The HID Experience

[JMI]

Purchased a 35 watt slim ballast Apexcone HID upgrade kit from understeer.com. Product arrived promptly. Even with the slim ballast this kit has a lot of wiring to find space for. Installed unit and to my great disappointment received the dreaded “Low Beam” message when the lights where off. Contacted Chris at understeer and ordered the LBF modules which he charged me the discount price that I would have paid had I ordered them with the kit. They did not help at all. Returned the modules for a full refund but was stuck with the HID kit.
Using these HID things with the low beam error message staring me in the face was not an option. And using the “fix” that I had seen with the relay used to tie into the high beams to fool the OBC was not and option because it is to a degree sloppy and I also didn’t want to cut/splice the original headlight wiring.
Found this solution which is similar to the above “fix” but a little cleaner and does not involve the high beam circuit. Was able to use the unused male/female harness plugs (I guess they are for “ eyes” or something) in the lower part of the picture which are together with the HID bulbs. Just cut away the unused rubber seal from the 4 wires and separated out the male/female plugs. Used these to splice in the “greg-nj” relay fix. This was then just plugged in ahead of the ballast and in effect the relay is in parallel to the HID kit.
Looking at the “greg-nj” relay fix pictures it appears he used a 1 ohm resistor. I could not readily find those so I used 10 ohm resistors from Radio Shack (the smallest value they had). They work fine.
After everything is said and done there is quite a bit of wiring to deal with. But this is all tucked behind part 10, left and right. Out of sight and out of mind.
The lights work great and no error message. If I had to do it all over I would consider buying the 55 watt bulbs. The 35 watts are vastly superior to the halogens but once I got a taste of the light output I lust for more.

Jim

[Russell]

Great write up. Makes me want to consider HID for my 95. My fear is a cheap kit and the "low beam" message.

[Tiger]

Too much light and you will go blind... literally. I had my kit since 2001 and is still working great. I used new Hella black headlight kit as my original is severely pitted.

[gmannino]

Even with the cheapest kits and error messages, there is a simple fix to isolate the HID kit from the headlight wiring using a simple 12v relay.

This topic and my wiring diagram is covered heavily at bimmerforums.com e34 section.

[upallnight]

HID no name from ebay, the great thing about this set of HID other than the cheap price is that I didn't get an error message on my dash that the low beam headlights failure.

I had a set of Mtech HID lights prior to these

[JMI]

Even with the cheapest kits and error messages, there is a simple fix to isolate the HID kit from the headlight wiring using a simple 12v relay.

This topic and my wiring diagram is covered heavily at bimmerforums.com e34 section.

I believe the fix referred to here is the same one mentioned in my original post that I decided not to use. The fix (it's not mine) that I used is IMHO a much improved version for the following reasons:

1. It does not require the (additional) use of another of the cars circuits, in this case the high beams, as it needlessly complicates the issue.
2. Replaces the 7.5 amp fuse with a 15 amp fuse. What is that all about? Might as well put in a 40 amp fuse and make it a toaster oven.

They both use the same relay(s) and idea (using the NC contact of the relay to complete a circuit with load when low beams are off) but the one I used/ borrowed is a more compact, self-contained, and "cleaner" solution.. Again, IMHO

Jim