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Here's my luck with Umnitza DDE's

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Old 07-23-2005 | 12:52 PM
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Here's my luck with Umnitza DDE's

One tube was dim and giving me issues, so I decided to replace it by calling, Matt at Umnitza. He gave me a good deal on another 116 White Wire. Shipment was excellent also. So a couple of days later I recieved it, and opened the package.

This is what was in it.



So I called Matt up, he said to take a picture and email it to him. So I did and waited a few days later. This past Thursday I recieved another one at no charge.

This is what was in it.



Called Matt up again, and he said to do the same thing. So I did and recieved it today. Finally, I recieved one that was not shattered. Sweet!

During the install trying to be very careful not to damage it, I was feeding the wire to the back of the housing, and turned the housing over to grab the wire, and the DDE was wedged between the headlight housing and my floor.

This is what I did.



Matt has great service, gets products out to you sooner than you believe. I guess I'll just have to call him up and pay for this one.

Daym 3 sets!
Old 07-23-2005 | 01:32 PM
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that sucks.... try talking to him and see if he can give u a discount on a new one....
Old 07-23-2005 | 03:35 PM
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it seems like every1s dde's break one way or another heh, good thing they have good customer service...i guess
Old 07-23-2005 | 06:08 PM
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Wow, talk about bad luck.
Old 07-23-2005 | 06:26 PM
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Wow, I'd buy a lottery ticket. There is no way your luck can stay that bad.
Old 07-23-2005 | 06:45 PM
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Originally Posted by SeaFoam2DMax
Wow, I'd buy a lottery ticket. There is no way your luck can stay that bad.
WHy a lottery ticket? He'll just lose another $1
Old 07-23-2005 | 09:11 PM
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Is Matt charging you for each replacement?
Old 07-23-2005 | 11:08 PM
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he said he'll have to pay for the last one so i'm guessing he's not getting charged for the other's, maybe shipping at most.
Old 07-23-2005 | 11:45 PM
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That is some bad luck. When I bought mine, they all came in great shape BUT 2 were blue and 2 were white. So he sent me 2 more white. Mine all came in great shape. Some kind of foam packaging.
Old 07-24-2005 | 12:56 AM
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That sux man, I was installing my SS grille and after putting the lights back in I noticed both rings on the drivers side had snapped in half. I wasn't too upset since the stop working right awhile back. i just need to start from scratch!!

Old 07-24-2005 | 04:16 PM
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I broke 2 rings during the install on mine.... All I can say is you have to be extremely careful to not break them. The only problem ive had with mine is everyonce in awhile one wont light up all the way, or after washing drivers side wont light up at all.
Old 07-24-2005 | 08:40 PM
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...

Man I was in similar situation, received original shipment with two rings broken, Matt sent replacements that apparently due to USPS took 2.5 weeks to arrive, then while installing I broke one ring, Matt gave me discount on a ring and sent it fast now I have them installed and just noticed one of them is lighting dim, i just gave up... i cant go through that again! I didnt even bother wiring them up.

Matt does take care of you no problem there.
Old 07-24-2005 | 08:56 PM
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Hey on the bright side (excuse the pun)... at least you guys get to put angel eyes in.
Old 07-25-2005 | 05:24 AM
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Wow, I didn't know how much work was involved in putting these things together...
Old 07-25-2005 | 09:05 AM
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Originally Posted by Park2670
I broke 2 rings during the install on mine.... All I can say is you have to be extremely careful to not break them. The only problem ive had with mine is everyonce in awhile one wont light up all the way, or after washing drivers side wont light up at all.
Mine have been doing this ever since I put them in, I did everything I could to try and water proof them. Finally all but one ring stopped working.
Old 07-25-2005 | 09:22 AM
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They have to work on a more durable material for these with this many complaints. My bulb went dead in the original ones and I was thinking about upgrading to these but I'm not sure now. The cost was $99 for me to upgrade but I may just pay the $40+ price just for the bulb.
Old 07-25-2005 | 09:35 AM
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this is why they charge 250 for installing it
Old 07-25-2005 | 01:51 PM
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As always good customer service. I called Matt today, and he's sending me 2 this time just in case. I didn't expect to get these for free, but he still gave me a good deal. Hopefully this time, I'll be weary of what I'm doing.
Old 07-25-2005 | 07:23 PM
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I've had my DDE's installed for over 1 year now and since then I've had to replace 1 ballast which i purchased from Matt, without any problems.

Since the beginning of last winter I noticed my drivers side rings starting to dim and not light up fully, they sort of glowed purple but never turned white.

Since then I've given up trying to fix them. I now only have 1 functioning ring. I may try and diagnose the problem to see if it's the rings or the ballasts, but I know they will probably just burn out in the future.
Old 07-26-2005 | 08:16 AM
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thats too bad. DDEs look awesome but they seem like a real pain.
Old 07-26-2005 | 08:45 AM
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Does anyone think that it might be the Ignitor Box causing all these dimming issues? I have not tried to diagnose the issue myself but was wondering if anyone else has. This was my whole purpose of replacing that one tube, because it was very dim (purple). Matt told me these things should last forever......I guess not.
Old 07-26-2005 | 08:51 AM
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I'm surprised he hasn't responded to this thread, especially with him being on the Org talking about the reverse Hid lights.
Old 07-26-2005 | 09:05 AM
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Those hold more presidence than my angel eyes..
Old 07-26-2005 | 09:15 AM
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Mine just stop working a couple weeks ago. Sucks too cause I had just gotten some replacement rings because they were lighting up pruple, I changed them and they worked fine but like a week later the fuse blew out and now they dont light up I put in a new fuse and it just blows. I think my ballast are ****ed up. I want these to work again but dang I dont wanna mess with these anymore, I hard wired them too after getting these replaced this last time.
Old 07-26-2005 | 09:31 AM
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Originally Posted by Park2670
I broke 2 rings during the install on mine.... All I can say is you have to be extremely careful to not break them. The only problem ive had with mine is everyonce in awhile one wont light up all the way, or after washing drivers side wont light up at all.
u have to take those cheep white clip connections out for all the wires, splice them together and heat shrink the wires together, i had the same problem and this fixed it, if your lights are dimmer on one side than the other, where ever you have them hooked up to turn on,(mine is spliced into the parking lights) take that quick splice out, make a hard connection, (wire to wire) and sodder the wires together, this will get rid of that problem. If yours dont work at all, the ballast probably got water in it, get a new ballast, seal up the ballast (silicone or weather stripping adhesive) and this will get rid of that problem. if anyone in the longisland New York area would like me to install there angel eyes PM me.
Old 07-26-2005 | 09:35 AM
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Something that might be of interested as I found out first hand regarding the installation of the ballasts for these rings. I planned on putting both ballasts in one enclosure that you can buy from RadioShack so they would be protected from the weather and be able to be mounted in a remote location in the engine bay. Well, to my surprise the farther away the ballast was from the rings the dimmer the rings. I had mounted the ballasts so far away(still in the engine bay) that my passenger side rings would not light up at all and my driver side would barely light up.
So I tested them by remounting the ballasts closer to the rings(right on the headlights) and lit up just fine. I would assume it was due to a high voltage drop but I've never experienced this before on other equipment that I've installed. Not sure if this helps anyone with their dimming problems but be sure to mount the ballasts close to the rings.
Old 07-26-2005 | 09:36 AM
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Originally Posted by Greeneyes
Mine just stop working a couple weeks ago. Sucks too cause I had just gotten some replacement rings because they were lighting up pruple, I changed them and they worked fine but like a week later the fuse blew out and now they dont light up I put in a new fuse and it just blows. I think my ballast are ****ed up. I want these to work again but dang I dont wanna mess with these anymore, I hard wired them too after getting these replaced this last time.
Silicone (or better yet goop clear weather stripping sealant from home depot in the glue section) the ballast around the open edges where the cover is, water messes these up all the time.
Old 07-26-2005 | 09:40 AM
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Originally Posted by bugbite77
u have to take those cheep white clip connections out for all the wires, splice them together and heat shrink the wires together, i had the same problem and this fixed it, if your lights are dimmer on one side than the other, where ever you have them hooked up to turn on,(mine is spliced into the parking lights) take that quick splice out, make a hard connection, (wire to wire) and sodder the wires together, this will get rid of that problem. If yours dont work at all, the ballast probably got water in it, get a new ballast, seal up the ballast (silicone or weather stripping adhesive) and this will get rid of that problem. if anyone in the longisland New York area would like me to install there angel eyes PM me.

Yeah, those connections supplied with the ballasts suck. It will "short" out the rings if the leads touch each other and will dim the rims until you pull them apart from each other. Definitely would hard wire them as suggested.
Old 07-26-2005 | 10:13 AM
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Make me think twice of getting DDE's
Old 07-26-2005 | 10:46 AM
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Bugbite77 and Fornimage do you have pictures of what you are talking about?
Old 07-26-2005 | 12:41 PM
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I mounted my ballasts out of the way to avoid water. The drivers side is actually up by the firewall. No problems with dimming lately. Only during the cold months, but after the DDE's warm up, they're nice and bright.
Old 07-26-2005 | 01:06 PM
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Originally Posted by ICULookN
Bugbite77 and Fornimage do you have pictures of what you are talking about?
u mean the hard wireing?
Old 07-26-2005 | 01:16 PM
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Originally Posted by ICULookN
Bugbite77 and Fornimage do you have pictures of what you are talking about?

here is the shrink wrapped wire after hard wireing them (cutting the wires off the connection, spliceing the wires, twisting the wires together, heat shrink the wire with the radio shack heat shrink)
Old 07-26-2005 | 01:38 PM
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i've found the most frequent problems with angel eyes to be caused by water getting in the ballast. i've had to replace one ballast because water got in it while going through a high pressure touchless car wash.

if you can install the rings without breaking them, and seal the ballast with some kind of cement or silicone you should be able to enjoy long trouble free usage. also drilling holes through the dust cap in order to run the the ring wires through and seal the holes will allow you to put the dust cap on securely and not damage the wires leading to the rings.
Old 07-26-2005 | 06:07 PM
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I soldered and heat shrinked all my connections, I guess my only problem is water getting into the ballasts. The wierd thing is that when I have the problem with my drivers side DDEs, the foglight right below that wont ignite. (helios 6000k HID kit). How is so much water getting into that well?
Old 07-26-2005 | 06:19 PM
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Hay can these fit on a 2000 i30??
Old 07-26-2005 | 07:06 PM
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Originally Posted by NOCturnalI30
Hay can these fit on a 2000 i30??
post a pic of the headlights so i can see what they look like
Old 07-27-2005 | 05:00 AM
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Sorry if I sound confused on this, but I have the original angel eyes with the light box. I thought the new angel eyes eliminated the light box. On the new angel eyes I thought there were 2 wires off of each ring that went to the fuse that plugged onto the battery. Is there something that plugs into the ballast on the new ones?
Old 07-27-2005 | 05:37 AM
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Originally Posted by ICULookN
Sorry if I sound confused on this, but I have the original angel eyes with the light box. I thought the new angel eyes eliminated the light box. On the new angel eyes I thought there were 2 wires off of each ring that went to the fuse that plugged onto the battery. Is there something that plugs into the ballast on the new ones?

I'm wondering the same. I also have the original lightbox. If there is a new design, I'm unaware of it. Anybody have pictures? I'll post what I have soon.
Old 07-27-2005 | 08:16 AM
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Originally Posted by Deckdout2
I'm wondering the same. I also have the original lightbox. If there is a new design, I'm unaware of it. Anybody have pictures? I'll post what I have soon.
I don't know if I have old or newer ones, but I don't have a light box. I have the 4 ring that seem to be similar to mini florescent bulbs that run to a ballast and the ballast are hooked to a fuse connected to the battery.


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