35W my arse

35W HID drawing too much current

So, as a follow-up,

The rear lamps suggested by Razman turned up and they are excellent. I had tried some other ones, but to be frank the brake lights were inviting an accident. Razmans ones are the business (shipped from China, so not that quick).

The front sidelights turned out to be nice little units (and cheap).

So, the sidelights (from and rear) now draw 0.5A. This is down from around 2A. Also the break lights are still good, and the sidelights are actually a bit brighter FWIW. So all good there.


The HID kit arrived. I ordered a 35W, 6000K set, in bi-xenon H4. This uses a solenoid to move a shield to switch between high and low beam. Took a few days to arrive (China again), was a bit cheap and nasty when it arrived, but it was cheap (£46 including shipping and everything). No instructions (which may have been because it was opened in customs, or maybe because its crap. So, doing an install when you know the thing can generate 30kV with no instructions (at least it wasn't raining yesterday).

Installed it over the last couple of evenings (not made easier by having no earthing points on the glassfibre bonnet) and some of the wiring (the little connectors to the solenoids for dip/main) are of poorer quality than the rest of the kit, which isn't too awful.

Disappointingly, it isn't plug and play. I had to run a power lead back to the battery (the start-up currents are very high). So 20-40 mins, was really about 3-4hours. once holes had been drilled and all the bits mounted.

So, fired them up and they are nice and bright, but not evil. Also I took the opportunity to adjust the beam (one was a bit low). All good so far.

Then I measured the current.

7.7A on dipped (46W), 8.4A on main beam. THere is a further 0.1A going into them from another line (probably powering some control circuitry).

Now, call me a pedant, but 35W x 2 at 12V is 6A. The whole point of this exercise was to drop the current, so I have saved 1.5A when I was expecring to save 3.5A. I am sure that most people don't care about an Amp here or there, but I do.

The chap (dizaa8) is going to get some questions from me and likely a negative feedback if he can't sort it out, I am sure he will think I am mad, but I can't be sending them back (£37 postage is what he charged, £9 for the item) and messing around.