Xenons, yay!

[Sankekur]

So I finally got my xenons when I got home today, there were some clips missing on the housings but with some fiddling, tweaking and adapting parts from other light we have laying around the house we were able to fit them.
Here are some pics of the process, not exactly a DIY write-up of epic proportions but thought you guys might like some pics (sorry for the crap quality took with a phone camera):

Then of course the whole reason to go xenons in ther first place apart from the fact that the OEM projector headlights look really cool, is summed up in this pic (xenon on the left halogen on the right):

And with both installed

And here are two drive past vids of the xenons
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One thing I did notice though is that the headlights don't give the bulb out error in the cluster when the lights are on and the key is in position 2 without the engine running, but with the engine running giving a slight blip on the throttle causes the headlights to start to flicker, a lot like the flicker caused by the test currents on LED or CCFL type lights. Also as the headlights are flickering the bulb out errors come on in the cluster and stay on until the key is turned to the off position after which they stay off until the engine is started again. But it did also seems to sort itself out under certian conditions (unkown atm). I also didn't keep the lights on for to long when they were flinckering as I didn't want to damage the bulbs.

Well I am hoping that this flickering has something to do with the bulb out error (in some unique) and that putting a capacitor in parallel with the input of ballast will stop this from happing, but I update as things go along as I don't have the right caps atm so I first have to aquire some.

Also if someone else has some insight/comments to share that will also be appreciated.

 

[Coisman]

Email my daai clips toe..
my werk server blok alles

 

[clutchplate]

eish, I dunno why they would be flickering, but I prolly would have done just that, use some big caps to clean out the current,

looks pretty damn fly tho dood kief man !!!!

 

[Legacy]

Yeah it was a fun sort of diy, too bad my lyf is nou stukkend, all that screws falling into all sorts of places in the engine bay you didn't even know existed but nou ja think it was totally worth it

I think the problem with the flickering might be something with the newer E46's wiring system probably 2004/2005 models which sort of adapts itself to blown bulbs, we have jolled around with the taillight where when you unplug the indicator the car then automaticaly uses either the brake or park lights at the back as an indicator. Not sure if this is the case on all facelift E46's I know that it doesn't work on the non-facelift models. Perhaps the low wattage from the xenon bulbs f***s up this system.

Of course this is all speculation from my part, will probably install a couple of fat capasitors later this week to see if it rectifies the problem:thumb:

 

[rick540]

Have the LCM recoded for Xenon, may solve the problem

 

[msm]

Chat to Gizmo - he has a small mod to solve this problem :thumb:

He did mine a few weeks ago and I did not get the lights out warning since. Also, is your xenons wired to open the flap with high beams?

 

[freerider]

That is all.

 

[XMAX]

hey man.

that looks awesome.

I would like to get that done but i have a question.

i was told that the aftermarket fitment of xenons lead to the wiring loom burning out.

is this true and how can it be prevented if true. i do alot of night driving, so the lights would be on for a while, and i dont want to have a problem should i go this route.

any advice would be greatly appreciated.

btw, those look awesome, i know i said it before, but its true. that pic with the std light and the other xenon really shows the awesome greatness.

please advise as id like to get this done soon.

 

[Sankekur]

Thank for all the input guys. I was familiar with the capacitor DIY which is why I mentioned it in the first post that it was going to be my next step , only needed to get some of those capacitors as I usually work with the small ceramic ones.
My problem was that I didn't know whether it would fix the problem as I have done this DIY before but in that case it was only to fix the bulb out error and there wasn't flickering of any kind.
So I did this (put caps in parallel with the ballast inputs) when I got home, and it seems to have solved the problem. So xenons FTW
Some pics, capacitor installed (before soldering):

After soldering and some insulation:

And a video with the xenons working fine while the engine is running, I know the previous videos also showed that, but this time it is consistent:
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I have also formulated an idea as to why the bulbs flickered like they did, but I will share this later for those who care.


@XMAX: I am not too sure about BMW and aftermarket xenons but I have my doubts whether xenons could cause that kind of problems seeing as it is a car that you could get from the dealers with xenons. I had xenons on my corsa for more that a year and I didn't have any problems with it and the corsa's wiring so much thinner than that of the BMW.
What could cause these kinds of problems that you are refering to is using bulbs with higher power ratings than should be used, ie using 100W bulbs instead of the normal 55W. Further xenons are just 35W so they are pulling less current through the wiring system that the standard 55W bulbs.

 

[XMAX]

k dude.

what you say does make sense.

its just that im very cautious when it comes to this thing. i dont want to have any electrical issues. ive had way too many with my corsa in the past.

also, what you have does look nice, but is there a prettier way to handle to capacitors or are they actually in a location thats not easily noticable.

and finally the biggest question of all. how much would it cost to get this done to my car, including you or someone with the knowledge fitting it.

thanks.

veru

 

[Sankekur]

k dude.

what you say does make sense.

its just that im very cautious when it comes to this thing. i dont want to have any electrical issues. ive had way too many with my corsa in the past.

also, what you have does look nice, but is there a prettier way to handle to capacitors or are they actually in a location thats not easily noticable.

and finally the biggest question of all. how much would it cost to get this done to my car, including you or someone with the knowledge fitting it.

thanks.

veru

A prettier way to handle the capacitors would be to use black insulation instead of white (I have white and red, so the choice was pretty obvious). You can also put the capacitors in the e-box (where the computer is), but I didn't test this so I don't know whether it will work as the capacitors need to be close to the lights.
I also want to look into maybe getting lower voltage capacitors as they should be smaller.
The capacitors are not that noticable really and with black insulation it would just look like a fat part of the wiring.

More important than the cost is actually getting a set of OEM xenons as they are kinda hard to find (my experience) that is why I pounced when a set came for sale in the forum. These guys have a set of xenons for sale but they want R3000 per light which is I think is ridicules unless the headlight washer is included that would make it a bit less ridicules but not much.

We (me and my brother) can help you with the installation, but you can also contact Gizmo he can also do it for you.

 

[Sankekur]

Right, here is my idea as to why the xenonx would flicker without the capacitors to stop the bulb out error installed, this of course contains a lot of speculation on my part so if anyone has a better understanding of how these things work feel free to comment.

The previous time I did this capacitor DIY it was only to solve the bulb out error in the cluster but the lights operated as normal even without the capacitors, this was however on an 2000 model e46 so some things might have changed in the electronics in the later models. It seems that BMW's use currrent/voltage pulses to test whether there are bulbs out. You can see this on things like CCFL angel eyes as they have ballasts similiar to that of xenons to boost the voltage so the test pulses are boosted causing the angel eyes to flicker when the car is started.
It would seem to me that these test pulses are current pulses rather than voltage pulses. The reason it seems this way to me is that the test pulses also cause some LED replacements to flicker and a small voltage won't be able to do this but a small current would since a certian threshold voltage is needed to turn on the LED and the voltage would be too small, but enough about that (i will post more about this if someone wants to know as I don't want to go into to much detail about LED's).
What the electronics in my car seem to do is that when it is detected that a headlight bulb is out it stop driving but continues to pulse it with test pulses thus causing the xenons to flicker as the ballasts are now boosting the only input recieved, the test pulses.

 

[KIJ]

looks good.