Ducati Monster Forum

Guys, its been a while since I've been here so quick re-intro: Name is Peter, 32, had almost 40 bikes (5 were ducati, 3 m900 and early bevels), been riding almost all my life, 3 ER visits, blah, blah, blah... Love all the guys at Seattle Ducati (hi to Dave, Marty, Suny...), love all the guys at MOTO I (Jason - the best mechanic and super good people, Dave - rad guy!), thanks for keeping me going over the years.

Anyways, like the title says....i got a 55w HID kit and need to wire it in. I've been runnin the Acerbis Cyclops headlight for a few years w/o problems and wireing it in was not too hard at all. Both hi and lo use h3 bulbs. The HID bulb will not fit into the lo beam projector due to the fact its too long but will fit into the high and thats where its going.... problem I had was blowing fuses once I switched to the high/HID. I tried to connect the black wire coming from the ballast to both the black wire that is coming out of the harness (and was originally grounded to the steel halogen H3 base and light housing) and just running it straight back to the neg on the battery.

Any suggestions? Anyone one else successfully try this set up and if so, how did you make it work? Thanks, Pete
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are you sure its a 55w hid? most are only 35w. but, i think the issue you might be having is the hid needs alot of current to start the bulb.  you need to wire in a separate relay coming straight from the battery to your ballast/ignitor.  hid bulbs work differently than halogens, they accually create an arc of electricity through a special gas instead of just a filament heating up like a halogen.

+1 on Knightrider.  Most HID's I've seen are 35 watt ones, but thats beside the point.    I believe HID with ballast and igniter in place draws mush less current than halogens so you shouldn't blow your fuse.  You you sure the wiring is correct (serial versus parallel?)

series vs. parallel?  i'm not an electrician guys....this is why/where i need the help.
as for the hid being 55w, yes it is 55 not 35.  its the next generation of hid....brighter.  i know how hid works, installed them in my 5 series, i know they draw less and run cooler (hence why i don't see why even the 55w would be a prob).

The fuse blows not right away as soon as i switch to the high beam, ie: hid but rather after about 5-10 seconds, leading me to believe its a ground issue??  i did not know hid draws more power on start up?  if it does i guess a relay would help but i've honestly never seen/heard of that being an issue.  however if so, again, not being an electrician....and not knowing how a relay works or how to install one should i need one.... how would i wire one in and what kind should i buy??

ugh, thanks guys....i'm determined to make this work...before i just get diff bulbs and wire it into my truck.

Try this and see what happend.  Replace the fuse and disconnect/remove the low beam bulb and then hit the high beam.  3 things could happen which would help narrow down the potential problem:
1) no light at all: Wired in serial and the removal of the low beam bulb broke the circuit
2) HID lights fine and remains lit: The combined 55 watt draw and the low beam is too much
3) The HID still blows the fuse: something is wrong with the HID kit.

Good luck...also if anyone thinks the above is a bad idea please chime in as I am not an electrical engineer.

thanks man, ok...this makes sense:

1. if this is the case, how do i correct it?  and would this cause a fuse to blow? and see number 3, the low is NOT on while the high is on.
2. high (hid) is not on while low (halogen is on). i am thinking of making the low hid too though (which would prolly create even more problems, aaahahahaha).
3. doubt anything wrong with the hid.  i tried both ballasts.

the high beam does have the little euro, "pilot" positioning light in it that stays lit...wonder if that added to the hid is too much?  should not be, doubt that thing draws anything at all and besides it was on with the halogen which is rated at the same wattage.

This is how I would go about everything.

Put everything back to its original way. Original bulbs and everything.

Does the fuse blow? If yes, see above. If no continue with removing the bulbs since your lo does not fit, then let's work with the high beam. From your main wires (oem headlight harness) you should have a connector that goes from the oem harness to a new wire that has connectors for your acrebis. This is where your ballast should connect to. There should 3 main wires for ground low and high beam. There might also be 2 more wires for the parking/pilot light.

From these 3 wires only 3 should plug into ur ballast, the high beam and ground.

When you purchase your hid kit, it should of came with its own wire harness. If not then you need to get one. Complain to the guy. Got it from, or just buy one of ebay.

If the fuse blows at this point check all your connectors. Cheap hid kits might have the wires incorrectly placed into the connectors or the ends might strip if you wiggle them to much.

If all else fails swing a bat at the guy who sold it to you. :) good luck.

Also if yiu go to a bulb store they sell non automotive hid bulbs that are as small as h3 halogens. Just make sure they work with ur ballasts output power ( should be in your manual, box or on the ballast itself)

Good luck

Already put everything back to the way it was.  Works fine (as it did from the time I converted to the Acerbis till I tried to go HID).

The kit did come with all the wires I need, I have no reason to believe the kit is defective (besides the high positive rating of the US seller).

I did try to connect the neg off the ballast to the neg in the harness AND a ground on the frame and battery and still blew fuses.  Were they bad grounds?

I'll check the wires, connection on the kit but again, all looked right/good to me.  Not much to mess up there....two wires, a black and a red.

The only thing I can think of is that theres something wrong with the ground, either the HID or the low beam (why else do fuses blow)?  Or that the kit draws too much power?  (again, its 55w, the same as OEM and Acerbis so that should not be an issue).

...any way to post some pics?  Thay may help the discussion

ya, i was thinking that too....i'll try to get on that!  might not get to it till sunday though :(

do you have a link to what kit you bought? maybe just link to a picture from said website?

also with regards to fuses and hid's, all kits i have seen recommend installing a relay to draw power directly from the battery as to not overload the stock wiring. my monster has a 15amp fuse for the high/low beam. now im not sure about your 55w hid, but, i do know that a typical 35w hid can draw some serious amps during startup (and it depends on the quality of the ignitor/ballast on how much it will accually draw), which then tapers down to around 2.5 to 3 amps. 

i dont know if you guys know, even though the OP says he knows how hid bulbs work, but the bulbs accually have 2 electrodes and the light output is accually a 23000 volt arc, similar to a tazer when it arcs between the contacts, what makes it different is the gas inside the bulb makes the arc much brighter.  now to create this arc between the electrodes, it needs alot of current(amps) to cross the gap between the electrodes, sometimes when using the stock wiring, its not able to deliver this high amperage to the ignitor and the ignitor will keep firing to try and strike the arc, drawing more current.  to fix this issue you should install a relay.

a relay is a simple device, its basically like a light switch, that is turned on by applying a low current voltage to it. now how a relay works is:  a standard bosch relay will have 5 pins, but for this application we only need 4 of the pins.  now inside the relay is a coil, when low current voltage(like from the headlight connector's high beam wire) is applied to this coil, it acts like a magnet, and it closes the switch inside thus completing the circuit and allowing voltage to flow through the relay(from the battery to the ballast/ignitor).  so pin 85 of the relay coil will go to the pin in the headlight connector for the high beam, pin 86 will go to ground. pin 87 will go to your batteries positive, and pin 30 will go to the positive to your ballast/ignitor. then you ground the negative for the ballast/ignitor.

here is a view of the pins on a standard bosch relay
(http://www.bcae1.com/images/jpegs/relaybot.jpg)

thats about as best i can probably explain it, if your still confused, google how relays work and there are a million sites that probably do a better job than me at explaining this stuff.

and i dont understand what cdawg is getting at about the whole series/parallel thing. the hi and low beam are different circuits from the left hand grip switch, if hes just tapping into the stock headlight connector like most kits instruct you to, you just tap into the one wire that powers the high beam bulb.

also i found a little vid on youtube that will show you the initial startup current draw when you turn on your hid bulb. now im not saying yours accually draws the same amount, but it could, it all depends on the ballast/ignitor you have.

http://www.youtube.com/v/NCqjSLUIkjk&hl=en&fs=1

If you run it in series, there will be a voltage drop and the ballast wont be able to kick the voltage up high enough to start the xenon arc.
if you run it in parallel, you get the full ~13.3 volts and as much amperage as the wire can sustain.

The only way you can run it in series is if you cut the hot/negative wire put the balast wire in and run the ground to the other end of the hot wire. Which would cause the fuse to blow.

yea but what are we talking about running in series or parallel? the low beam is separate from the high beam, the headlight connector has 3 wires, one is for the low beam, one is for the high beam, and the 3rd is a ground, all he should have done is connect the positive from his ballast to the high beam wire from the stock harness. then ground the other one. that simple.  there is no posibility to hook anything up in series or parallel. its one wire.

I dont know. People do stupid things. I just gave an explanation of how he could of accidentally ran it in series. Could the OP have not connected the ground and instead connected the ballast ground to low beam?

Honestly, i have to see a pic of how he wired it.

and just as an FYI, i ran dual H4s, ( I believe high beam eats 100watt on the one i had), so thats 200watts. I always ran high beam for hours at a time and ran into no issues. Wires were not even hot. I currently run dual 35watt bixenon HIDs, so thats 70watt total draw. No issues whatsoever.

Nightrider, thanks for dropping tons of good knowledge on me.

Maybe a dumb question, I know how a relay works now but what is its purpose?

The way I had it wired up was pretty simple....the hot off the ballast went to the hot from the high beam and i grounded the neg off the ballast to the neg on the battery.

a relay is basically like a switch, but one that is activated remotely. so instead of running large wire from the battery, to a large switch that is rated for the high amperage, then to the load. you can run small wires to a small switch and allow that to activate the relay instead.

Just trying to eliminate the easy possibilities and not take anything for granted...you never know how someone may have modded it.

Good to know the HIDs draws high intital amps.

Nightrider, ok.....so the reason to use a relay is so i can run the same size wires b/c you suspect i'm blowing that fuse do to the small wires?  Or, the other alternative then if i did not want to use the relay would be to run thicker wire?  if i got that right, then i'll look for a relay. 

well small wires wont make fuses blow, it will make the wire heat up and possibly catch fire. i dont think that is the issue, i think your hid is pulling more amps than the fuse can handle, on my bike its a 15 amp fuse for the hi and low beam.  one thing you could also try is putting a 20 amp fuse inplace of the the 15, you had mentioned that the fuse blows 5 to 10 seconds after you turn on the high beam, it could be that your light is drawing close to 15 amps at startup.  most automotive fuses can handle more than the rated amperage for a brief moment, but will blow after a couple seconds, this is ussually called a slow blow fuse.

So, a relay would somehow make that initial higher amp draw more gentle?  I'm just trying to figure out if installing a relay will fix my prob before I go to the work of doing it. 

The fuse that blows is the 7.5 one.... I don't have the bike in front of me but if I remember right its the third one down.....30 is in top, then something else then the 7.5.  I'll verify that once I get home.

i think your problem is your small fuse, i guess on whatever year/model your bike is differs from mine.  you could trya larger fuse, but i would recommend just doing the relay because like i said before, overloading the wiring could cause a fire, not something you want.

wiring in a relay will take the high amperage load off of the stock monster wiring, and pull the amperage straight from the battery, heres how it should be wired
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v124/SeCti0n_8/HIDwiring.jpg)
my leet paint skillz

nightrider, thanks again...u're being very helpful and patient with my retarded a$$ on this one.
so i looked and the fuse that blows is not the 15a headlight one but the 7.5 tail/turn sig/pilot one.
that make any diff?  or should i just go ahead with your relay suggestion?  thanks again in advance.

If your 7.5 fuse blows, but your headlight doenst, that means your ballast is still receiving power. but it wont turn on?

Connect the wires directly to the battery and see if it turns on. I doubt it since your headlight fuse didnt blow. Im hoping you didnt connect your blinker wires to the ballast since they are very close the OEM headlight wire.

and for what its worth, it would be thousands of times easier if you posted a pic.

i know i got to work on the pics but its really self explanatory....umm, ya, haha....
The bulb lights up, then blows a fuse 10 sec later :(

does the light stay on when the fuse blows?  where is your ground wire connected? 

No, hid bulb does not stay on after fuse blows.  had the ground connected to the frame then tried the neg on the batt.