[NaTuReB0Y]

.....and I FAILED..........

1. I bought the HID kit and installed it. After 10 seconds --- the HID fogs would black out(not enough power) and the "ERROR" message would come on.

2. The supplier sent me a free Harness(to get power straight from the battery) to supply power to the HID kit --- But it needed a relay(cost me another $20).

3. Installed the HID kit with the Harness/Relay ---- The Fogs stayed on, but the "ERROR" message also came along with it.

4. mds82(a.k.a. Marc) came up with an idea to get rid of the "ERROR" message by adding a capacitor. I added the capacitors to the Harness/Relay and HID fogs. Final Result: "ERROR" message!

5. Today - I took out the Harness/Relay and I ran the HID fogs with the Capacitors only. The "ERROR" message disappeared(Engine off) ---- but after I start the car(15 seconds): The "ERROR" Message came back on. I tried turning on the Fogs first then Engine......Engine on first then Fogs. NO LUCK.

6. I give up --- I'm sticking with my HALO H11 7500K Bulbs.
(B1 Hybrid Visual is the corner bulbs --- the brightest white bulbs available that I have seen)

[canucklion]

too bad about the error

on the bright side: I love your vinyl overlay!

[STE92VE]

Originally Posted by NaTuReB0Y

6. I give up --- I'm sticking with my HALO H11 7500K Bulbs.
(B1 Hybrid Visual is the corner bulbs --- the brightest white bulbs available that I have seen)

Too bad you had to go through all that to arrive at your first mod.

[Autobot]

Sorry to see that man

[dhroz]

Its not a capacitor you need, its a resistor. It needs to be wired inline not across the leads like you have shown. I'm not sure what size youy need, but you need to trick the e/bus into thinking it is using more current. Halogens draw considerably more current than Xenons do. Xenons only draw high current at start up,

[dmboone25]

Well, the ones you ended up with aren't as bright as the HID lights, but they still look better than the stock yellow.

[Cadillac Johnson]

What's the wattage on the HID's?

[NaTuReB0Y]

Originally Posted by dhroz

Its not a capacitor you need, its a resistor. It needs to be wired inline not across the leads like you have shown. I'm not sure what size youy need, but you need to trick the e/bus into thinking it is using more current. Halogens draw considerably more current than Xenons do. Xenons only draw high current at start up,

any info and DIY would be greatly appreciated.........

Originally Posted by Cadillac Johnson

What's the wattage on the HID's?

6000K.........

[Cadillac Johnson]

That's the light output/color not the wattage.

I've heard that anything 36w or higher will cause the error message, so 35w or less will be fine.

I dont know if it's true, but I've seen HID fogs that had the error message, then switched to 35w or lower bulb and the message went away. If that's the case, get a lower wattage bulb and see if it fixes it.

The ballast in your pics says 35w, but is it possible you got the wrong bulbs?

[NaTuReB0Y]

Originally Posted by Cadillac Johnson

That's the light output/color not the wattage.

I've heard that anything 36w or higher will cause the error message, so 35w or less will be fine.

I dont know if it's true, but I've seen HID fogs that had the error message, then switched to 35w or lower bulb and the message went away. If that's the case, get a lower wattage bulb and see if it fixes it.

The ballast in your pics says 35w, but is it possible you got the wrong bulbs?

My bad...it's 35W.....see picture below(and I checked).

longtran has HID fogs on his car and there are no "ERROR" message.

His ballasts had the same numbers except the:

"l in max 10A" ----- His has: "l in max 20A"

I think that might be the real reason behind it......

[ejazbmw]

damn that sucks ...but atleast your car looks great

[MonacoBimm]

Natureboy lets see if the UED HIDs have the l max 20A ballasts.

[NaTuReB0Y]

Originally Posted by MonacoBimm

Natureboy lets see if the UED HIDs have the l max 20A ballasts.

that's what i'm hoping for......i posted a picture over at his thread.

[Orient330iNYC]

I'm having the same problems. I think i'm going to use a combination of resistor packs and relays. right now i have resistors which have gotten rid of the bulb out warning, but sometimes at low speed i get flickering.

i'm going to wire the resistors into the relay activation circuit to get rid of the bulb out warning and have the ballasts off a direct connection to get rid of the flickering.

basically

...................existing fog circuit
...........................+ -
............................| |
.......................RESISTOR
............................| |
MAIN Power=====RELAY==========BALLAST

Main Power is unswitched 12V. i'm omitting the fuse holder and such for that circuit in the crude diagram above, but i plan on having it in the circuit. I'm using 50W power resistors that i bonded fairly large aluminum heatsinks onto (old P3 heatsinks to be exact) to dissipate the heat they create.

I'm going to give this a shot tomorrow as i just got my relays, sockets, wiring and heatshrink tubing. will let you guys know how it turns out. I'm pretty sure that it will work, its just a bit more wiring.

[NaTuReB0Y]

^
nice write up......let's hope it works!

[Orient330iNYC]

Originally Posted by NaTuReB0Y

^
nice write up......let's hope it works!

Yep, works perfectly. no bulb out message and no more flickering. I built my own relay harness for ~10 bucks worth of parts from an electronics surplus place

List of Parts:
2X 6 ohm power resistors @ $20 shipped http://autolumination.com/equalizers.htm

I got the rest from http://www.allelectronics.com
1X 12V SPDT 30 AMP AUTOMOTIVE RELAY @ $2.40
1X SOCKET FOR AUTOMOTIVE RELAY @ $2.00
15 feet of 16 AWG stranded cable @ $4.50
1X WEATHERPROOF ATC BLADE-FUSE HOLDER @ $1.50

misc parts i had lying around: ring connectors, heat shrink tubing, solder, soldering iron, 15AMP fuse.

I thermal epoxied the power resistors to some old heatsinks i had lying around, and used high strength double stick tape to tape the heatsinks to the ballasts. keeps the resistors from getting hot enough to melt anything, and lets me mount the resistors in the under bumper area. otherwise mount the resistors against something metal to dissipate the heat.

If you already have a relay harness, you need to install the resistors between the + and - wires on the factory foglamp harness on both sides. i cut the H11 end off of the HID Kit harness on each side and used that to connect the resistors. Did not cut the factory wiring. I used the driver's side harness to trigger the relay.

Driver's Side......................................Passenge r Side
...+ -.................................................. ...+ -
...| |................................................. ....| |
RESISTOR.......................................... ....RESISTOR
...| |
..RELAY (trigger connectors)

I put the relay in on the driver's side as there's alot less stuff in that well (i have the oil cooler on the passenger side)

what really sucks is that i went out and bought one of those "bmw" specific HID kits trying to be lazy and not build what i was pretty sure would work. I ended up being able to reuse an old ProLumen kit i had from my last car(much higher quality than the POS kit i got). would have been cheaper in time and money to just do it right the first time, but live and learn.

[NaTuReB0Y]

Originally Posted by Orient330iNYC

Yep, works perfectly. no bulb out message and no more flickering. I built my own relay harness for ~10 bucks worth of parts from an electronics surplus place

List of Parts:
2X 6 ohm power resistors @ $20 shipped http://autolumination.com/equalizers.htm

I got the rest from http://www.allelectronics.com
1X 12V SPDT 30 AMP AUTOMOTIVE RELAY @ $2.40
1X SOCKET FOR AUTOMOTIVE RELAY @ $2.00
15 feet of 16 AWG stranded cable @ $4.50
1X WEATHERPROOF ATC BLADE-FUSE HOLDER @ $1.50

misc parts i had lying around: ring connectors, heat shrink tubing, solder, soldering iron, 15AMP fuse.

I thermal epoxied the power resistors to some old heatsinks i had lying around, and used high strength double stick tape to tape the heatsinks to the ballasts. keeps the resistors from getting hot enough to melt anything, and lets me mount the resistors in the under bumper area. otherwise mount the resistors against something metal to dissipate the heat.

If you already have a relay harness, you need to install the resistors between the + and - wires on the factory foglamp harness on both sides. i cut the H11 end off of the HID Kit harness on each side and used that to connect the resistors. Did not cut the factory wiring. I used the driver's side harness to trigger the relay.

Driver's Side......................................Passenge r Side
...+ -.................................................. ...+ -
...| |................................................. ....| |
RESISTOR.......................................... ....RESISTOR
...| |
..RELAY (trigger connectors)

I put the relay in on the driver's side as there's alot less stuff in that well (i have the oil cooler on the passenger side)

what really sucks is that i went out and bought one of those "bmw" specific HID kits trying to be lazy and not build what i was pretty sure would work. I ended up being able to reuse an old ProLumen kit i had from my last car(much higher quality than the POS kit i got). would have been cheaper in time and money to just do it right the first time, but live and learn.

That's awesome man!

You should take some pictures and turn it into an official DIY!

[Orient330iNYC]

Originally Posted by NaTuReB0Y

That's awesome man!

You should take some pictures and turn it into an official DIY!

I was going to but I had half the stuff already installed from tries 1, 2, 3....., and there wasnt room to take pics. i was soldering and heat shrinking the connections while under the car. I'll see if i still have the software to create a wiring diagram.

For you, you just need to add the resistors to the relay setup. imagine the resistors are the bulbs, just connect the + and - wires together using the resistor. that will simulate the load of a real bulb (which is why they get hot)

on the side with the relay, just tap the resistors into the + and - trigger wires that activate the relay. you may not need to on that side, the relay might be enough to keep the bulb out warning from coming up (there's a magnetic coil in the relay)

my next lighting mod: 5400K D1S bulbs. Found some slightly used OSRAM Xenarc 5400K bulbs on ebay, $75 for a pair shipped. http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...m=200122188842

[NaTuReB0Y]

what if i don't use the relay/harness setup?

can i just replace the capacitors with the resistors?

[Orient330iNYC]

Originally Posted by NaTuReB0Y

what if i don't use the relay/harness setup?

can i just replace the capacitors with the resistors?

thats how i had it setup at first... resistors where your capacitors are. but any time the engine got loaded and was turning at low speeds(letting out the clutch uphill, even idling at a light), i ended up with flickering. very annoying. i think the computer pulses power through that circuit to test it. It might work, it might not, your HID kit might deal better with the voltage fluctuations.

i suspect you could also use the capacitors inline to even out the voltage in addition to the resistors, that might solve the flickering.

[NaTuReB0Y]

Originally Posted by Orient330iNYC

thats how i had it setup at first... resistors where your capacitors are. but any time the engine got loaded and was turning at low speeds(letting out the clutch uphill, even idling at a light), i ended up with flickering. very annoying. i think the computer pulses power through that circuit to test it. It might work, it might not, your HID kit might deal better with the voltage fluctuations.

i suspect you could also use the capacitors inline to even out the voltage in addition to the resistors, that might solve the flickering.

What if I just added the resistors with the capacitors?
See picture --- will that work?

I'm not planning to use the relay/harness because with the capacitors --- the flickering and blackout disappeared.

[Kev]

Some vendors on the board should pick up this opportunity and come out with a modified M-Tec HID kit that would not throw an error message. It'll probably sell like hot pancakes.