Project: Bi-Xenon's

[Fattie92]

Just curious if anyone has put bi-xenons in. I am getting headlights off of a 2005 mercedes e55 within a couple of weeks which has the bi-xenons. For the people that have no idea what Bi-xenon's are: bi-xenon is a way to have xenons as brights, but by only running one xenon bulb per headlight assembly. There is a motorized flap that sits in the projector housing that directs the light from the xenon a differant way to produce a more intense light (brights) when engergised. In its normal "off" position, you will have normal xenon operation.

 

[TrystanGST]

A few things:
Bi-xenon projoectors tend to be larger than normal projectors, so you have to watch size. Also you will have to get creative with wiring to make what your car thinks is 2 bulbs work as 1.

 

[Defiant]

Leave it to Mercedes to take the most complicated, bizarre, horse's ass way to answer a question no one ever asked.

In the seventies, MB went through ultrasonic sound, air jets and vibrators looking for the best way to get water off of windshields.

The found out wipers work best.

No wonder they lost the war.

 

[Fattie92]

A few things:
Bi-xenon projoectors tend to be larger than normal projectors, so you have to watch size. Also you will have to get creative with wiring to make what your car thinks is 2 bulbs work as 1.

yeah im a little worried about size. Well see what happens when i get them. Im not worried about the wiring, that will be the easy part. Its the fabrication part is the hard part.

 

[Omega]

I just want to make sure that you know that the solenoids aren't directly hooked up to a 12V source for the high beams. The solenoid needs a pick and hold circuit so that it doesn't burn up. The initial hit is 12V, but a second or so later it drops to 9V or something like that.

By the way the Bi-xennon housing is VERY simple. The flapper (which creates that nice cut off line) just moves out of the way so that all the light goes through the lens. When in low beam trim, you don't see that half because it's blocked. Perhaps they learned for their mistakes huh Def?

 

[Fattie92]

I just want to make sure that you know that the solenoids aren't directly hooked up to a 12V source for the high beams. The solenoid needs a pick and hold circuit so that it doesn't burn up. The initial hit is 12V, but a second or so later it drops to 9V or something like that.

By the way the Bi-xennon housing is VERY simple. The flapper (which creates that nice cut off line) just moves out of the way so that all the light goes through the lens. When in low beam trim, you don't see that half because it's blocked. Perhaps they learned for their mistakes huh Def?

So your saying that the flapper itself cannot take the constant 12v? If thats the case then ill have to figure something out. At this moment, im not so sure that the projectors im getting are even Bi-xenon anymore. I have to wait till the car gets back to the bodyshop and the new headlights go in. I know that the E55 that i have on my rack right now is not a Bi-Xenon car... but it is an option, so well see. Worst comes to worse, i put the projectors in with out the bi-xenon... or i hold off for some bi-xenon.... Well see.

How would you suggest wiring them then if i cant use a constant 12v source? There are Others at work that have done the same thing to there cars/atv's/motorcycles that just either wired there existing brights to the flapper, or if they had a single bulb for lights and brights, rewired some relays. All of theres are working fine.....for now. I dont want to be burning anything up and have to redo all of this.

 

[Omega]

Technicly I am saying that the solenoid that activates the flapper can't take the 12V. I did a little more research for you. It appears that this is an issue with only some projector housings. They are easy to tell since they have 3 wires. Here is the info on how to wire it up:

How do I wire up solenoid of the 2002+ Bosch Bi-Xenon projector unit?
Just like all other Bi-Xenon units with moveable cutoff shield to get high beam, this one also has a solenoid to operate the shield. Solenoid is only pulling one way, there is a spring that will move it back. Solenoid operates after "pull" and "hold" principals. Which means that solenoid must be activated in pull mode and held in place by the hold mode. There is three wires coming out of the solenoid. Color coding varies, but it seems like these colors are the most common:

red - positive
black - ground (pull)
green - ground (hold)
An electrical abd hookup diagram will look like this:

You must be logged in to view this image or video.

By using an ohm meter, it is possible to determine what wires goes where, even if they all have same colors.

When high beam voltage (12volts) is applied, the capacitor will shorten for a brief period of time, pulling the relay and giving power to the pull coil of solenoid. The hold section of solenoid will then maintain its position until power is removed. It should be mentioned that if coil resistance in relay is lower than 60-100ohms, capacitor might need to be increased. Maybe 2200uF/25V or 4700uF/25V. This will increase hold time. Note that a 4700uF/25V is probably larger than relay itself.

If you do not like to use relay because of reliabilty issues, an exmple of using a MOSFET switch will come soon.

Warning: Attempting to connect red and black permanently to a vehicles high beam will make almost 30W of heat to be emitted from solenoid. Solenoid is not designed for that and will start fuming up all cold (reflector, lenses) surfaces in your headlight.

Here is where I found that info:

http://faqlight.carpassion.info/

That FAQ came from here. One of the better HID forums around.

http://www.hidplanet.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=1

 

[Fattie92]

Omega, that was some great info, and good links! Thanks for all that, you got some rep. points from me ... Im still waiting on the headlights.. I tried to find a wiring diag. for the bi xenon just to see how many wires the solenoids have. The older unit that my buddy has is a 2 wire unit. He is pretty sure the new ones are 2 wire as well, but not positive. I also found out that the unit im getting should have the "curve illunmination" feature, which will be useless to me. Im just hoping its not to bulky, or that i can remove it. .... only time will tell.

 

[azdave]

I attempted to install E55 Bi-Xenons in the stock housings and could not get things to work out, especially the part where I was going to have to make the custom bezel reqired so it wouldn't look like a hack job.

I recently ordered a set of ebay projectors and cut out the cheasy projector they come with and installed the E55's so I have a complete factory system now. I would not recommend this unless you are very creative. It was a hell of a lot of work to get it all to fit. I spent a lot of time working out the alignment and making them adjust properly. It would have been much easier to use a standard projector that was smaller overall and have some room to work inside the unit. I can't help with details. It involved cutting out the angel eyes, casting a custom made Hi-temp RTV sleeves and building a stand in my spare room where I could install the housings in the exact same orientation as when they are in the car so I could work out the details and fiting issues.

These were the lights I used from ebay before I cut them up.

You must be logged in to view this image or video.

I had to enlarge this opening and lose the angel eyes (okay by me).

You must be logged in to view this image or video.

This is what I have now.

You must be logged in to view this image or video.

Normal drivers view.

You must be logged in to view this image or video.

Bi-Xenons on!

You must be logged in to view this image or video.

You must be logged in to view this image or video.

Lights look great, bezels hide the projectors and I don't miss the angles eyes

You must be logged in to view this image or video.

 

[armandovivoni]

nice!! awesome job man. email me more pics if you have, of the process you had to do. info on the projectors you used and info on wiring you did for the bi-xenon [email protected]

 

[Omega]

Fattie92: No problem, I hope they cleared up most of your questions.

armandovivoni: There is a tech article here about it. It has the wiring diagram and a method of mounting the housings... http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/showthread.php?t=162142

azdave: Those high beams are wild! The Infinity high beams completely remove the sheild, yours still have a nice shape to them... pretty damn cool. Could/would you post some pics on how you mounted the projector to the housing? I'd like to see your way around the usual bunch of nuts and long bolts method I see all the time.

 

[lrseclipse]

Leave it to Mercedes to take the most complicated, bizarre, horse's ass way to answer a question no one ever asked.

In the seventies, MB went through ultrasonic sound, air jets and vibrators looking for the best way to get water off of windshields.

The found out wipers work best.

No wonder they lost the war.

BAHAHAHAAHAH

thats funny, u made my day.

Nice work with the projectors man looks great!

 

[Fattie92]

...lalalalalalalala....still waiting on the body shop to fork them over to see if they will work.