2r or d2s, whether you're using a projector or a reflector housing. just look at the ballast, it should tell you what it accepts.

 

Ballast all day.

 

cheap kit uses cheap ballast. my moneys on that as well

 

You can always go D2C if you are getting new ballasts. They fit both D2S and D2R housings.Here is something else... you will have to modify your housings to fit D2R/S/C bulbs. For that you will also need to get OEM parts, whether it be reflectors or projectors. For retrofit though... projectors are the best way to go.