Whats up fellas.

All of us that have HID kits on our trucks have had some kind of problem with them at least once since the install. Others have had nothing but problems.
So i was sitting around thinking about all the many problems that we have had and thought of something.
HID's are powered only by one of the stock harness's... And Ford only designed the stock lights to work under a certain amount of restricted power. I.E. fuses, watts, amps and so on... Well these kits drastically change all that. we are extending the wiring, and putting in relays that confuse the computers and code eliminators to bypass the way the truck is correctly thinking about turning on the lights. And then with all the splicing and plugs and inturuptions in electrical current,,, we are losing a lot of volts that we need to fire up the ballasts so the lights fire properly. If you hook a wire to a 12 volt supply,,, then run out 50 feet or so of wiring, and put a voltage meter on the wire... You will see a normal voltage drop from 12v. the voltage is traveling over a distance now. If you take the same setup and cut the wire and splice it back to gether every couple feet,,, you will see a even bigger drop in voltage.
So i was thinking...??? Where could i get a little more juice without amplifying the voltage somewhere??? And then i had an idea. Its very simple and im sure lots of you have thought of it.
Has anyone tried to individually wire their HID kit to EACH stock harness?
Instead of using just one of the harnesses to fire both ballasts at the same time. Why dont we just wire it correctly and see if it changes anything? This could be the reason that sometimes you dont get one of the lights to fire the first time... Or even the reason that the high beam indicator is dimmly lit up.

Now i may be wrong... And im sure that someone has tried it. But id really like to hear some input on this. Tell me what you guys think. Im thinking of trying this to see if it eliminates any of the problems.

Ill wait to hear some input.

 

The stock headlight harness should only be used for the trigger for the relay.....otherwise when the ballasts are using the OEM harness as the main power source , the firing up of the ballasts has too much draw on the OEM harness......

The aftermarket harness I've gotten from retro solutions uses both headlight harnesses for individually triggering of the ballasts......plus I will also have to use load resistors (4*60) to keep the BOW from indicating....

 

Yeah i know about the draw from the stock harnesses. I was referring more to wiring/relay harnes that triggers the ballast from both sides of the trucks wiring. Im guessing that is what your saying that you have...???? If so.... Do you thik i could trouble you for the part number, or what harness it was on there web site? Id like to look into this more.

Oh..... Are you having any problems with your HID's now? Any fire up issues? Or are your lights working perfectly?

I want to be able to rely on my HID's. And right now i keep catching myself checking to make sure they both came on and are working properly.

 

I got my complete kit for retro fitting from TRS minus the resistors......call and talk to them.....they're great guys to deal with!

Link>>>http://www.theretrofitsource.com/

 

++ what 88 said. I rec'd all of my harness and ballasts from TRS and everything has performed flawlessly. FX-R 55w ballasts and bulbs @ 5000k temp.

 

Well....... Hummmm? I just got a new set from DDM for the heads and the driving lights. I got the slim digital ballasts and the Hi/low heads.

Not even really sure what my last problem was,,, but my hid's went out. lost the passenger first and the next night i lost the driver side. I tested everything and had power going everywhere. But the bulbs wouldnt fire up. so i scrapped the set i had. and went with DDM.

Think the harness they have at TRS would work with a DDM setup?

Id really like to know what harness you guys got from them if at all possible.

P.S. my last set of HIDs worked flawlessly for over a year and a half. headlights only... I never put any hid's in the fogs. But i want to now.

Did you guys run a seperate relay for the fogs as well as the heads?????

 

So here is another thing that i just found with the kit on my truck. I have the DDM kit with the relay harness that plugs into the passenger side stock harness clip, and runs over to the driver side of the truck.
I tested both sides with an amp meter and when the headlights initially fire... The driver side isnt putting out the same amount of amps as the passenger side. So i reversed the harness and ran a longer positive wire over to the battery and it is now backwards. The passenger side was getting less amps than the driver.
So that means that the relay harness isnt supplying a sufficient amount of power across the harness. Its probably just a voltage drop situation.
So i think im gonna order a new relay harness from DDM and just wire it up in series and isolate the driver side with its own relay. and the passenger side with its own relay harness. And just plug them into BOTH stock harnesses on the truck and power two seperate, isolated relay harnesses.
So the truck will still use both stock headlight clips. It will just have a relay harness between both of them going to the ballasts.
In theory,,,,, It would should work more effeciently than wiring them in paralel.

Im really starting to think that there is something to this. Im wondering if this is the reason that so many people are having so many problems. For my situation, Its always the light futhast from the battery that fails to fire. so if i rectify this issue... It should work perfectly!

 

I use TRS stuff and it works flawlessly. High quality harness, everything is waterproof and reliable (on both of my retro-fits on the truck). Fires up everytime, the Morimoto ballasts are so so so much better than the PnP garbage. I would love to see what happens to a DDM ballast in this instance:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVuIba2kZ9I

 

Dump the DDM harness and get something that works. You hear of all the problems with HID kits is because they are low quality. Work with RetroSolutions. Even though the harness from TRS is better quality, it has it's share of problems needing to be swapping out wires. At least TRS is very helpful, just curious if they are getting tired from having to take calls on their harnesses lately.

 

What are you talking about ?
A 2004 F150 has no clue if the headlamp is operational, let alone what the load is. no computer involved in the headlamps on a xx-08 MY F150.
The only thing it know is if more than 10A is being draw, and the fuse blows, that is it.

What are you using to splice the wire, mud or twisting the wires together and wrapping them in tape ?
Even a poor half moon automotive crimp tool will not cause this.
You would have to dip the wire in mud before putting them in a butt connector to get this to happen.

on 50' just measuring with a meter, no you won't see a voltage drop, even on 24 AWG wire.

The HID kits with a relay have less connections in it than the factory wiring.
The factory wiring 14 items
Ring terminal at the battery
Connector to the fuse panel
Fuse ( in and out connections for the fuse )
Connector to the fuse box
Connector to the main headlamp switch
Contacts in the main headlamp switch.
connector from the main headlamp switch
connector at the MFS
Contacts in the MFS
Connector from the MFS
connector to the fuse panel
individual fuse connections for L & R low beams
connector from the fuse panel
connector at the bulb.
HID Wiring 6 items
ring terminal on battery.
terminal to / from the line fuse
connector at the relay
contacts in the relay ( 20 A + contacts )
connector from the relay
connector at the ballast

What are you talking about ?
Do you mean AMPs or Voltage ? The ballast only need a range of 12.x to 14.x volts to run. The AMP draw is not what the normal headlamps are, why are you looking for more voltage or what I think you mean ( and could not describe ) AMPs. In this case, the relay setup can provide less voltage or AMP drop in the circuit with the simple setup.

An external relay is wired correctly. You don't use the factory wiring to add stuff to the truck. The trigger from the low beam ( and high beam if applicable ) is all you want to use the factory wiring for. Again, the relay method provides the most AMP and Volts to the ballast.

This is a well documented issue. Simple search would tell you why.
Wiring the ballast to the factory connector is not going to change this.

The problems I see, no documentation on the HID kits, just a "plug and play" kit that when a problem happens, the best the mfgr selling the kit can do it suggest to start randomly swapping pins around ( really, how many bulb configurations are there for a H10 or H13 ? That is right, 1 ).
The companies that sell the kits are not staffed to handle trouble shooting calls, they only seem to have **** into the wind diagnoses.

The Margins on these kits are not that great, and the corners that are being cut are what companies like Hella and PIAA have done for years, document what you sell.

 

I haven't had any issues with any of the sets I've installed. They only time I had an issue was not having a good ground on one of the ballasts, which was my fault. Over 18months on mine and over a year on 3 other vehicles.
That includes -40F winters and several mudding trips where you couldn't even see the ballasts. I lost one fog light bulb because I got water in the housing, it still lasted over a month though.
No DDM crap though, got mine from Third Gear Performance.

 

OP, not to be offensive, but what you are doing is completely unnecessary. Read what SSCULLY posted. If you are having trouble with your HID kits, its because of the fact is a mass-produced item made with sub-par quality items in china. Voltage is the last reason your lights are failing.

tl;dr- get rid of your cheap chinese kit and get a real one. Problems will "magically" disappear.

 

NO offense to anyone at all... I value criticism as well as compliments.

Unfortunatly the problems i have are isolated to just my F150. All of the kits ive used have worked on my other vehicles and motorcycle flawlessly. once placed on my truck they seem to have troubles.

Ive used expensive kits a coulpe times now... It makes no difference. As a matter of fact...... The $500 kit that i originally started with on my f150 had the most problems. I placed that kit on my jeep and its been perfectly fine for almost 4 years now. SAME harness, SAME lights, SAME ballast. Nothing diferent between the two vehicles.

The second kit i came accross that was tried in my f150 was problimatic as well. I built my own relay harness for that one, and it didnt work right either. Changed the bulbs out and sold the kit to a buddy and its working great on a new GMC.

And if im so wrong scully...? Why dont i have any issues when i wire the ballasts directly to the truck? Lose the harness (on the f150 only) and eveything works. Im just worried im gonna burn up the wiring on the truck. It gets a little warm.

And by the way scully,,, the "really nice kit" that you sold me a while back DIDNT work either. It was cheap crap too. So excuse me if i seem a little disenthused as to what you are saying... But Ive become quite jaded of your opinions.

It just doesnt make sense to me what most people are saying about how the problems i am having are the cheap kits. If they work flawless on one vehicle and not another,,, you cant say its the kit.
Almost all of these stupid drop in kits are made in Xinghua, China. Including a lot of the nicer ones on the market. I dont disagree with anyone of yall about the better quality kits. They are wired a little better and a little more ruggid.

What im thinking about trying now may be unnecciasary, but its a last ditch effort. Its not even that important to me that i have HID's in the darn truck! Lol! ITs become a challenge now. Im out of options. What im going to do with the two relays wont hurt anything... but i wont disagree that it might not help either.

 

First, let's get this correct. I did not sell you a kit PERIOD.
That is just an out and out lie.

Jaded of my opinions ?
Good luck with your factory wiring getting hot, there is no recall 05S28 on your MY to blame when your truck goes up in flames
Take note, the opinion your are jaded to does not cause this.

Back to the Ignore list for you
why do I feel I add to this in error and take members off, I will never know...

EDIT - Went and looked it up. Might want to get things straight before posting.
https://www.f150online.com/forums/ch...ml#post4384110

Seems you are not only confused about who you purchase stuff from, you are still confused on the truck knowing if a bulb is installed, and it appears you still have not done the Bamibi mod for the high beam indicator issues.
Might want to work from facts, not supposition as you seem to do.

 

SSCULLY.....

You are correct sir. My sincere apologies! I stand corrected. I am very sorry. And you are very right bud.... I should have checked the title name before i said anything. There was no excuse for that. I think you have given me some help before and i must have associated you name to that sale.

For the record. I am truely sorry my friend.


I have done the bambi mod to my relay panel in the truck. i had some problems with the mod initially and had to tear it all apart and wire it up nice and pretty. The only change i saw from that was being able to run high beams with my fogs.
Should it have done something else?

I was currious about what woud happen if i wired them straight to the stock harness in the truck. And everyone was correct... The wires do get a little too warm for comfort. It would most deffinatly end up causing troubles. But, The lights work flawlessly that way.

I know it might seem dumb to most people to wire up two relays and have them triggered seperatly. But it seems that im out of options. And its worth a try. Ive had several friends fiddle with this problem with me and everyone has the same opinion of it. Im kinda out of options. If this doesnt work, looks like its going back to stock! LOL!