Crazynewf

So after some trouble shooting today I was able to figure out what my problem was. Was talking to a mechanic friend today and he told me that in some cars today they switch the negative, so sure enough after I flipped the wires coming into the capacitor form the OEM output, during the operation of the DRL circuit the capacitor operated properly and thus the relay can now fire when the reduced voltage for the DRL is being utilized. What I actually thought were the DRL lights coming on before were actually the lights that are on when the car was in park. I made the assumption that because the vertical LEDs were on during the day that this was now my DRL set up working. I thought the vertical DRLs only operated at night. The other thing that got me confused was I actually never saw what lights were on while the car is in park because I never had an incident where I got out of the car while it was running and in park. I want to thank The Wizard for his input on my issue. The debate we had kept me thinking and his recommendations helped with the trouble shooting. I'm thinking the module that ExNascarDood had added to his setup was the capacitor because without that the relay won't fire in DRL operation.

I have a couple of questions... 1. Was the kit you had installed the Morimoto Elite kit from The Retrofit Source? 2.What exactly is this module and where is it installed. I actually don't want to run my HID's as DRL's since they will dramatically reduce their life. I'm more curious to find out why the system reverted to the other method of DRL. The module you added might shed some light on this.

Sorry...but I thought that I mentioned that the lights are working perfectly. I've used them for the past two nights and the improvement over the stock 9012's is truly amazing. I will in fact still test the coil triggering voltage just to see what I got. I may even get an oscilloscope to get a proper reading if I'm not happy with what my multimeter can give me. For now the thing I want to figure out the most is why the DRL mode changed. Because it's not hard to do, I'm going to connect up the stock 9012's just via the loose wires (not inserted in the lamp housing) to see if the work the way they used to. If they do then I will surmise that Ford has a safety override built in that causes the DRL mode to change should both headlamps fail at the same time and that thought makes sense to me. I don't think the relay coil would represent the same load as the stock 9012 so as I'm surmising right now the vehicle computer is recognizing it as no headlights being present. I might even try just adding one OEM 9012 to the empty socket to see if that might change things up. Will report back and let you know how things go.

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Sorry if I came across the wrong way but your suggestions just seem rudimentary. I've been working in the electrical field for 23 years, and though I admit not to understand the electronic side of things many, of the same principals apply. The voltage at the input of the ballast must be 12VDC, how can it be anything different. Other then the contacts and the wire from the battery there is nothing else to create voltage drop so it must be what the battery is putting out. Are we not on the same page with this? That's the reason I find this troubleshooting recommendation odd, unless I'm missing something. I mean no disrespect and appreciate your feedback and input. I've got some troubleshooting procedures in mind but they pertain mainly to trying to figure out why the DRL lighting switched.

The output of the relay will always be 12VDC that comes directly from the battery terminal. The coil in the relay is connected to OEM light output with a Capacitior in parallel with the positive leg. The relay contacts that pass the current through are attached to an armature that is moved when the coil is energized and magnetic flux is what causes the armature to move and closes the contacts. The current entering the relay via the OEM light output and the current running the ballasts are completely isolated from each other. If the coil in the relay were to fail or not operate due to low voltage then the HID lights would not come on. According to The Retrofit Source they have supplied many systems like this and have operated the coil of their relays via the method I have described without issue.

I want to thank you for your input and will measure the output voltage on the capacitor just to see what I'm getting for the relay input. Just so happens I'm an electrical technologist and deal with PWM all the time in the VFD's I work with but wanted to get your input since I don't work on automobile systems that often. PWM does not have any bearing on the value of voltage that a system generates just the times or frequency at which it is generated and thus how clean or flat the voltage source is as it pertains to DC voltage in the case of an automobile. Of course the cable can also have a bearing on the amount of voltage if it's AC current we are dealing with and hysteresis comes into play. The voltage that the relay is seeing in this setup is generated by an alternator as a AC current and a rectifier converts it to DC and thus the PWM, however if the car is not running the voltage is directly from the battery and the rectifier is not in the circuit. The thing I'm most confused about is why the DRL method that switched. It actually works out better since the HID's are not always on, so it's more just for my curiosity that I want to figure it out. I will look into the ground issue you mentioned to see if that is a factor.

They are 35w lights and the relay kit is installed. The lights work in the on position but now in the auto position my vertical LEDs and orange driving lights come on as DRL in place of the new HIDs.

Just installed the TRS 9012 kit into my 2013 Ford Edge with the capacitor kit, but now the DRL don't work in auto mode. It appears the Orange driving lights and the vertical LEDs are on during the auto mode so I'm wondering if the DRL mode might be automatically switched. Can anyone chime in on this with some advise.

Hey chipworkz, What wattage did you go with for your morimoto setup. This is the same system I'm planning on ordering.