Mysticality's Light Thread!!

[wfdTamar]

Move the headlight right out and gently tip it over (so as not to scratch the paintwork) to get to the connector.






The tang on the connector only needs to move a very little bit - don't pull on the connector until you feel you have moved the tang.

[wfdTamar]

Take the clear plastic cover off the rear of the light. This looks like where the factory Xenon (HID) ballast's are mounted. Unfortunately I couldn't get the Morimoto ballast, igniter & Canbus to fit inside it.







Now - the instructions on the site say for a light like this to drill a hole in the casing of the headlight (or for this headlight, the clear cover). This is because you connect to the car's original bulb connector, then out through the casing of the headlight to the Canbus, ballast, then through the igniter, back through the headlight casing, inside to the HID bulb. That leaves a lot of stuff outside the headlight visible and subject to the under bonnet environment.

This means you have to mount all the bits one side of the round silicone seal on the harness, outside the headlight somewhere (the ballast, igniter, Canbus) - like on the outside of the headlight, but somewhere that won't interfere with installing the headlight in the car! Or maybe in the cavity behind the headlight. There is room there, but not many good mounting points. It would be a bit of a bodge.

You possibly could do it and leave something unplugged while putting the headlight back in the car then plug it in (tricky).

[wfdTamar]

So I thought - there's a fair bit of room inside the headlight - stick it all in there! Now if this was your average eBay HID kit this would be easy, as the ballasts are pretty small and that's about all there is to them beside a bit of wiring. However the Morimoto kit has chunky ballasts and a couple of extra bits (the CanBus and Igniters). You also need to keep the projector (the brown thing) clearance to move up and down by the levelling motor and also for headlight aiming adjustment.

So the ballast just squeezes past the projector then has plenty of room on the floor of the headlight.



The trickiest bit is getting the ballast in past the projector. Before you start and take the headlights out of the car, make sure to adjust them with the dashboard knob so the light is shining fully down. This raises the rear of the projector up for maximum clearance to get the ballast in. It is still really tight getting the ballast past the projector. This was the best angle. Be careful, there are some delicate, expensive plastic bits in there. Break something and you'll be looking at a good few hundred dollars for a new headlight.



The CanBus can be zip tied here.

[wfdTamar]

I held the ballast and CanBus in place with zip ties. Measure down from the lip of the headlight opening, inside the headlight, to the back of the ballast (which is actually at the front of the headlight), to work out the point to drill through the floor of the headlight. Then use that measurement on the outside of the headlight floor to mark that point. I just went by sight to mark where it was side to side (of the ballast). You'll need another hole between the two connectors on the ballast - it needs to be the length of the ballast body away from the first hole.



The zip tie starts outside the headlight floor, furthest away from the headlight opening, in through that first hole made, the up over the ballast between the connectors through the hole to outside the headlight again, then do the zip tie up.



Here's how the CanBus is done.

[wfdTamar]

Then you can connect the car's original plug to the HID wiring spade connectors (the red and black ones). It doesn't seem to matter which goes where (I mean the red or black). I slid the silicone round seal towards this to give some protection to the slightly exposed terminals on that connector just so when it's tucked inside it doesn't cause problems. Fold up all the HID wiring and ignitor carefully and tuck it into the clear cover and it just pops on.

To protect the weather tight headlight I just dabbed some silicone sealant over the holes made for the zip ties.

There you have it. Only a few little drill holes marring the headlight. All weather protected. Looks neat.

Put the lights back in the car then test them. I found the Coming Home/Leaving Home function was a bit more laggy, possibly not working at all (though it seems ok now). Maybe I just wasn't accounting for the slight delay with HID lights. Theretrofitsource said it could be due to a low voltage battery. It is mid winter, so that could be it.

You very likely will need to re-aim your headlights - at the very least you can lower them with the dash knob more than you would have formerly. Be careful with this as you don't want to be a nuisance to other road users - but then you won't be using them on the road - as that is illegal - right?

One thing I noticed inside the headlight is there is a shutter over the low beam projector, which means on high beam the low beam acts as high beam too (as well as the high beam bulb). This means you have HID high beam as well as low beam.

Absolutely no complaints from the car - bulb out warnings, CanBus errors, flickering etc. Precise cut off above the low beam just like before (due to the shutters in the projectors).

So is it worth it? Well, the original low beam is pretty good on the Octavia. High beam is ok, but I want better. I was considering some kind of driving lights and/or a light bar. Tried a light bar and was not very impressed (though if I mount it differently that may improve). Really tricky mounting driving lights on the Octavia because the bonnet goes down so low at the front and moves a bit forward when it opens. So any lights have to mounted forward quite a way.

I'll post some comparison shots soon showing how these lights go with fixed camera settings.

[wfdTamar]

Haven't been around and/or bothered to take night shots yet, but did get some very cheap LED globes for the parking lights. The original look very insipid and yellow next to the HID headlights. The globes I got are supposed to be CanBus friendly (no errors) and so far have not produced an error light on the dashboard (haven't done a scan with VCDS yet).

$2.99 for 2
NEW NO Error Canbus T10 High Power 1 5W DC 12V W5W Wedge LED CAR Light Lamp Bulb | eBay

*** About a week later *** tried to remove these to try some other ones I got and they broke. The tongue is quite fat and gets stuck in the holder, so it breaks off when you pull the bulb out. So although the bulbs work great, count on them breaking if needed to be removed. They're so cheap this doesn't really matter as long as you have replacements.


Here's a shot with one bulb of each type (the bonnet's open, in case you're wondering). Not quite as bright (or rather doesn't fill the whole light up) as it looks in the photo. Should be good to use like DRL's.

[kamold]

Ewwwwww! Filaments be gone! New parkers look great.

Sent from my HTC One M8 using Tapatalk

[TheScout]

Great how-to, thanks for that. The Parkersburg look pretty good too! Look forward to seeing some high and low headlight shots


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk