Volt hid lights need help

[wolfe]

Hi everyone i bought some 9006 volt digital hid lights for my 2005 xr matrix , when i start the car only one light comes on and the other flickers and eventually goes out. I would like to now whats a good relay to buy that will correct this problem. Any help would be appreciated

[mikered30]

Did you disable the DRLs?

[wolfe]

no because i want the lights to come on when the car starts

[fishexpo101]

You'll have to find a way to supply clean 12V power or get ballasts that can "latch" onto the voltage and span the pulses from the DRL circuit.

The main issue is the DRL circuit will not produce a steady 12V power, it actually pulses it, to help cut down of power requirements. For a filament style bulb - that is not an issue, as the filament will stay momentarily lit as power is cut. Most incandescent bulbs won't even notice the drop in power - they will act like they were getting steady-state power. Digital ballasts for HID, on the other hand, are very sensitive to this "noise". Not just related to Toyota - almost every make out there will have some issue with flickering, unless they wire in a steady voltage source for DRL use.

Another way to address this is with capacitors - this is how OEM solves this. You'll have to size the capacity appropriately - not too big, not too small. Generally a medium sized electrolytic 4.7uF or larger, 30V or higher should work for most people. Have to wire it before the relay in the ballast.

[wolfe]

OK i bought a 9006 relay and i need help setting it up and how to correctly put in the
470µF 35V capacitor into the relay. Any help would be greatly appreciated thank you ever

[fishexpo101]

You'll need to wire the capacitor in parallel with the relay prior to it going to the ballast.

Ex.

A good site that has more info - try here (hopefully the images are still there and not broken)
http://www.fordfusionclub.com/index.php?topic=120616.0

Also note that you might have to play around with the capacitance to get it right. Basically you need the capacitor to bridge the ripple voltage that your electrical system generates. 4700uF cap is pretty big, so it "should" work. You'll have to run the numbers to determine what the load current is, so that you can size the capacitor correctly. You don't want it to create too much voltage variations as that could run into the threshold on most voltage regulators, like the ones in most ballasts. Lots of info out there - just search for ripple voltage and ripple factor.

Also, should add, that you'll need to waterproof / protect that cap. They do make "flicker" fixers that are basically encapsulated capacitors in a little pigtail harness. Not too expensive, something like $30 a set or so, saves you from any wiring headaches if you are unsure of tackling any wiring.

The process is not much different than wiring capacitors for high powered audio applications - if that helps out any.