Headlight Issues!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[shawshank95]

ok so I have a 2010 Fusion Sport. I installed my HID lights about a week ago and love them. I did the 35w kits from ddmtuning. I put the 5k in the low beams and the 3k in the fogs. Love the look of it. Everything was working fine for a few days. Driver side works great. The passenger side started flickering just on start up for a couple of days and now it won't come on at all. I have checked voltage at the driver's side which works fine and it is around 14.5. The voltage at the passenger side plug is 11.5. All fuses are fine and looks like I have traced it back to the smart junction box. Does anyone have a solution for this problem or does anyone know how to reset the sjb. Please help!!!!!! Have been dealing with this for over a week now.

[Lifyre]

ok so I have a 2010 Fusion Sport. I installed my HID lights about a week ago and love them. I did the 35w kits from ddmtuning. I put the 5k in the low beams and the 3k in the fogs. Love the look of it. Everything was working fine for a few days. Driver side works great. The passenger side started flickering just on start up for a couple of days and now it won't come on at all. I have checked voltage at the driver's side which works fine and it is around 14.5. The voltage at the passenger side plug is 11.5. All fuses are fine and looks like I have traced it back to the smart junction box. Does anyone have a solution for this problem or does anyone know how to reset the sjb. Please help!!!!!! Have been dealing with this for over a week now.

 

1) Have you tested the voltage with and without things hooked up? If you're getting low voltage with no load on the line (ie. ballast and everything disconnected) then the issue probably isn't the light itself.

 

2) Have you tried a relay harness (won't necessarily help if there isn't enough voltage with nothing hooked up though)? This can eliminate flickering and takes most of the load off the stock wiring.

 

Also if it is a problem with the car you are likely liable for the repair charges since you put an unapproved (and illegal for road use) aftermarket lighting system in your car. If the ballast went bad contact DDM about a warranty exchange. I have the DDM HID's and love them in both my low beams and fog lights but I used the relay harness for my low beams and will probably end up installing one on my fog lights too. I knew what bag of tricks I was opening though and am prepared to deal with the potential consequences.

[shawshank95]

I have unhooked everything and tested the lines with nothing installed. I have also checked all the ballast and bulbs to make sure they weren't the problem. I did that by hooking things up on the driver's side and all is good. I plan on getting this issue resolved and then installing the harness. I am pretty sure I won't have any issues with the harness. The flickering only happened for a couple of days and now there is no light on the passenger side only. Just wasn't sure if the sjb can be reset.

[Lifyre]

I have unhooked everything and tested the lines with nothing installed. I have also checked all the ballast and bulbs to make sure they weren't the problem. I did that by hooking things up on the driver's side and all is good. I plan on getting this issue resolved and then installing the harness. I am pretty sure I won't have any issues with the harness. The flickering only happened for a couple of days and now there is no light on the passenger side only. Just wasn't sure if the sjb can be reset.

 

 

At this point I have no idea, could be anything from a faulty relay or fuse to an issue such as a high impedance short in the wiring. I don't know enough about the way the lights are wired to really tell you where to start looking sorry.

[Oldguy16]

I don't think you can reset the sjb by yourself unfortunately. But the problem with me, is ALWAYS the ground, all the time, worth a shot at this point.

[DCSport]

Did you ever find a solution to this? I'm having a similar problem with the DDM kit but mine is having a hard time firing on both sides, though the driver's side is worse on mine for some reason. I even bought their HID harness kit which affectively wires the headlights directly to the battery. It worked fine for about a day with the harness kit and then seemed to be worse than before after that. I've been on the phone with DDM tech support multiple times and they seem to be baffled and blaming it on the car since it is so new they don't have customer information on it yet. (Mine is a 2011 Sport but that shouldn't be any different than yours). Weird thing is that the fog light kit I bought works great, but it is 35W while my headlight kit is 55W. They even had me swap ballasts with the foglights which meant I had the 55W ballasts on the fogs and the 35W ballast on the headlights, and everything worked great when setup that way, even left it that way for a couple of weeks to make sure. I may just wire it up that way and forget about it, but it wasn't really the look I was going for (have 5k bulbs on fogs and 6k bulbs on headlights, so they ended up matching well when setup with 35W fog/ 55W headlight, since higher wattage ballast tones down the color some).

 

I'm going to post a new topic for this to see if anyone has a 55W DDM kit on their Fusion.

[pattyman95]

I have unhooked everything and tested the lines with nothing installed. I have also checked all the ballast and bulbs to make sure they weren't the problem. I did that by hooking things up on the driver's side and all is good. I plan on getting this issue resolved and then installing the harness. I am pretty sure I won't have any issues with the harness. The flickering only happened for a couple of days and now there is no light on the passenger side only. Just wasn't sure if the sjb can be reset.

 

 

The sjb can be reset, I had the same problem with my 35W HID kit, flickering on the passenger side only, checked all the wiring , voltage etc...all good. I actually ended up taking the HID out because of it. Went back to my stock 55W halogen's and drove straight to the dealer, I told them what has happened etc....lucky for me they had their electrical guru of sorts on site that day, he reset the SJB in about an hour after doing some initial testing. I watched him do it, there's a series of wires and connectors under the headlight switch, he simply took some off and back on again and reconnected them, eventually the SJB was reset...so it can be done, unfortunately only the dealer can do so.

 

I hope this helps.

[Oldguy16]

I would suggest just getting 55w ballasts, this way they draw the same power as stock, and you won't get a BOW or any issues with the sjb.

[DCSport]

I would suggest just getting 55w ballasts, this way they draw the same power as stock, and you won't get a BOW or any issues with the sjb.

 

I would NOT do this on our cars, as I got the DDM 55W kit and had nothing but problems getting the headlights to fire consistently. The 35W I had on there had no problems.

[Oldguy16]

I've had ddm 55w kits in both my fogs and my low beams for over a year, never had a single issue, no flickering, no BOW, anything. I can't stress enough how people think the ground is sufficient and it isn't. The ground has to be perfect for lights to work well. Shrink wrap the connections if you have to, but we've used over 20 ddm kits now, 2 in my fusion, 10 in my friends explorer, and 8 in my friends Jetta, all 55w and none of us have had any issues, as long as the connections are strong, these kits last and have been reliable. I chain is only as strong as your weakest link, the ground tends to always be the weakest link. If you had that many problems with 55w ballasts, then it would seem that you got bad ballasts, but I would have to say, having done 20 kits, ddm kits have a pretty good track record.

[DCSport]

I've had ddm 55w kits in both my fogs and my low beams for over a year, never had a single issue, no flickering, no BOW, anything. I can't stress enough how people think the ground is sufficient and it isn't. The ground has to be perfect for lights to work well. Shrink wrap the connections if you have to, but we've used over 20 ddm kits now, 2 in my fusion, 10 in my friends explorer, and 8 in my friends Jetta, all 55w and none of us have had any issues, as long as the connections are strong, these kits last and have been reliable. I chain is only as strong as your weakest link, the ground tends to always be the weakest link. If you had that many problems with 55w ballasts, then it would seem that you got bad ballasts, but I would have to say, having done 20 kits, ddm kits have a pretty good track record.

 

Interesting...maybe you can shed some light on this one for me, because I've stumped the DDM Tech Support guys.

 

I got a 35W kit for fogs with 5k bulbs, and 55W kit for headlights with 6k bulbs. Headlights would work fine sometimes, but other times either one or both would not light the first try, and would have to cycle them on/off several times to get them both to fire. I tried many different combinations too, switching ballasts and bulbs between fogs and headlights. Seemed for a while to work fine with the 55W ballasts on the fogs, and switched back to the original setup once DDM Tech convinced me to buy a harness kit for the 55W (I grounded right to the battery I believe). That didn't help, still had the same problem. They had me wire it to trigger the relay only from one side and even put in a larger fuse for that side (don't understand how that helps). Still did the same thing. I then switched it back to have the 55W on the fogs and low and behold, now it does the same thing for the fogs. DDM said that since my car was so new they didn't have much info on it and chalked it up to being the car at fault, though I just don't see how that can be when using a relay harness. DDM also thought it was unusual to have both ballasts be bad, but now I'm starting to think that is the case if you were able to get 55W ballasts to work just fine on your 2010 (you're the first that has said they have it on the 2010/11).

Edited August 18, 2011 by DCSport

[Oldguy16]

Interesting...maybe you can shed some light on this one for me, because I've stumped the DDM Tech Support guys.

 

I got a 35W kit for fogs with 5k bulbs, and 55W kit for headlights with 6k bulbs. Headlights would work fine sometimes, but other times either one or both would not light the first try, and would have to cycle them on/off several times to get them both to fire. I tried many different combinations too, switching ballasts and bulbs between fogs and headlights. Seemed for a while to work fine with the 55W ballasts on the fogs, and switched back to the original setup once DDM Tech convinced me to buy a harness kit for the 55W (I grounded right to the battery I believe). That didn't help, still had the same problem. They had me wire it to trigger the relay only from one side and even put in a larger fuse for that side (don't understand how that helps). Still did the same thing. I then switched it back to have the 55W on the fogs and low and behold, now it does the same thing for the fogs. DDM said that since my car was so new they didn't have much info on it and chalked it up to being the car at fault, though I just don't see how that can be when using a relay harness. DDM also thought it was unusual to have both ballasts be bad, but now I'm starting to think that is the case if you were able to get 55W ballasts to work just fine on your 2010 (you're the first that has said they have it on the 2010/11).

Hmm, ok so let me just say this before I begin. The ground to the battery really doesn't mean anything because the ground i refer to is the ground that connects from the kit to the stock ground, that's usually the one that isn't great. Also, HID's use more power on startup than a regular halogen. They draw 6 amps at startup and 4.2 when running. The computer in the fusion may not be able to handle the extra power draw on startup with all 4 going on at the same time, that's 24 amps vs, the stock 18 amps, that may just be enough for the computer to shut down one of the set of lights. Did you try letting one set heat up completely, then putting the other on? As far as more grounding. The ground to the battery is good simply because you know its UNPAINTED, I find people usually make that mistake. Make sure where you're grounding the lights to isn't painted. I used the stock ground, but used butt splice connectors, which are very reliable. I highly suggest against tap splice connectors. You can get all of these at Home Depot.

 

I would try doing the 35w in the fogs like you originally intended, most likely you'll run into less problems there. Get rid of the harness since that doesn't make a difference. Install the 55w ballasts in the headlights. Go to home depot and get butt splice connectors. They look like very small blue tube. Do not get red, red is rated for only 5 amps, blue is rated for more but will still do 18awg which is what ddm gives you in the kit. Connect each wire that goes from the stock connection into the ballast with these connectors. All you have to do is cut the ends off and strip some of the wire. If you need the tool that does everything. I HIGHLY recommend the Klein all in one. It has blue handles. Commercial electric makes the same thing, just less expensive, it has green handles. This tool has wire stripper on top, and on the bottom it has crimpers. Now, if you would like to extend the ground to the battery because the wires can't reach, I would suggest using the same ground for both ballasts, and using thicker wire. 16 should be fine, believe me, there is a difference between 18 and 16 awg wire. Home depot, autozone etc. all sell 16 awg wire in small rolls in a package. Its like 5 bucks. Connect that ground to the battery. Connect the part of the ground that goes to the ballast with the butt splice connectors, make sure the connections are tight, pull the wire on each end. If they fall out, re do them until its secure. Use electrical tape around the connections to make them water tight, and more insulated. If these connection are done properly, and the lights still don't work. I would send the ballasts back to DDM and get new ones, doing it this way, you should never have an issue.

[Oldguy16]

Side note, I have also installed HID's from ddm, all 55w, in a 2010 mustang, a 1992 econoline, a 2004 explorer, and a 2003 altima, with no issues. The econoline took the longest, due to the fact the ground looked excellent but it really wasn't. Once I swapped the ground to another place, lights worked like a charm.

[DCSport]

Hmm, ok so let me just say this before I begin. The ground to the battery really doesn't mean anything because the ground i refer to is the ground that connects from the kit to the stock ground, that's usually the one that isn't great. Also, HID's use more power on startup than a regular halogen. They draw 6 amps at startup and 4.2 when running. The computer in the fusion may not be able to handle the extra power draw on startup with all 4 going on at the same time, that's 24 amps vs, the stock 18 amps, that may just be enough for the computer to shut down one of the set of lights. Did you try letting one set heat up completely, then putting the other on? As far as more grounding. The ground to the battery is good simply because you know its UNPAINTED, I find people usually make that mistake. Make sure where you're grounding the lights to isn't painted. I used the stock ground, but used butt splice connectors, which are very reliable. I highly suggest against tap splice connectors. You can get all of these at Home Depot.

 

I would try doing the 35w in the fogs like you originally intended, most likely you'll run into less problems there. Get rid of the harness since that doesn't make a difference. Install the 55w ballasts in the headlights. Go to home depot and get butt splice connectors. They look like very small blue tube. Do not get red, red is rated for only 5 amps, blue is rated for more but will still do 18awg which is what ddm gives you in the kit. Connect each wire that goes from the stock connection into the ballast with these connectors. All you have to do is cut the ends off and strip some of the wire. If you need the tool that does everything. I HIGHLY recommend the Klein all in one. It has blue handles. Commercial electric makes the same thing, just less expensive, it has green handles. This tool has wire stripper on top, and on the bottom it has crimpers. Now, if you would like to extend the ground to the battery because the wires can't reach, I would suggest using the same ground for both ballasts, and using thicker wire. 16 should be fine, believe me, there is a difference between 18 and 16 awg wire. Home depot, autozone etc. all sell 16 awg wire in small rolls in a package. Its like 5 bucks. Connect that ground to the battery. Connect the part of the ground that goes to the ballast with the butt splice connectors, make sure the connections are tight, pull the wire on each end. If they fall out, re do them until its secure. Use electrical tape around the connections to make them water tight, and more insulated. If these connection are done properly, and the lights still don't work. I would send the ballasts back to DDM and get new ones, doing it this way, you should never have an issue.

 

 

Thanks for the info! I'm pretty good with wiring and I don't mind trying what you are suggesting, but just to be clear, you are saying to NOT use the DDM harness for the 55W headlights? So I need to cut the ground wire that goes from my factory bulb harness to the ballast, and run a new ground (hooked on the ballast side, of course)? Isn't this the same thing that the harness does, except it provides a direct shot to the battery on both positive and ground, right?

 

Yeah the 35W ballasts work no problem on both the headlights and foglights, and the only reason it is on the foglights right now is because I can't be driving around unknowingly with one or both headlights not working! :-)

[Oldguy16]

Thanks for the info! I'm pretty good with wiring and I don't mind trying what you are suggesting, but just to be clear, you are saying to NOT use the DDM harness for the 55W headlights? So I need to cut the ground wire that goes from my factory bulb harness to the ballast, and run a new ground (hooked on the ballast side, of course)? Isn't this the same thing that the harness does, except it provides a direct shot to the battery on both positive and ground, right?

 

Yeah the 35W ballasts work no problem on both the headlights and foglights, and the only reason it is on the foglights right now is because I can't be driving around unknowingly with one or both headlights not working! :-)

I would try wiring without the harness yes. You don't have to run a new ground. I'm saying cut the end off the stock ground that has the headlight socket on it, and use the butt splice connectors to connect it to the ballast. This way, you don't have to use the loose spade terminals that come with the ballasts. I would also suggest doing the same with the positive, this way you'll get the best connections without running through terminals that could come loose or not attach properly. Do you see what I'm saying? You can run a whole separate ground if you want, otherwise the stock ground should be ok. You probably don't have a problem with the 35w ballasts cause they draw less power so the ground doesn't have to be as strong. I don't have any ballasts that I can show you pictures of. What I'm saying is cut the connectors off, and strip the wire, and manually put the two wires together with butt splice connectors rather than using the spade terminals on the ballasts from ddm.

[Oldguy16]

IF that doesn't work, the I would suggest buying some 16awg wire and running the grounds directly to the battery.

[DCSport]

I would try wiring without the harness yes. You don't have to run a new ground. I'm saying cut the end off the stock ground that has the headlight socket on it, and use the butt splice connectors to connect it to the ballast. This way, you don't have to use the loose spade terminals that come with the ballasts. I would also suggest doing the same with the positive, this way you'll get the best connections without running through terminals that could come loose or not attach properly. Do you see what I'm saying? You can run a whole separate ground if you want, otherwise the stock ground should be ok. You probably don't have a problem with the 35w ballasts cause they draw less power so the ground doesn't have to be as strong. I don't have any ballasts that I can show you pictures of. What I'm saying is cut the connectors off, and strip the wire, and manually put the two wires together with butt splice connectors rather than using the spade terminals on the ballasts from ddm.

 

I'm wondering if our kits are the same, because my kits have a direct harness that plugs into the stock headlight harness...there are no spade connectors involved there. Do you use the Raptors or the Slim Digitals? Just curious. See link: DDM Slim Digital Kit

[Oldguy16]

Yes I have these kits, well I have the regular ones which are the same as these, but I have installed these also. The "harness" ddm gives you that connects into your existing headlight socket may not be a strong enough connection, I'm saying where the power goes into the ballast, cut those connectors off, sometimes they are spade terminals sometimes not, and use the butt splice connectors.

[DCSport]

Yes I have these kits, well I have the regular ones which are the same as these, but I have installed these also. The "harness" ddm gives you that connects into your existing headlight socket may not be a strong enough connection, I'm saying where the power goes into the ballast, cut those connectors off, sometimes they are spade terminals sometimes not, and use the butt splice connectors.

:

 

Oh okay. I hate to do that if it turns out ballast is bad...won't ddm throw a fit if I try to warranty exchange it after doing that? Also,doesn't this mean cutting off the harness on the factory side too,.since I need to be able to at least tap into the positive trigger from the car's headlights?

[Oldguy16]

That could be a warranty issue with ddm, not really sure since I've never had to make a "claim" lol. Yes that is also a problem with the stock harnesses also. You can try running a new ground, which wouldn't harm anything. Or you can try to bend the connection in really tightly so they stay and make a full connection. Then wrap them in electrical tape to make sure they stay.

[DCSport]

Okay so I finally got around to messing with these lights again this past weekend, and as I mentioned in the other post, I have the setup returned to the way I want (55W ballasts with 6000k bulbs in headlights and 35W ballasts with 5000k bulbs in fogs). I had for the past four months had: 35W ballasts w/6000k bulbs in headlights and 55W ballasts w/5000k bulbs in fogs. Does not have the look I want but whatever I needed a reliable headlight more than fogs! And yes, during this whole time the fogs would have issues about every other time I used them I had to cycle 3-4 times before they would fire up. Headlights never had a lick of issues with the 35W ballasts.

 

Anyway, this time I cut the ground wire off the input side of the ballast and soldered a new 14 gauge wire to a solid ring terminal going straight to a factory unpainted ground wire (on drivers side, the wire that come right off the battery ground and passenger side the cable that goes from the body to the engine). Everything worked fine until last night when I turned on the lights and the drivers side did the same thing as always, flickered on for a millisecond and then off. Had to cycle the lights again as usual a few times to get it to stay on. Just the drivers side this time (which was the side I always had more problems with) and only the one time so far. It seems like every time I try a new setup, it will work fine for about a week if that before it starts having problems. Very bizzare.

 

So, my next step is to cut the factory harness that usually goes to the bulbs and solder the positive input to the ballasts directly into the positive factory wire, thus eliminating the harness connection (already not using the ground since I ran a new one).

 

Here are my next steps if this doesn't work:

 

1. Put a 4700 µf capacitor in-line with the positive feed from the car, like FEWSHUN did in the other thread (it seemed to solve his flickering problem he had with a different company's HID kit). Click here to read his thread

 

2. Run a completely new wire straight from the headlight switch (from internet search, appears to be a blue/white wire with negative trigger) to a dedicated relay, then have both ballast inputs fed off this relay via the battery directly (with a 30 amp fuse). This should essientially take out all computer variables and any wiring variables the car may have! If that doesn't work, then something MUST be wrong with the ballasts....since both have had issues from Day 1 maybe they are from a bad batch or something.

 

3. Try and return/exchange ballasts for new ones from DDM. If they won't exchange since I've cut into the harness, then purchase new ones, possibly going with analog ones this time as that is what they said I may need due to the issues I am having.

[Oldguy16]

You may have bad ballasts, I've seen this problem before, without any computer involved, it was on a set of rally lights with an HID kit in them, 55w ddm kit. it was once again the ground, but quite odd, generally the ground always fixed the problem. But on one case, the ground didn't solve the problem and the connection keep arching at the switch, right through the insulation and such. That has still yet to be resolved. I's go for a ballast exchange before messing with the headlight switch, or the factory harness.