Hey Guys, I am in need of some desperate help. I am no electrical engineer mind you. But I did install the Philips/Denso D2R 9006 HID system, 4300k. It came with no instructions but I figured it out. Pretty much Plug N Play I thought. Well this is the second week in a row where my battery has died. And when the HID's were functional, they would flicker occasionaly when I would put on the parking lights. When they work they are beautiful. But what is killing my damn battery. This just started happening after I installed these guys. Any info or help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! SRTOn

The easiest way to diagnose a draw on the battery when the car is off does require either an automotive tester with an amperage "ring" or a volt/ohm meter. The automotive tester is the easiest and doesn't require you to disconnect the battery to test, the v/o meter requires more work and it's been so many years since I've done it this way I'm afraid to attempt to give how-to instructions without first testing it myself to refresh my memory. Either way you are trying to measure the current draw on the battery while the car is off. I imagine that "off" on the Jeep is .3 amp or less but you probably will see a draw greater then 2 amps if you have a problem. Once you connect the measurement device, get the reading of the amp draw and start pulling fuses one at time until the draw drops to a fraction of an amp...then you have found the circuit with the problem and you can work from there at fixing the offending circuit. I'm guessing that you have some part of your HID system wired to constant 12v and it's really should be switched 12v but I'd make sure that's the problem circuit before spending alot of time troubleshooting the wiring.

Put back your stock headlights and see if they kill your battery.

you need a relay.

my guess would be that you have constant 12v to the wire that is supposed to be a switch 12 volts.

might try going to phillips website, and see if they have online diagrams of what color wire goes where

might try going to phillips website, and see if they have online diagrams of what color wire goes where

I just ordered this. . .
HID Relay Harness With Inline Fuse Relieves stress on your stock wiring system, or disable your DRL's. By drawing power direct from the battery using all 12 AWG wiring HIDs will turn on when triggered by your headlight switch. Built with a duel output 30Amp Relay it powers both HID ballasts, complete with all needed connectors for easy install, the Relay harness will also provide a level of protection for over voltages to you HID system with its inline fuse.

I am hoping that this will solve my little problem. Most good HID Kits from what I have found out and researched, come with this. However, the kit I purchased did not. :)... So I am pretty pumped to install my little Relay Harness and hopefully my problems will be GONE!!! :cool:

Take a look through the "HID" thread on the visual section of this forum, you will see that fitting aftermarket ( non stock) electrical equipment to a truck with modern wiring looms is not "plug and play"

The electrics dont have a simple live/earth switched system, , and there is a constant voltage accross the bulbs ( check your main or dip bulb sockets, there will be about 10.5 volts accross them even when the whole lot is switched off !!!

I put the headlamp system back to stock, but I recon I could get the system working by using the original bulb wiring on a 12volt switched relay, and fire the HID system with the relay. Rather reticent to start playing too much, as having the headlamps fail down some twisty country lane in the middle of the night could be expensive.

Any auto electricians on froum who understand how this electrical system works ??

Ok I am an actual electrical engineer and here is my two cents:

I am installing a HID system on my girlfriend's Laredo and I am having the same flickering problems that was mentioned above. As for the battery going dead, I feel this may be an unrelated problem, because the car shuts off all power to the headlamp circuitry after a maximum of 90 secs. Try getting a multimeter that can read at least 10 or 20 amps. Make sure the car is off and disconnect one of the battery cables. Now place one end of the meter on the now disconnected battery terminal and the second on the cable that you removed. Anything above 1amp would drain your battery over time. Now try the same test with the ballasts of the HID system disconnected. Wait at least a few mins for the car to be compltely off and see what you read. If you get the same reading, you may have a weak battery or there is something else that is draining your battery. If the reading changes substantially, you have likely wired something drastically wrong in the HID system, though I can't imageine what it would be.

Moving on, those flickers are caused by a low current 12v signal that the vehicle puts through the bulb even when the lights are off completely. This will help the ECM recognize when a bulb is burnt out. To test this you can hook back up one standard bulb on one side and leave the HID on the other. With the lights shut off, the standard bulb will not light, but the HID may flicker occasionally. This is bad, very very bad, for the HID system! It will burn it out in months.

I think a relay will fix the problem, I am not sure if each side needs a relay, but thats how I am going to wire it. To accomplish this, from the stock headlight wiring you have two wires, one of these will go to pin 86 on the relay and the other to pin 85. Doesn't matter which goes where because this is a simple coil that drives the relay and it doesn't care. Next, run new power cables from the battery to pin 87 on the relay (Make sure to fuse this close to the battery 15 or 20 amps per side will be plenty and will prevent a fire). Pin 30 will now go to the + supply on your HID system, usually red or anything but black, but check the wiring diagram first!! Finally connect the - of the HID system to a solid vehicle ground. I would recomend using at least a #12 wire for everything to ensure you have enough supply current w/o heating.

This should trick the system into thinking there is a good bulb, the relay's coil will provide about 100ohms of resistance, not as low as a real headlight, but better than the high impedence of looking into a HID ballast.

Final thought, it would be wise to disable the AUTO headlight mode, because this mode turns the lights on and off throughout the day and also can keep them on while the vehicle is starting. All of these conditions are bad for HID ballasts.

Oh also if you have a Canadian version or any other version that has been modified to use daytime running lamps, this must be disabled. This involves a quick free trip to the dealer to set the correct country code in the ecm. If the DRL circuitry is activated, it provides 5-9 volts to the lamps during the day which would mean dim driving lights, but with a HID system it means a hot and burnt out ballast.

I will try to post my results tomorrow, that ran a little long, but I hope it helps out a bit!

-Mike

The relays work like a charm, still make sure that you don't use the Auto mode. Instead use the manual mode because this will ensure that your HIDs will last for years instead of months like I have heard of happening.

The lights look great, soo much more light than stock.

If anyone has questions please send me a message and I will try to get back to you quickly.

-Mike
micallah@du.edu

I can't post pics yet because I haven't posted enough on this forum, but I will try to get some up.

Pics:

http://i9.tinypic.com/33541zn.jpg

http://i9.tinypic.com/2hmdnyp.jpg

-Mike

Pics:

http://i9.tinypic.com/33541zn.jpg

http://i9.tinypic.com/2hmdnyp.jpg

-Mike

Thanks guys for all your info... Great Diagram Also...!!! Yeah I've got Relays on the way!!!