Thread: General: - E46 Bi-Xenon (budget) retrofit
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Old Nov 6th, 2017, 18:26   #25
LizardOfBodom
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As my new project is taking longer than I thought, and my story-notes are getting longer and longer, I decided to start the writeup now and share what I have done so far. I am, hopefully 1 week away from finished project and swapping the lamps, but even now I am sure it wont be 100% as I want it, as wiring of this contraption is more complicated than I thought....
but anyway - here is my photostory of work in progress so far

So just a brief explanation of "Black Lamp project" origins. As seen on previous posts, I already have retrofitted HID system with H7 bulbs. It is working well and really happy with it, but being a bit of a light freak I always
wanted to go step ahead. Always regretted not going with D2S version so I thought to myself "ah, what the hell" and decided to go for it this time.

Step1

As per my original plan - I was not happy with swapping projectors over for every annual test, nor I thought it would be healthy for the plastic holders so I decided to get the spare set of headlamps. First attempt - pulled the plug on set of brand new aftermarket ones, TYC brand.
Big mistake.
Next day after recieving them, those were in return post heading back to seller. Quality was terrible, plastic felt like it was breaking by just touching it and the projector holders looked so fragile I would actually be afraid to
swap anything inside. Plus headlight regulator snapped by just looking at it, seriously! 20eur lost, back to square one.

Took me few weeks to source decent set of used ones. Partially because I decided to go only with black ones as I felt those would be nice "by the way" upgrade, and partially as its hard to find set that is not damaged and in decent condition. Finally got a pair from local (!) scrapyard for about 80e.



Nothing broken, inside very clean and dust free, just badly scratched. Tested them on the car to make sure everything worked, and took (badly burnt) projectors and all bulbs out. I also took all regulators out first (the plastic clips with white torx) as its much easier to operate on adjusters without them without the risk of snapping. As mentioned in previous posts - one of the screws holding the projector is a real a**, hiding directly under the light levelling motor, and the only way to tackle it is to move the projector horizontally on the adjuster max to one side. It reveals the screw's head and allow to force it out.



Packed lamps in the bags, left it on the shelf for the future. In the meantime I ordered set of LED rings, 100mm, as advised, to copy the idea of some people from the forum. 20eur all in. Also started to look around for a set of used AL projectors.


STEP2

Week later I got the rings, and had a go with first trial-fittings.





As said by others, It was a tight fit and 100mm rings are really snuggle in the plastic housing. Problem was, wouldnt stay alligned (very slippery that inside chrome coating) and were also really close to the OEM diffusor (plastic shroud outside the projector) that I decided to keep. I liked the effect best when distance from plastic was atleast 2-3cm as it made nice and diffused, but still powerful light. I decided I will not touch the inside of the lamps (dust particles from this type of plastic is a NIGHTMARE) so used small file to do few notches in the actual ring to wedge it better. Still didnt sit right and thought I may need to glue/attach them for better result. Decided to re-think this whole idea.
Test fitting also highlighted the big issue of how bad the acrylic shield was.



That would be a really bad for oncoming traffic when xenon burners are used so next logical step was to take care of this. Ordered some extra polishing attachments for drill, had some polishing compound from previous lamps left so thats all I needed.
Still no luck with AL projectors, but ordered a set of one of the best bulbs available in D2S - Osram Xenarc NB Unlimited. Found a great deal on Amazon for 55Eur so snapped them imemdiately.

STEP3

Polishing attachments arrived, prepared myself mentally for weekend and started the job on one evening.
Bad idea.
10 minutes later I ended up with almost burnt marks on part of the shield and no visible improvement after lenghty polishing process. Gave up and found local advert for professional headlamp restoration. 30eur and 1 day later I had perfectly cleaned and polished headlamps that I just needed to seal with UV sealant. Best decision I did was to stop trying to do it myself. Stunning result.




STEP4

My next step of project was delayed again because of simple fact - could not find ANY used AL projectors from RHD car. None. Maybe US market is better for retro projects (have seen plenty of ads for cheap projectors) but here its
either full headlamp or nothing. A bit disappointing result, but hey - cant give up. The fallback plan was to order set of new aftermarket projectors from the same crowd I used before (Retrofitlab). Also got the D2S->AMP lead as I will be using my current Kensun ballast kit. 160eur gone.
Finally got them week later and did some bench testing and inspection.



First impression - looks identical to H7 version from Retrofitlab. Just the bulb base is different. Didnt really expect anythyng else as I was told those wont differ much, but still. The positive thing is that bulbs sits much
better and with less possible wiggle, and that straight out-of-the box everything was perfect. No messing around with bulb base, cutoff adjustment etc. I guess proper D2S bulb does make a difference. Testing it out on the garden shed provided really impressive result



Just to compare, as I had it handy - original projector from this headlamp with H7 bulb....



Wow...

Anyway - having projectors checked and prepared, I was ready to fit them in. Unfortunately - failed miserably doing so with LED rings in. It was just a hour-long disaster of trial fitting rings to either plastic shroud or the projector itself. Those were just simply too big and ill fitted, was not able to allign them nicely for good effect.



Defeated, had a lightbulb (pun intended) moment and took some measurments of actual projector and contacted the seller.



Found out that 94mm rings have apx 78mm inner diameter so this will be a perfect fit! Plus, its possible to put them in a distance from the diffusor plastic, as I always wanted, and attaching them with cableties to projector will allow easy replacement in case of burning out or whatever.
Why didnt I think of that before?
With another week of waiting ahead of me, only thing I could do was to wire the bi-xenon shutter to hi-beam cable. This time I didnt bother with extension cable - just wired it straigt to bulb connector. Worked like a charm.






I also discovered another problem (ofcourse) that I havent thought of before. D2S->AMP cable wiring is different than H7 rebased bulbs and there are just 2 wires without rubber collar coming out of it. And you still need a + cable coming out of the headlamp, so how to get total of 3 cables from the headlamp to the ballasts without compromising the seal? The only thing I thought of was to re-use cables from cut H7 bulb (with rubber collar seal) and attach them to D2S->AMP adapter. Used butt joint connectors, crimped and isolated (2 layers, just in case) and will also leave the joint inside of the headlamp. The rubber collar will fit perfectly in my previously cut lamp covers from my current lamps so it should become plug&play after assembly. Voila the franken-cable :}



Did some tests with bulb powered on and there seem to be no heat on joints so I am hoping I did it well. Also, I hope to have no problems with water penetration as lamps will remain as sealed as possible.


STEP5

Week later rings arrived, and what do you know? Perfect fit!! Really happy with them.






Tip for everybody - although not marked, those rings are actually + and - orientated so make sure you mark which cable is + to avoid connection issues. Nothing will go wrong, just wont work if not connected properly.

Started to assemble the lamps back, putting projectors in their mounts as careful as possible. Another useful tip - dip the screws in a bit of lube - that should hopefully prevent the plastic powder coming out next time when disassembling projectors (and trust me - that powder is a real PITA to get rid afterwards, ask me how I know...).



After some usual wiggling with that one pesky screw, both projectors were in. Did a quick dry-test of LED ring - looks perfect. Light colour on picture is totally off as those leds are pure white (5000K) but you get the idea. Will shoot some better ones when finished.



Really happy with uniform and diffused light, plus - its not visible at all when off. Exacactly what I wanted.

I also found out convenient way to pre-aim projectors and check their allignment and proper seating in the comfort of the kitchen. I took the current lamps out of the car to my test table and marked the outline with pen on the piece of tape. Then I fired them up and marked the beam position on the door. Then I did exactly the same with new headlamps and adjusted projectors to match the markers as perfectly as possible. Happy to say the adjustment was not that much off and just confirmed that projectors are seated correctly. On previous lamps I had to use metal washers to achieve correct adjustment. My only concern is that beam seem to be going down a bit on both new ones.

Maybe its just from short-distance throw (2 meters from the door) or headlamp not alligned properly on table, but I am hoping its not gonna be visible when fitted. Rotational issue with projectors is always a problem and is not easy to correct. Time will tell.






So the only thing left now is connecting LED rings. And thats where I failed, again, and thats where I am now, waiting for next weekend to carry on with the project. Just because I want to do it MY way...

let me explain
So the whole concept behind the LED rings is not only to look nice, but to also work as proper DRL. As I drive with lights on 24/7 (because I feel its right way to do so) and in the same time not very happy with HIDs engaged during sizzling-summer months in here (22Celsius scorching hot :P), I've always found the idea of LED DRLs very convenient. So I want to connect them "the right way" so when engine is on and all lights are off, DRL LEDs are active. When turning the lights on - DRLs will shut down.
There are few ways to do it, but the only sensible one is to do it via dedicated DRL relay. Something like this one (mind blowing 2eur per piece . I am planning to use 2 of them, 1 per each headlight, and place them in each lamp itself, although those are designed to handle pair of LEDs each.



This one is fairly simple and cheap - will either activate or deactivate DRL depending on extra signal coming in. Some better ones will dim the LED ring to 50%, but really found no reason to spend 30eur on those, especially that with lights on, rings wont be visible anyway. And definetely I will not want to have those rings 100% on with headlamps active - generated heat and dazzling at night is not something I want to achieve. But because of that, I had a "pleasure" of spending half of Sunday figuring out the connection and testing the relays.
I have to admit - I am electrically challenged so even such simple thing takes me 5x more than anyone with good electrical skills, but Im getting there. Managed to create a nice cable octopus when connecting it to my test PSU but finally got it right and labelled all wires so I dont mess it up (*yes, I have instruction, no, I didnt fully understand it . Flicking the switch emulates turning the lights on and off so test bulb should light up in OFF position.
It does



For the moment - thats where I am stuck, though. Wiring up the cables inside the headlamp means cutting to some existing ones (parking light for example) so its taking me some time. Plus, I found out that there is NO ignition-related +12V inside of headlamp so that mean I need cable from somewhere else run to each headlamp. More hassle, cables and finding the good place to splice-in. Not in the mood for that now, plus weather currently doesnt help so I made an executive decision to leave it until later (next summer maybe) and wire the LEDs temporarily using parking dipped beam as commanding signal. So when I turn parking lights (POS1) - LED rings and parking lights will activate. When I turn dip beams (POS2), LED rings will deactivate. Need to compromise on this one as otherwise will never finish it this winter...

Thats all for now. Planning to finish wiring in current form during weekend and hopefully mount the lights to the car and do a proper allignment. Only after then I will be able to tell, was it worth it or not. So far, when adding up all current cost, I have serious doubts, but heck, will see.
Will provide update after next stage, so if you are interested, stay tuned
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E-focus torque mount, E46 bi-xenon retrofit v2 , (also available in PDF form), DTSC fully-off mod, Brembo discs+ATE ceramic pads

Last edited by LizardOfBodom; Nov 6th, 2017 at 18:37.
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