Hid's on snowmobile?

[Kuchar09]

First off I couldn't find an off topic area in the forum so if asking this is not allowed feel free to move ore delete. Basically I am asking this question here because there were some very smart people on trailvoy that will probably be able to help me and hopefully they moved over to here.

So basically I am trying to add hids to my 2006 Arctic Cat Crossfire 600 and where I run into problems in that there is not battery and the output at the headlamps is AC.

What I currently have is a full-wave bridge rectifier (25 amps - 50 volts) and a 4700uf 35v capacitor to output DC current and stabilize the current.

At first I only had the rectifier and the flicker was pretty bad so I added the capacitor to try and help.

If anyone has any suggestions of what I can do to stop the flickering that would be great!!

I hooked this up to the hids on my truck to test this so here is a video.

[video=youtube;zV0pBLiH3MU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zV0pBLiH3MU[/video]
View attachment 17516

 

[06Envoy]

I too have installed HID on sleds that don't have electric start, thus don't have the batt.

To help resolve the problem... if you have room put a small chinese knockoff dirtbike/atv/go-kart battery in.
Wire it up after the rectifier.

Seems to work ok for me....
I get my batts from a local auto supply shop....
I'm looking for an online link for you now....

 

[06Envoy]

Found one....
Battery Buyer - Batterybuyer.com

Just search through, find one that will fit in your sled, then look up the part number to see if you can find one closer to you and for less $$$.

I'd pick one like this... it's slim and cheap.....
http://www.batterybuyer.com/actual-portalac-volt-maintainence-free-sealed-lead-acid-battery-p-6427.html

 

[Kuchar09]

Thanks for the reply man!! Are you talking about adding a battery to the sleds recitifier or the one I added? A link would be great.... I almost wounder if I add a little rc car battery would work?

 

[06Envoy]

To be honest, I've only added the batt after my own rectifier. I've never used caps.
And I forgot to tell you about the small relay circuit to shut the lights off.

I'll see if I can make up one of my 'famous' paint wiring diagrams...
It'll take a few minutes....

 

[06Envoy]

So, keep in mind that this is a hack....I'm not responsible for blowing up your sled. We are talking about as redneck as you can get stuff right here...

This is also murder on batt's IIRC.

Relay kits can be found cheap HERE.
The relay lets you use the sleds key.
If it's an old sled and you don't care, forget the relay and just wire up another on/off switch.

My 11yr old boys muck around on the old Bombadeer Olympics. They are getting handy at swapping out carbs, rebuilding fuel pumps, and are starting to learn about the electrics in keeping them alive.... we have about 8 of them in various running conditions out back behind the wood shed.... Those things are older than I am!

 

[Kuchar09]

So I'm assuming the power out of the rectifier would be the 12 v dc power i have been reading slightly on... so by hooking that up to the battery and grounding the battery would that charge the battery? or is there more to charging a battery on a sled?
To tell the hids to turn on couldn't I just use a relay like I did on my TB and hook it to one headlight and use that to turn on the relay and pull the power from the battery like your saying?
The only problem I would see from my way is that the AC current from the headlight would be telling the relay to turn on and from the little bit I read both AC and DC will turn on the relay... not positive about that though.
Thanks for all your help.

 

[Kuchar09]

I would still like to do this without a battery if anyone has any suggestions.
Before adding the capacitor the bulb would flicker really bad and sometimes even shut off, if adding one capacitor made this big of a difference is it possible adding another capacitor could completely eliminate the flickering? Or would it do nothing at all?

 

[06Envoy]

Boy. I just looked at my paint diagram... It's no wonder that that you didn't want to try that.
Once I'm sobered up, I wouldn't want to try that ethier!
Sorry about that.

Let's try this again without the wobbly pop.

Rectifier to the old headlight circuit.
Relay to the main key switch on sled.(takes care of turning hid's on/off)
Batt is almost a requirement because of the HID bulb warmup amp draw.
Most HID ballast warmup amp draw is about 8-10 amps.
Without the batt you run the risk of frying out your electronic pickup due to overdraw.
IIRC sleds that don't have OEM electric start have a lower amp pickup.... google your model to verify the amp generation.
The batt helps level that out as well as eliminate the flicker.
I wouldn't do HID's in a sled without the batt. Just my sober

It's best to buy the biggest AMP/HR batt as you can that will fit under your hood and not break the bank....
Plan on replacing that batt every year though.....


Here is the same diagram, but easier to read....

 

[Kuchar09]

Ok thanks again!!!
After doing a little searching I see that the DDM Tuning slim ballast take 6 amps at warm up which in a slight bit more that stock but once warmed up take 2.5-3 amps which from what I'm reading is less than stock. I'm not 100% sure but I think I should be ok considering all the gauges and boondocker stuff some guys are putting on their sleds and seem to have no problems with their electrical system.
Basically I'm not crazy about the idea of using a battery so I'm going to mess with it a little tomorrow and see what I can come up with. If I have to I will use a battery and thanks to you I will know exactly how to wire it up!!

 

[06Envoy]

Hey, if you Do get it working without batt's, please post up what worked here. I'm all ears and willing to learn!

 

[Kuchar09]

Ok I haven't been messing with this too much lately but I will b in a day or so. But one set of my hids did come in and I hooked them up to see if my 2 capacitor idea would work. When I started it up and gave it a little throttle the light would get very bright then just shut off, after 2 tries I knew something wasn't right and thank god I didn't blow a bulb. I grabbed a volt meter and was getting about 28 volts out to the capacitor at idle. I still need to do come more testing on what exactly the volts are but this stumped me for the day. I swear when I first tested everything I was getting 10 volts a few days before, the only thing I can think is the engine was warmed up then or something hence the more testing needed.

Anyways what I am thinking about doing is making a voltage regulator to add to my AC DC bridge and capacitor. I know they make a 1 amp regulator that is sold at radio shack but my problem is one ballast need 6 amps at start up so I figured I would just make one but am not positive I am going to get a big enough diode and resistor amperage wise.
http://www.reuk.co.uk/Zener-Diode-Voltage-Regulator.htm
Please bear with me since I am still trying to get the hang of the whole amperage and resistor rating stuff since I am just starting to take some electrical classes for my EE degree.
Basically I need a 12 volt regulator for about 6 amps. The our put voltage isn't for sure known yet but I'll get it soon. I plan on making 4 of these adapters... one for each hi and low bulb.
Any help would be greatly appreciated, maybe I missed something that will work for this that is inexpensive.
Hopefully this makes some kind of sense to someone.