Most youtube vids appear to show a hid bulb inserted, with the return wire (bit that runs  Parallel to the glass tube) at the bottom.

 

When I fitted them to my car they would only go in with the return wire at the top. This is the only way they could be fitted. Does it matter which way around the bulb goes and does it affect the light pattern in any way?

Edited 17 February, 20179 yr by maverick54

Yes it does. On the ones I had the wire was visible in the beam. I modifed the bulb base by bending the tab up to put the bulb in 180°  the other way and its a big improvement.

I would have thought if the wire were at the top it would create a shadow in the beam pattern.

 

OEM xenon projectors have the wire to the bottom to avoid this shadow.

19 minutes ago, mikeholroyd said:

Never once noticed any shadow at all on numerous cars I've used these on.

 

It depends on the projectors too, if you have fresnel lenses that'll help hide the shadow.

 

You can see two faint parallel shadows on this image to give you an idea of what it can look like:

http://www.planet-9.com/attachments/987-cayman-and-boxster-modifications/90121d1461329192-hid-h7-conversion-kit-bulb-wire-shadow-hid-jpg?s=0df6d12080d256f1c47cfb1b7c8c9dec

 

edit:

Quick video from TRS discussing the issue, it's about a H11 bulb but it's the same issue.

Edited 18 February, 20179 yr by langers2k

Will only fit with the wire at the top but looked wrong. Got a worse problem now. One of the bulbs has turned pink. Sent London Colour a message and waiting for a reply. Hope they will be good enough to send a replacement bulb without any hassle. Have tried swapping the bulbs to eliminate any other possible causes and its definately the bulb.

7 hours ago, maverick54 said:

Will only fit with the wire at the top but looked wrong. Got a worse problem now. One of the bulbs has turned pink. Sent London Colour a message and waiting for a reply. Hope they will be good enough to send a replacement bulb without any hassle. Have tried swapping the bulbs to eliminate any other possible causes and its definately the bulb.

Not if you modify the fit! Mine are flipped. I can't remember now, but i think I filed the bulb base  to make a symetrical tab, but I remember in the normal position the bulb throws its own shadow of the wire on the road and it is quite intrusive. I opened a thread on it on here at the time.  It only took a few minutes, what ever it was I did. Take the headlight out and offer the bulb up I'll, be obvious. 

Edited 18 February, 20179 yr by paddypaws

Thanks for the replies guys. Will drive it a bit as it is and see if I notice any shadows or problems with them.

Yes, that is what I discovered a definite dark line down the centre of mine. I definitely had to do a slight mod to my bulb base / headlight clip for it to sit right. Here is the picture I took of the back of my FL when I put the HIDs in. You can see if you zoom in the clip is not symmetrical so only goes up one way, the seating of the bulb needed to be modded to get it to seat in the clip, as you can see the tab sticking forward at the top of the clip, would normally stop the bulb being put in the other way up.

 

50K miles now with HIDs in my FL with zero problems. It is possible to fit them with out blowing up BCMs without all the relays and resistors, but nobody to date on here  can definitively say how/why. Also a relay is a pretty dangerous thing to drive from any semi conductor due to the back EMF spike but presumably Mike H. you checked that the relay has a protection diode built in? In fact the protection diode would most certainly be all that's required to protect a BCM from damage with a straight HID install, I'd put one in series with the +ve and ballast and one reverse in bias across +ve and -ve of the ballast to isolate the feed from the Ballast. (although in my case I didn't have to this, I'd had HIDs for a couple of years before reading reports of blown BCMs on here).

Edited 23 February, 20179 yr by paddypaws
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