[oliyaoe93]

Hi, does anyone know any Xenon hid conversion kit fitters in around South London areas? My dad's F11 5 series's has the projectors but uses normal halogen bulbs which means visibility is s**te especially during winter seasons, looking to fit a Xenon hid kit in his car. Thanks

[AP]

I'm 99% sure you'll also need autolevelling (not sure if the halogens already have that) if you have xenons due to their increased light output.
Thought that was a MOT requirement - happy to be corrected on that but thought that was the case.

Others may be able to confirm either way.

[xenon]

Yes you definitely do but many MOT testers seem not to notice.

[oliyaoe93]

Originally Posted by AP

I'm 99% sure you'll also need autolevelling (not sure if the halogens already have that) if you have xenons due to their increased light output.
Thought that was a MOT requirement - happy to be corrected on that but thought that was the case.

Others may be able to confirm either way.

Oh yes, thats a very good point that i didn't think of. It has a manual levelling dial next to the dial that adjusts the brightness of the dashboard. Would it not work with a xenon kit?

[xenon]

It would but it's not legal: HID must have auto-levelling.

[Fox530]

Originally Posted by xenon

It would but it's not legal: HID must have auto-levelling.

I'm pretty sure this isn't actually true - the MOT testing manual actually says that they MAY be fitted, and IF FITTED must function.

There is no failure mode that I can see in the manual for self levelling simply never fitted.

The relevant section is:

Vehicles equipped with High Intensity Discharge (HID) or LED dipped beam headlamps may be fitted with headlamp washers and a suspension or headlamp self levelling system.

Where such systems are fitted, they must work; however, it is accepted that it may not be possible to readily determine the functioning of self levelling systems. In such cases, the benefit of the doubt must be given.

And the only fail point..

Reason for rejection
A headlamp levelling or cleaning device inoperative or otherwise obviously defective.

[wicked5]

Might help explain why there are so many VW golf drivers blinding me with them!

[oliyaoe93]

Originally Posted by wicked5

Might help explain why there are so many VW golf drivers blinding me with them!

most VW's doesnt have the projector headlight cluster (or w.e it is called) so they aren't supposed to fit Xenon HID's on them

[makkan00]

I have fitted on mine over the weekend.
Pain in the bum!
I could not fit them safely without the bumper off. Luckily my car is in body shop to have some modifications done and I have asked them to take the bumper off.

I had the kit with 6000K HID. Did not like the blue shade so ordered 5000K and they are perfect.
Light / beam pattern is all good.

You will need decent kit which has error cancelors with them.

I have already coded the car to disable the errors check but car still gave me error. It is to do with pulse width modulation (PWM) values.
So I ended up installed error cancelors which get very hot after using them for a while.

Good luck Oliyaoe as this seems to be right mission. There might be people out there who can install them without the bumper off but space is very tight and hard to work without the bumper off.

[oliyaoe93]

Originally Posted by makkan00

I have fitted on mine over the weekend.
Pain in the bum!
I could not fit them safely without the bumper off. Luckily my car is in body shop to have some modifications done and I have asked them to take the bumper off.

I had the kit with 6000K HID. Did not like the blue shade so ordered 5000K and they are perfect.
Light / beam pattern is all good.

You will need decent kit which has error cancelors with them.

I have already coded the car to disable the errors check but car still gave me error. It is to do with pulse width modulation (PWM) values.
So I ended up installed error cancelors which get very hot after using them for a while.

Good luck Oliyaoe as this seems to be right mission. There might be people out there who can install them without the bumper off but space is very tight and hard to work without the bumper off.

Ahhh, I had a look the other day and realised to replace a bulb u'd have to do it through the front wheel arch!? So i thought i'd give up and get some professional to do it, didnt think u need to take the bumper off. It's my old man's f11 and he's always complaining to me about the halogen bulbs which is more or less useless for night vision where as my e93 has Xenon's as standard. Was thinking of something around the light temperature of 4300k - 5000k. Doesn't most kits u buy online these days say error code free? or isit they say they are but not actually error code free?

[xenon]

PWM is used to change the brightness of the LEDs in the corona rings.

[makkan00]

Originally Posted by oliyaoe93

Ahhh, I had a look the other day and realised to replace a bulb u'd have to do it through the front wheel arch!? So i thought i'd give up and get some professional to do it, didnt think u need to take the bumper off. It's my old man's f11 and he's always complaining to me about the halogen bulbs which is more or less useless for night vision where as my e93 has Xenon's as standard. Was thinking of something around the light temperature of 4300k - 5000k. Doesn't most kits u buy online these days say error code free? or isit they say they are but not actually error code free?

5000K is a good range.
You need HID kit which comes with the error cancellor kit.

[makkan00]

Originally Posted by xenon

PWM is used to change the brightness of the LEDs in the corona rings.

It has more to do.
All the lights have PWM. If you read coding files, you will find values for dipped and high beams as well. I know as I had to change them on my E90 to match with xenon ones to work xenons!

[xenon]

I didn't notice when I coded my F31. I'm struggling to see how it is used when powering a ballast.

[oliyaoe93]

Originally Posted by xenon

PWM is used to change the brightness of the LEDs in the corona rings.

What's a PWM?

[xenon]

PWM stands for pulse-width modulation. It's a method used for dimming LEDs, among other things. Unlike a bulb, an LED is on or off and can't be dimmed simply by lowering the voltage. Instead, the supply is pulsed very rapidly and depending on the width / frequency of the pulses you can vary the brightness as the pulsing is too fast for the eye to discern.

You can change these values by coding - e.g. the brightness of the corona rings when used for parking lights is about 50% of that used for DRL.

However, this concept makes no sense with and HID ballast per se.

[makkan00]

Originally Posted by xenon

PWM stands for pulse-width modulation. It's a method used for dimming LEDs, among other things. Unlike a bulb, an LED is on or off and can't be dimmed simply by lowering the voltage. Instead, the supply is pulsed very rapidly and depending on the width / frequency of the pulses you can vary the brightness as the pulsing is too fast for the eye to discern.

You can change these values by coding - e.g. the brightness of the corona rings when used for parking lights is about 50% of that used for DRL.

However, this concept makes no sense with and HID ballast per se.

Ian
You answered your own question.
I will be exploring F series coding files at some point and I need to study new things which others have not explored.
One example is fog lights delete which I have managed to crack as I'm having M5 replica kit installed (no fog lights).
But referring back to E-series values of pwm are used to store how much voltage should be going go the bulb/ led.
And if you decode all of those values, you will get certain voltage for each light / bulb.

[xenon]

Yes but I can't see how pulsing a ballast will achieve the same effect as pulsing an LED. On xenon, once the arc has been struck by the ignitor, it's impossible to vary the output.