Urgent help: halogens to xenons

L

Liam-O

Senior member
 Solihull
Just in the process of changing from halogens to xenons. I was under the impression is was plug and go, obviously less the washers and the self levelling?

Here's a video of me trying them:

http://i680.photobucket.com/albums/vv161/Liam-Saxo/98ADE576-E334-4240-8E3A-A767A4AD0C47-9819-000004D472F2E83F.mp4

Sidelights work fine, but I try dipped beam, the xenons and they flicker and then go off. The first time I tried, they stayed on for about 20 seconds, no warning on the dash. Now as in the video with a warning on the dash

EDIT: my bumpers currently off on the drive and I'd like to know if I need to swap back (lesson learnt about starting jobs at 6:30)
 
sounds like a canbus issue

are the lights you have fitted canbus error free? as yes, it should be plug & play
 
strange.... ! The xenons take more power than halogen to start up but less power once they are running... at a guess I would say the LCM is for whatever reason cutting the power as it think there is a short? I think there is some coding that needs to be done to get the LCM to work with oem xenons http://www.z4-forum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=40547 but I thought that was just to alter the way flash to pass works I wouldn't have thought it would affect aftermarket XENON. If no one else has any ideas then in the kit they usually supply a long wiring harness with relays the LCM would switch the relays on and the actual power to drive the xenons would come from a fused wire going to the battery or in our case the extended battery terminal in the engine bay.
 
Suggest doing your bumper back up and get everything back together and using the fog lights for night time driving like i'm doing until you get it coded... I have 1 xenon flickering at the moment due to ballast being full of water. No one as yet to flash me using the fog lights which confirms my belief that they are crap :o haha i wouldnt recommend a lot of night time driving though until you get it coded!
 
I dont think they will you would have more luck with a good bmw indie , could be wrong... but a forum member may be able to help you out... i am up in Leeds so not much help :-(
 
Right, I guess I need them coded, fortunately I'm off tomorrow so I'll call a few indies.

If any members can do tomorrow or sunday please let me know, I'm willing to travel and I'd rather pay a forum member...
 
See here mate - http://www.z4-forum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=25446 I think I have SSS but am used to fiddling with the LCM in NCS Expert, hopefully the official method in SSS does not make the car look for the levelling sensors or at least throw any errors if they are not working. Are your new lights pre facelift to facelift ? e.g http://images.thecarconnection.com/lrg/2008-bmw-z4-series-2-door-roadster-3-0si-headlight_100296677_l.jpg or http://i1090.photobucket.com/albums/i362/tauman1/DSC00773.jpg
 
In that case I would imagine they are wired the same

taken from this thread: http://www.z4-forum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=40547&start=45

PRE-FACELFT WIRING 8 pin connector on headlamp

1. RAIN SENSOR
2. LOW BEAM
3. HIGH BEAM
4. SIDE LIGHT
5. HAZARD
6. HAZARD
7. INDICATOR
8. BI XENON

No idea what the rain sensor is?? didnt know there was something like that in the headlight....

Looks like the LCM sends an extra signal to pin 8 when high beam comes on which lifts up the shutter inside the XENON light and also LCM changes the way fault detection (check control) occurs on the low beam since its no longer a simple halogen lamp it is seeing.

Some more info here.... http://www.z4-forum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=278

There was no reply if the guy got it working.... you may end up having to do a combination of rewiring and coding but there will be a way to get it working was some fiddling.
 
I think the bottom line is the LCM without being coded needs to see some resistance on pin 2 to emulate a filament bulb otherwise it thinks the bulb has gone. At the moment it sees the XENON ballast which will react differently to current passed through it confusing the LCM.

I very much doubt its intelligent enough to work out the difference between a 5w bulb that is out or a 55w bulb that is out, it prob runs the same checking current through all the bulbs with car both off and on based on that....

One solution without messing with the coding may be to piggyback a 5W resistor or 12v 5w bulb (left in the back of the headlamp so no one can see) between pin 2 and negative (negative usually brown ... for some reason its not listed on the pin out above my guess pin 1 is ground i could check for you as i have a set open in my cellar) that way the LCM would see a constant load and bring on the XENON lamps. Finally you would join wires pin 3 to pin 8 so that you get the super bright high beam :D which opens the xenon shutter and uses the high beam halogen.

The downside to doing this would be ... not the correct method and an extra load of 5w on the LCM at XENON startup and 40w current draw while on instead of 35w... i doubt it would be an issue but worth thinking about. I would test the method with a 5w bulb before buying anything.
 
Oh yeah and don't hands near anything while the lights are on.... serious voltages inside I once had an aftermarket kit with bad wiring arcing against the bodywork over a 1inch gap!
 
im looking to get a cable tomorrow, try that (theres some other things i want to code anyway). If that doesnt work, ill need to look at the wiring and see what I can come up with. Gone are the days when a bulb is a bulb :o
 
Update: All that was needed was to recode with SSS. In the retrofit menu, I chose bi-xenon headlights.

No wiring changes needed as both headlights are pre-facelift.
 
Liam-O said:
Update: All that was needed was to recode with SSS. In the retrofit menu, I chose bi-xenon headlights.

No wiring changes needed as both headlights are pre-facelift.
Click to expand...
Glad you got it sorted! :thumbsup:
 
andysat said:
Liam-O said:
Update: All that was needed was to recode with SSS. In the retrofit menu, I chose bi-xenon headlights.

No wiring changes needed as both headlights are pre-facelift.
Click to expand...
Glad you got it sorted! :thumbsup:
Click to expand...

It only took 5 hours sitting in the car with a laptop on me!
 
Liam-O said:
andysat said:
Liam-O said:
Update: All that was needed was to recode with SSS. In the retrofit menu, I chose bi-xenon headlights.

No wiring changes needed as both headlights are pre-facelift.
Click to expand...
Glad you got it sorted! :thumbsup:
Click to expand...

It only took 5 hours sitting in the car with a laptop on me!
Click to expand...
5 hours?-phew well done for sticking it out! :thumbsup:
 
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