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V70 HID kit

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Old Sep 18th, 2016, 23:24   #11
Simon Jones
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I ran some Osram Ultralife bulbs in previous XC70 and they lasted within a month of their warranted 3 year period. Cost me £15 so that works out at £5 a year which is pretty good value in my opinion.
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Old Sep 18th, 2016, 23:27   #12
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I have also tried those...they last because they're...well...not very good (in my experience). Very yellow light and below average output. To be honest, I'd rather stick some £2 Neolux from GSF in it every 2 months than go back to those.
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Old Sep 19th, 2016, 00:53   #13
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From one big boy to another (ooooer) can I respectfully say :

- The legal issues are the same with LED as with HID

- There's often confusion at the MOT - self leveling systems and headlamp washers with HID's/LED's are only testable items IF fitted.

- LED's are not likely to work well, reflector and projector headlamps work by focusing the beam from a point source (in the case of halogen lamps a filament that measures about 5mm x 1mm) that's not how LED headlamps work or are constructed.

- Bear in mind also that most Volvo's from around 2005 use pulse width modulation power control to regulate the headlamp bulb voltage at 12v - they are effectively running on rectified AC and this can cause some HID ballasts and LED drivers to function erratically or not at all - including Volvo OEM Xenon headlamps (the type of headlamp is factory set in the CEM and not changeable). If you have a search on the XC90 forum there is one chap who tried for months to get them to work and ended up with an elaborate system of relays and dummy load resistors... You might be lucky and get a set that work straight out of the box but others have struggled.

Good luck...
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Old Sep 19th, 2016, 00:58   #14
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RM955I View Post
Thanks.

It seems that V70 reflectors take well to HIDs despite the assumption that all HIDs with reflector lenses will kill or maim any living creature within a 100 mile radius.

I'm undecided between 4300 or 5000k...I can't imagine a huge difference, so I'll do a bit more research on that.
H7 and other single filament conversions have a much higher chance of working well as the construction of the HID bulb is similar to a halogen. It's the twin filament H4 conversions that are usually terrible and give retrofit HID's a bad name.

FYI the early XC90's that had Xenon's (HID's) where a reflector design.
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Old Sep 19th, 2016, 07:52   #15
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My P1 V70 has ABM projector units with HID in dip beam , but i run LED for main beam ,as they are instantaneous light & way brighter than the HID's . I can easily illuminate 1 mile of cats eyes on M55 on main beam .

A quick thing to do when you swap over is to make sure your earth is good & clean , if neccessary run an extra earth directly from the battery , also make sure your front panel is not flexing , as the vibrations will break filaments . Had one where everytime the electric fan kicked in the whole front shuddered , turned out to be loose mountings leading to broken bulbs
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Old Sep 22nd, 2016, 19:30   #16
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Yet another bulb blew today and out of frustration I have ordered an HID (canbus, digital) kit from HIDs 4 U with 'R' type bulbs (the HIDs obviously have a much longer quoted lifespan). This would have been £80 but i found a 20% off code, bringing it down to £63 inc postage. This is more expensive that eBay or HIDs Direct but the kit looks a good quality item with good reviews for the product and service. http://www.hids4u.co.uk/H7-HIDS4U-St...rsion-Kit.html

I had to settle for 5000k as they don't do a 4300k.

Quote:
Cheshired5: What are the live and ground voltage drop readings for the good and bad side?
The voltage to both lamps is in the 13.9v region - higher than I'd have expected but both read the same + or - a few 0.0X volts. I have measured across the connector terminals and also measured the earth to body, getting the same readings. Readings are stable.

Is the voltage right? Before I connect the HID kit, I wanted to check those voltage readings.

Thanks
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Last edited by RM955I; Sep 22nd, 2016 at 19:37.
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Old Sep 22nd, 2016, 19:59   #17
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Hi,
I recently upgraded my halogens to LED. Honestly, I opted to upgrade purely for looks - the yellowish halogen was giving off a pretty dated look to the car. I purchased the kit locally and was strongly encouraged to go LED vs. HID by the vendor. Apparently, LED is less prone to flickering and turns on instantly vs. HID (I have not used HID so cannot confirm either issue).

I purchased a package similar to this one:
https://absolutehid.ca/led-conversion-kit.html and it included CANBUS error cancelling gizmos. $160CAD.

The kit itself is very easy to install and the low profile cooling fins fit just fine within the headlight enclosure.

Lights worked great but I ended up getting a dash error message suggesting that my headlight was out. Worse - the dash message was not constant i.e. if you cancelled it out it would just come back a few seconds later. I did some troubleshooting with the seller - we tried using the lights without the error cancelling device but the problem just would not go away. Finally the vendor suggested that we replace the error cancelling devices with some 50W 8ohm resistors. The resistors were of this variety:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/2x-H11-LED-D...VWDyWx&vxp=mtr.

The good news is that these worked, the bad news is that these mothers are hot, seriously hot. Melt-your-headlight-enclosure hot. Luckily, I realized that this was the case before any major damage could be done.

Let me emphasize, these puppies get very hot: DO NOT INSTALL THESE WHERE THEY WILL COME INTO CONTACT WITH ANYTHING EXCEPT METAL. For me this meant installing two little metal "L" brackets on the back of each light enclosure and then tie-wrapping the wires coming in and out to effectively suspend the resistors in the air space behind the light.

My driving is mostly city driving - as far as quality of lighting I do find that they light up signage and immediate surroundings more clearly. I'm not sure that they disperse the light as evenly as the halogens but that might just be me.

Oh - one final thing: the rubber gaskets that came with mine that seal the LED's to the light enclosure sucked. I took the rubbers off the halo's and used those instead. Unfortunately, I realized this AFTER I pushed the inner light enclosure right out of its housing...bit fiddly to get it back in place.

I have to admit, they do look much better that the halogens but installation is a bit trickier than "plug and play."
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Last edited by pierremcalpine; Sep 22nd, 2016 at 20:01.
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Old Sep 24th, 2016, 18:52   #18
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Fitted my kit today...all straight forward with the exception of having to buy a 25mm bit to cut a hole in the back cover to pass the grommet and wiring through. No error codes from the digital canbus ballasts.

I had previously taken the manual adjusters 2&1/2 turns up as I think the dipped beam is set way too low as standard, but thought it best to return them to the original setting. Finding space for the very slim ballasts was the biggest faff.

Mine are 5000k as the supplier I wanted doesn't list 4300k but there's no hint of blue.
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Old Sep 24th, 2016, 18:57   #19
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I prefer 5000k, any pics of the lights to see how they look?? Am toying with a new kit for the 50 or LED as the lights are still shocking even after 2 facelifts!
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Old Sep 24th, 2016, 19:44   #20
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I'll do some pics tonight and some during daylight.
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