Bi-Xenon fog lights - sounds silly at first. Has anyone considered having a fog light that converts to a driving light when switching on the high beams? It wouldn't be too hard to wire if the beam would work. It seems that the sharp cutoff of a HID on low beam is ideal for a fog light and the broader beam when switching to high beams would make a good driving light to supplement my high beams.

Has anyone done this or considered this option? I would look at the H1 system from theretrofitsolution.

 

Sounds like an interesting idea. Keep us posted if you decide to go though with it.

 

We actually have two members who have already done this-

TLJ442's 2004 F-150 (his thread is located here)



and mSall's 2004 F-150 (his thread is found here)



However, there is some concern with this setup. For high beams to work properly, all foreground light has to be eliminated. This is why stock vehicles with fog lights have a relay system designed to shut them off when engaging high beam- with excessive foreground illumination, your eyes will focus on the foreground rather than the background.

A bi-xenon projector only has a moveable upper shield, so while it does let more light off the top, you won't even get to "use" it because its fixed foreground limiter has your eyes focused on the road right in front of you. I have seperately-wired forlights and I find myself manually shutting off my foglights when using high-beams because I simply have a harder time seeing down the road.

However, quad bi-xenon HIDs are pretty cool and while the latter paragraph is a main concern with older people (mainly 40+ years) it is largely negligible for younger ages. Just be careful and keep that in mind. Safe retro'ing

 

Not cool man, us 40+ plus guys like this cool stuff too and the light output of quad bi-xenon is amazing.

 

I'm talking the The Retro Source about adding bi-xenon fogs to my 07. I haven't seen anyone do the Round Fogs that we have yet. I'll start a thread when I get some more information

 

I would love to see a picture of the light pattern when mounted in fog lights - low and high beam.

Also, did you just put in a diode to have the high-beam wire drive both the shutter and the bulb or use some sort of a relay setup? Did you need to put a cap across the ballast to carry it though the switching time?

 

The high beam in these projectors is driver by a solenoid that moves the cutoff shield, the bulb doesn't move and the ballast doesnt switch. You just have to do the bambi mod to keep the fogs on with high beam, and them wire the fog projectors high beam wire (for the solenoid) into the wires for the headlight high beam. pretty simple really.

 

It appears that the bambi mod isn't an option on an 09 or later. I could use diodes and have the high beam wire drive both. It would be driving 85 watts each side (50+35) instead of 65. Probably not a problem, but a 50 watt fxr and a 35 watt h1 may draw more than that. Is 35 and 50 watts the ballast input power or output power?

 

Where are you getting 65 from? Each 50W ballast will draw a little over 4 running amperes, while 35W will draw a little under 3

And its always going to be output. Watts is a derivative of amperage times voltage. Since voltage is a constant in the system, amperage (which varies) determines the work produced, which is watts.

 

I think you're confusing watts with amps. Amperage is what you should be worried about, and HIDs will actually pull less than halogens once they're warmed up.

 

65W should be the wattage the high beam on an OEM 9008 halogen bulb. I guess he's trying to power the high beams and the fogs with the high beam circuit, in attempt to have them both on at the same time.

 

The wattage draw shouldn't be a problem. simply install a secondary relay that has the switched 86 ignition source as the high beam solenoid wire.

 

^x2. I'm running 35w HID heads and fogs with the bambi mod, along with two 55w Procomps (with relay) and two 100w KCs (with relay) that all come on as soon as I hit my high beams. No problems yet

 

I agree that current is the issue; I took a shortcut (was typing on my phone) and talked about power since is proportional to current when the voltage is constant.

My stock bulbs draw roughly 65watts * 2 / 12.8 volts = 10.2 amps. If I run 50 watt HID bulbs in my main lights and 35 watt HID bulbs in my fogs together off of my high beam wire, I will draw 85 watts * 2 / 12.8 volts = 13.3 amps. This is the case only if the HIDs wattage refers to ballast input power. If wattage rating refers to ballast output power and, say, the ballasts are only 85% efficient, then I will draw 13.3 / .85 = 15.6 amps.

While Ford certainly built in some margin in their system, I am not comfortable drawing 50% more current than the original design called for. This is a concern particularly due to the new solid state control circuit that is in the 09 and later (making the bambi mod more difficult). I suspect the system can handle off-road 110 watt halogen bulbs, but don't know for sure. With the bambi mod, like ak_cowboy has above, you are still using your fog light circuit to provide the current to the foglights. It would be nice if I could do easily do this like the pre-09's.

I don't want to drive all of the lights with an ignition switched relay; my lights would no longer turn on with the remote unlock or stay on a while after turning off the truck. I may use the parking light wire to turn on a relay driven directly from the battery - still thinking about the wiring...

 

^ got it. I didn't realize that the 09+ weren't able to do the regular bambi relay.