Factory Caprice HID Headlamp Info

Electronic systems, stereo and Holden iQ, wiring, it all goes here....
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smwalker
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Factory Caprice HID Headlamp Info

Post by smwalker »

Someone recently asked me why the HID headlamps they got from Australia were not staying on. I had thought I looked it up a while ago and determined that the headlamp connectors and wires were all the same from standard headlights to HID save for the leveling motor provisions. So I went and looked it up again and sure enough the wires are larger to handle the increased amps of the HID.

So here is the pinout with the wire sizes. The HID option is code T4F. As you can see on the low beam wires the size is 1.25 that equates out to about a 16 AWG wire where as the wire size for standard headlights is .5 or 20 AWG. Notice also the ground is quite a bit bigger when HID's are involved.
HID Pinout
HID Pinout
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So the easy solution is to create a relay harness that will take power directly from the fuse box, send it through a fuse (or even 2, one for each headlight) to each of the bulbs. So I looked for an easy plug and play way to do that and it can be done. The plan is to disconnect the headlamp connector, plug the harness into the headlamp then have a mating plug on the harness that will plug into the cars headlamp plug. Some wires (parking lights, turn signals, high beams) will simply pass through from one connector to the other but the low beams from the car will go to the relay to power it on then a 16 AWG wire will go from the relay to the low beam HID terminals. Also since they are close the grounds can all be joined and a dedicated ground line of about 14 AWG can be taken back to the chassis grounds on each side of the car to give all the bulbs in there a good ground.

Here is my relay mounded by the fuse box, the brown ground wire sneaking around the side of the fuse box back to the chassis ground and the two headlight connectors in place :
HID1.JPG
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I did a project listing for all the parts needed to make up the connectors at the headlamps.
HID Relay project listing - Mouser
What you would need to add is the relay, wire, fuse holders and bolt terminal ends for the 2 grounds and the main power wire. Then you will have one 16 AWG wire going across the top of the radiator so some kind of loom/wrap to protect it would be advisable. Think it might come to about $50 total in parts.

Here they are hooked up in a temp situation just for testing:
https://youtu.be/JM6hWkQ_tKc

Started up great, no flicker and did not turn off after a few seconds. The high beams have a neat feature. Not only do the high beam bulbs come on but a little eye brow on the top of the low beam assembly gets activated and it lifts out of the way for more light to shine out the top of the low beam reflector. So it sort of raises the cut off.

One thing to consider though is PPV's that have DRL's activated on them use the low beam for the DRL. WIth the replacement cost of the HID bulbs and ballasts that can go bad I am not sure that is something I would want on all the time. Rather only have them on at night when I need them. Might look into maybe putting the fog lights on as the DRL's, those bulbs are cheap!!
Steve Walker
Azusa, CA
'11 PPV 9C3 Huron White
smwalker
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Re: Factory Caprice HID Headlamp Info

Post by smwalker »

Next Thing I needed to tackle was the leveling motor system.

I did not think they would need to be hooked up but the more I thought about it the more I realized they would need to be adjusted. I talked to two guys on FB that had installed the HID headlamps. They were both having problems getting them to stay on but when they would work I asked them how was the pattern and did they have to adjust them at all? One guy said his were crazy high lighting up the signs overheard more than the road and the other guy said his seemed to be adjusted OK but he had not fine tuned them. This got me thinking.

How they work is there is a sensor tied to the front and rear suspension. On start up and I would assume periodically they adjust based on how the suspension is sitting. So start up the car with only you driving and they adjust to one level. Go over to your in-laws house to take them freeloaders to the airport and load up 4 more passengers and 200 lbs of luggage and now your headlight are pointing in the air!! But the sensors notice the rear suspension is sitting lower and brings down your low beams to the correct level. That's all good. Now consider how we would get our HID's delivered from AU. A wrecker is selling them, off a car that is wrecked, from the rear end most likely. So what if that accident looked like this:
rear-ended-car-accident-02.jpg
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So the car gets hit from the rear and lifted, suspension is fully extended and the headlights are pointing at the ground. So the sensors still working away adjust the low beams up to try and reach thier proper level. Along comes the fire department and they cut the cable to the battery because the car is totaled. Next the wrecking yard takes off the headlamps and some yankee buys them and ships them to the US. Having not had any 12 volts going to the leveling motors they are in the same position they were in when the car was decommissioned. So it's really a crap shoot if you buy these where they will be adjusted.

But surely there must be a manual adjustment? Why yes there is. There is a horizontal and and vertical manual adjustment screw. But the thing is if the leveling motor is in the wrong position to close or to far away from the internal reflectors you might run into them and it stops you from manually adjusting them further. So you have to use both (manual and motors) to get them to the right level and bring them close to the reflectors so you do not have a large gap at the reflectors or hit the reflectors. Tried to take a couple pics to illustrate this:

See the gap between the chrome of the reflector and the metal ring of the projector
IMG_1459.JPG
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And in this one the metal ring of the projector has sort of come into the reflector area too much.
IMG_1460.JPG
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So I figured if you want to run these and have them look and work correctly you have to figure a way to use the leveling motors.

So I looked at adding the leveling system to the vehicle. System consists of a sensor in the front and rear suspension and a module. Here is a description of the system from the service manual:

Automatic Headlamp Levelling
The Automatic Headlamp Levelling systems consist of the following components:

Headlamp levelling module
Headlamp levelling actuator - left
Headlamp levelling actuator - right
Front suspension position sensor
Rear suspension position sensor
The automatic headlamp levelling system automatically maintains the vertical alignment of the headlamps when the vehicle load and driving conditions change. The suspension position sensors send an output to the headlamp levelling module as the vehicle suspension compresses and rebounds. The headlamp levelling module determines vehicle pitch based on outputs from the front and rear suspension position sensors. The headlamp levelling module calculates the difference in vehicle pitch and sends a command to the headlamp levelling actuators. The headlamp levelling actuators drive the headlamps to the position commanded by the headlamp levelling module. The headlamp levelling system also monitors the performance of the high intensity discharge (HID) bulb and ballast. When the headlamp switch is placed in the ON position the headlamps will go down, and then back up to the centre position.

A bit too much to tackle if you ask me. BCM, Data lines.

So I took out the leveling motors to see if there were any other options. One option would be to replace the leveling motor with an adjustable threaded arm with the correct ball on the end so you can do a one time adjustment (or find out the correct length for an average adjustment) and just lock in the lamp at that level.

The other option would be just to control the leveling motor during adjustment then just leave it int it's correct adjustment position. The leveling motor has 4 wires coming off it so I determined it is a bipolar stepper motor. I assume 12 volts. So I went looking for something that could control it. Came across this little project that seemed like it would do just what I needed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRj9J391joI
Project description - Stepper Motor Control
Project List HID Adjuster - Mouser
PCB Layout File
Schematic:
sch.jpg
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Adjuster in use:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXh5s43Uqzs

I think using this adjuster along with the manual adjustments you can get your HID level perfect. They would not adjust with increase loads and such but at least they would be at a good level most of the time.

I bought enough supplies to build three of these adjuster. I built three of them but two of them blew up the main chip. Not sure what I did wrong or if it is a bad design. But one seems to work great. If any of you electrical engineers out there see any glaring mistakes please post em up, you wont hurt my feelings!!
Steve Walker
Azusa, CA
'11 PPV 9C3 Huron White
smwalker
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Re: Factory Caprice HID Headlamp Info

Post by smwalker »

Lastly the Washer system - Looks pretty cool, but I have no idea where to even start on that. It's got a huge fitting for the actuator and man is it strong to activate. Can't believe a standard little washer pump can move them!!
2007-holden-wm-caprice-6_800x0w.jpg
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I have done nothing in this area yet.
Steve Walker
Azusa, CA
'11 PPV 9C3 Huron White
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Mooseman
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Re: Factory Caprice HID Headlamp Info

Post by Mooseman »

Yes, headlight washers use way more powerful pumps. For example, the ones used on GMT360 (Trailblazers et al) have to overcome spring pressure holding the washers back to extend out and high pressure wash them. I wouldn't bother with it unless you drive a lot in winter with lots of road spray. Even then, they're mostly useless.
2011 Caprice PPV, former RCMP test vehicle, never put into service
Build Thread: http://www.newcaprice.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2419
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