Interesting Problem I found with Umnitza DDE's
02-12-2004, 09:39 AM
#1
Interesting Problem I found with Umnitza DDE's
Well I've had these things for about 2 mos. now. Matt made us all aware about the *minimal cold start* issues.
I have come to a conclusion that it has nothing to do with it being cold.
I have tested this over and over and got the same responces. Say you turn on your parking lights and 2 of the rings don't light up. Then go back into the car and turn on and off the parking lights about 5 times with a 5-10 second interval break in between.
THEN....
What do you know, ALL THE RINGS WORK! I have tested this in climates going as low as 15 degrees all the way up to 40.
Is this a possible issue with the ballasts? Anyone else expierincing my issues?
I have come to a conclusion that it has nothing to do with it being cold.
I have tested this over and over and got the same responces. Say you turn on your parking lights and 2 of the rings don't light up. Then go back into the car and turn on and off the parking lights about 5 times with a 5-10 second interval break in between.
THEN....
What do you know, ALL THE RINGS WORK! I have tested this in climates going as low as 15 degrees all the way up to 40.
Is this a possible issue with the ballasts? Anyone else expierincing my issues?
02-12-2004, 09:41 AM
#2
Originally Posted by Igor911
Well I've had these things for about 2 mos. now. Matt made us all aware about the *minimal cold start* issues.
I have come to a conclusion that it has nothing to do with it being cold.
I have tested this over and over and got the same responces. Say you turn on your parking lights and 2 of the rings don't light up. Then go back into the car and turn on and off the parking lights about 5 times with a 5-10 second interval break in between.
THEN....
What do you know, ALL THE RINGS WORK! I have tested this in climates going as low as 15 degrees all the way up to 40.
Is this a possible issue with the ballasts? Anyone else expierincing my issues?
I have come to a conclusion that it has nothing to do with it being cold.
I have tested this over and over and got the same responces. Say you turn on your parking lights and 2 of the rings don't light up. Then go back into the car and turn on and off the parking lights about 5 times with a 5-10 second interval break in between.
THEN....
What do you know, ALL THE RINGS WORK! I have tested this in climates going as low as 15 degrees all the way up to 40.
Is this a possible issue with the ballasts? Anyone else expierincing my issues?
+1................................
02-12-2004, 09:57 AM
#3
Donating Maxima.org Member
Join Date: Jun 2003
Posts: 977
Originally Posted by Fezzik
Hey guys. I got mine installed and had problems getting it going just right. One of the rings would not light up. Well with both of them plugged up the big ring would not light up fully. It would stay purple. Well I got some weird idea of unplugging the one that worked. Well that worked. The big ring lit up perfectly, and then i plugged the other ring back up to the black box ballast and presto both work now all the time. Weird.
oh another thing. One day Cullen (guy from the 4th gen) was looking at the lights and picked up the black box ballast and the DDE's turned off. I was really curious. So i took it home and played with it forever. Nothing. So i took the ballast off and took it inside, took it apart and this was a pain, and what do i find. The thing is almost fried and there is tons of water in it. So i dry the box out and clean all the ash (yep i said ash) off the board. I looked inthe black box and it burnt a hole almost through the black box. I guess it got shortted out. But it's workin fine now. I put marine adhesive sealant around the edges to keep water out.
oh another thing. One day Cullen (guy from the 4th gen) was looking at the lights and picked up the black box ballast and the DDE's turned off. I was really curious. So i took it home and played with it forever. Nothing. So i took the ballast off and took it inside, took it apart and this was a pain, and what do i find. The thing is almost fried and there is tons of water in it. So i dry the box out and clean all the ash (yep i said ash) off the board. I looked inthe black box and it burnt a hole almost through the black box. I guess it got shortted out. But it's workin fine now. I put marine adhesive sealant around the edges to keep water out.
Originally Posted by Fezzik
I have no clue how water got in it. But when i took it home to check it out. i turned on the lights and one side would work and then the other side wouldnt. I noticed this faint but familiar sound of electric stuff burning (my dad is an electrical engineer and i have heard plenty of things fry 
) So i immediatly turned the lights off and proceded to check it out. Everything is still working; didnt do any damage thank goodness. But upon open the ballast i noticed it was not completely sealed all the way around. May want to check on that.
Also I dont have a single problem with the cold. I had these things lit up in 0 degree weather. They only took about 15 secs to warm up to the bright white too. They look great and very unique.
) So i immediatly turned the lights off and proceded to check it out. Everything is still working; didnt do any damage thank goodness. But upon open the ballast i noticed it was not completely sealed all the way around. May want to check on that.Also I dont have a single problem with the cold. I had these things lit up in 0 degree weather. They only took about 15 secs to warm up to the bright white too. They look great and very unique.
02-12-2004, 10:15 AM
#5
well thats my only trick to getting them to fully light up in the cold, turn on the parking lights for less than 30 seconds, than switch on all the headlights (with the car running of course) than turn them off, switch on the parking lights than headlights...than VOILA!
02-12-2004, 10:47 AM
#8
Originally Posted by looslip
Interesting, I did notice this problem. I just never made out the pattern of how it happens.
It's just like HIDs, they require an "ignitor" that fires the bulb up initially before the alternator gets fully up to speed.
The same is true here.
Since we are doing this with a single ballast solution that doesn't require additional hardware, each ballast (at startup) receives ONLY 12V from the battery, in many cases 11.8V.
The halos require a certain amount of juice to fire off, which is why, when the ballast distributes that juice, the regulator inside the ballast sends juice down the path of least resistance.
This is why you often seen one ring always light up fully immediately, the other after a little bit.
I wouldn't call it normal, it's just an anomaly with the setup.
When you start and stop it a few times, you are sending spikes of voltage (current) through the system, as you would be if you turned on your car and juiced the engine a few times to get the alternator to kick out the required 14V which is what our ballast is expecting in the first place.
All that being said, we had 3 options:
1) Get the rings to fire up immediately, but run them at higher current and thus potentially degrade their lifespan to 1000 ours or less. Currently 20,000 hours.
2) Send more voltage through the system at startup, and burn out more ballasts both right away and over time.
3) Do what we did. Leave life span alone. Minimize ballast problems. Slower startup.
It IS related to the cold. During warm weather conditions, which we have NOT yet seen in the Winter, they fire right up. We've done the tests. In climates where the degrees NEVER drop below 50, we've had 0, nada, zippo reports of startup issues - over 100 units in SoCal, Florida, and other "warm weather" locals like southern Texas.
Again, I wouldn't call it a problem, that's misleading. This is BY DESIGN.
Sure, we'll work out the kinks, but you'll find the warmer weather will remove this
02-12-2004, 10:51 AM
#9
Originally Posted by umnitza
There is no "problem".
It's just like HIDs, they require an "ignitor" that fires the bulb up initially before the alternator gets fully up to speed.
The same is true here.
Since we are doing this with a single ballast solution that doesn't require additional hardware, each ballast (at startup) receives ONLY 12V from the battery, in many cases 11.8V.
The halos require a certain amount of juice to fire off, which is why, when the ballast distributes that juice, the regulator inside the ballast sends juice down the path of least resistance.
This is why you often seen one ring always light up fully immediately, the other after a little bit.
I wouldn't call it normal, it's just an anomaly with the setup.
When you start and stop it a few times, you are sending spikes of voltage (current) through the system, as you would be if you turned on your car and juiced the engine a few times to get the alternator to kick out the required 14V which is what our ballast is expecting in the first place.
All that being said, we had 3 options:
1) Get the rings to fire up immediately, but run them at higher current and thus potentially degrade their lifespan to 1000 ours or less. Currently 20,000 hours.
2) Send more voltage through the system at startup, and burn out more ballasts both right away and over time.
3) Do what we did. Leave life span alone. Minimize ballast problems. Slower startup.
It IS related to the cold. During warm weather conditions, which we have NOT yet seen in the Winter, they fire right up. We've done the tests. In climates where the degrees NEVER drop below 50, we've had 0, nada, zippo reports of startup issues - over 100 units in SoCal, Florida, and other "warm weather" locals like southern Texas.
Again, I wouldn't call it a problem, that's misleading. This is BY DESIGN.
Sure, we'll work out the kinks, but you'll find the warmer weather will remove this
It's just like HIDs, they require an "ignitor" that fires the bulb up initially before the alternator gets fully up to speed.
The same is true here.
Since we are doing this with a single ballast solution that doesn't require additional hardware, each ballast (at startup) receives ONLY 12V from the battery, in many cases 11.8V.
The halos require a certain amount of juice to fire off, which is why, when the ballast distributes that juice, the regulator inside the ballast sends juice down the path of least resistance.
This is why you often seen one ring always light up fully immediately, the other after a little bit.
I wouldn't call it normal, it's just an anomaly with the setup.
When you start and stop it a few times, you are sending spikes of voltage (current) through the system, as you would be if you turned on your car and juiced the engine a few times to get the alternator to kick out the required 14V which is what our ballast is expecting in the first place.
All that being said, we had 3 options:
1) Get the rings to fire up immediately, but run them at higher current and thus potentially degrade their lifespan to 1000 ours or less. Currently 20,000 hours.
2) Send more voltage through the system at startup, and burn out more ballasts both right away and over time.
3) Do what we did. Leave life span alone. Minimize ballast problems. Slower startup.
It IS related to the cold. During warm weather conditions, which we have NOT yet seen in the Winter, they fire right up. We've done the tests. In climates where the degrees NEVER drop below 50, we've had 0, nada, zippo reports of startup issues - over 100 units in SoCal, Florida, and other "warm weather" locals like southern Texas.
Again, I wouldn't call it a problem, that's misleading. This is BY DESIGN.
Sure, we'll work out the kinks, but you'll find the warmer weather will remove this
Next Question: Will it work better if there was a seperate ballast for each ring?
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