HID Ballast Question

[mx3frik]

Hello all:

I have just about some of the stupidest questions about HID ballasts but it help me out if I could get some quick answers from you pros.

*Are the 9006 connectors on the ballasts reversed in polarity comparing to regular (I guess halogen) 9006 ones? I looked at the underside of the plug before hand and it seems to me like it is. (as far as color coding goes)

*I tried testing out some of the parts I have gathered, bulbs (D2S), projectors and the ballast (with a battery charger so I could do it in the warmth, it was good upto 50A) and nothing lights up with all the ballasts, bulbs and ignitors (I have ignitors external to the ballast)combinations. Am I missing something?

On the ballast there are:

In:

9006 plug (black/yellow wire, north american ones? Polarity seems to be reveresd as far as the color coding goes).

Another 3-ping plug, I gather it was used for high-beam actuator and autoleveling mechanism.

Out:

3 chopped wires, green/pink/black , I figure they correspond to the 3-pin plug mentioned above.

3-wire plug that connects into the external ignitor. Black/green/pink again.

Then of course from the ignitor to the bulb is the power cord.

When I was testing it I had the power going into the 9006 plug, left the 3 chopped wires untouched and plugged the other 3 wire bundle into the ignitor, then into the bulb. Am I missing anything?

I am also worried about the ballast's 8 total shut off before it's permenant...is there any way to test this?

Thanks, sorry for the long post but I thought I'd give some details on my situation.

Eugene

[Taras]

Eugene, wrong forum. You know the HID specific forums right?

Ok, I am not a pro, but there is what I do not get. You say that you have 9006 plugs for power to your ballast AND and external ignitor. As far as I know the only ballast that has 9006 power plugs is Hella 5DV / Philips LVQ-212 and they have an INTERNAL IGNITOR. So, you got me there. I am more thinking that you might have a 4th gen ballasts from Bosch. The rule generally is that the dark wire (brown, black, etc) is your groung and a lighter (yellow, white, red) wire is your positive. And do not worry about the paermanent shut down feature. It will only activate if you short circuit or plug the ballast without a bulb.

May be a few pictures may help.

[Taras]

Forgot something. Ballasts have circuit polarity protection, so they will not function if you screw up your polarity. That is just it. The other important thing is, do not use battery charger to power your ballast. It has to run through the battery, even with the charger hooked up.

What set-up did you end up getting?

[mx3frik]

Hey Taras,

Thanks for the reply. I ended up buying the ballast you came across a while back:

http://www.network54.com/Hide/Forum/thread?forumid=216460&messageid=1067120958&lp=1067120958

Just hadn't atually sit down and try to test it out till now. I think I was calling the wrong things by the wrong name. Anyways one of the red plug had discoloration behind the three outer pin type terminals so I think it at least took an arc when no bulb was in there.

If you need more pictures I can take some more, changing the batteries at the moment so that link's the closest thing to a picture as we speak.

Thanks again!

Eugene

[Taras]

Aha, AL/Muster slim ballasts with external Ignitors. Made by Bosch basically. The ones you have are newer ones. They have this plastic base with all of the connections and wires. Ever tried to take that one off the see where the wires connect. Here is what I have at home in the box still:
Here is the picture of a contacts terminal that you should find under the plastic. The main two contacts are for power in. Small pins are pin-outs to the igniter and whatever else they could operate from that power - auto-levelling, bi-xenon solenoid, washers:
<img src="http://mediaservice.photoisland.com/auc ... 384007.jpg" alt=" - " />

And finally the self-expanatory picture. Yellow "+" and Brown "-" are power in. I think your three extra pink green and black? wires that have been cut-off are controller wires, and not for power. POwer I assume comes in through a tw-pin terminal on that plastic base. May be not the broken one. I think you are better off to take the plastic base off and see how you can get that wiring straightened. But you have a good set-up there, It will be easy to mount because you got a separate igniter. You will probably end up extending the three wires anyway. Igniter will go beside the headlight because of the length of HV cables, and then the ballast could go anywhere where it will not see water. Firewall?

<img src="http://mediaservice.photoisland.com/auc ... 850756.jpg" alt=" - " />

Let me know how it goes.

[mx3frik]

Hello Taras,

Thanks for the reply.

Could you possibly do me a favor? Whenever you have things hoooked up could you poke at the green and red wires and get a voltage reading on then for me?

It was when I took the plastic base off that I saw the yellow/brown wire going into the ballast and the and the yellow/black ones on the 9006 are mismatched.

I'm suspecting a couple of the wires going into the ignitor are crimped to the point where the conduction is cut off...thus the experiment I'm bugging you to do.

Eugene

[Taras]

I'll try it with my crappy multimeter, when it stops raining.