Melted HID fuse

[mr_maxime]

Ive had HIDs on my car for almost 2 years. The power cable goes straight to the battery and is fairly hefty gauge. The fuse is directly behind the grille. I'm trying to figure out what caused this. I'm thinking maybe corrosion since there is water in there.

http://i.imgur.com/2mSeSO3.jpg

I called the manufacturer just to get their thoughts. They didn't give me an answer but they're sending me a replacement kit which is really damn nice.

[Bitsyncmaster]

I did a lot of fuse testing.

http://dmctalk.org/showthread.php?12287-Fuse-testing/page2&highlight=fuse+testing

In summery don't trust the brand name BUSS found in most auto parts stores. Your blue fuse must have been a 15 amp rated. Make sure that current rating is not close to the typical current draw.

[Dangermouse]

What size was the fuse?

And what amps should the lamps draw?

[mr_maxime]

It's too late to tell the brand now. Amp draw should be 20 at start then drop to 3 according to the manufacturer. I should have mentioned that this fuse came with the wiring harness as a kit with the bulbs. I clipped the ring terminal off and crimped it to a longer cable so it could reach the battery. EDIT: Fuse is 15A as bitsyncmaster guessed. EDIT2: I used 14 gauge cable

https://kensunhid.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=104

[David T]

It's too late to tell the brand now. Amp draw should be 20 at start then drop to 3 according to the manufacturer. I should have mentioned that this fuse came with the wiring harness as a kit with the bulbs. I clipped the ring terminal off and crimped it to a longer cable so it could reach the battery. EDIT: Fuse is 15A as bitsyncmaster guessed. EDIT2: I used 14 gauge cable

https://kensunhid.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=104

You should never draw more than 75% of a fuse's rating continuously. For a 15 amp fuse that works out to 11.25 amps. Even at only 75% you will get a lot of heat. Once you get a lot of heat the metal connector holding the fuse's blade can soften and lose it's grip on the fuse. As you get a bad connection it will get hotter and hotter as the connection gets worse and worse. The crimp of the connector on the wire will also soften, that's why you see charring of the insulation on the wire coming out of the left side. 14 G wire is only rated for 15 amps continuous depending on what kind of insulation it has. When you are using that kind of power you always get a better connection if you can solder your connections. It is also very important to properly remove the insulation and crimp the connectors properly. All too often when someone trims the insulation off the end of a wire they nick or actually cut some of the strands. That can greatly affect the current carrying capacity of the wire right where it matters the most. Now, for lighting, especially headlights, where if they are interrupted it can be very bad, you should use a self-resetting circuit breaker so they could possibly come back on before you hit something in the dark! HID headlights can draw a LOT of power! That is why they need their own feed and you should be using relays so you don't melt the switches and circuit breakers for the feed. Today you have another choice, LED's and they draw a lot less power.

[mr_maxime]

David, this was plug and play kit and the relays are built into the wiring harness. I used the same gauge wire as was on the their wiring harness.

[mr_maxime]

Got my new kit and reinstalled it. I bought a different fuse to use. I also noticed their power cable was 16 gauge and not 14 gauge. I'm leaning towards the problem being with the original kit and not how I installed it.

[David T]

I didn't mean to say you did anything wrong, I was saying it is not good practice to use under-capacity things. The kit may very well have been made with parts that were under capacity and/or inferior. Very often when I install things, some of the parts are so cr-ppy I cut them out and put better ones in, like wires, relays, fuses, connectors, etc.

[mr_maxime]

I was actually concerned that I might have installed it improperly, but the crimp connection was still solid and as mentioned before I had a thicker wire. The fuse holder did not appear to have corrosion. I did stick the wiring hiring on top of the ballast with 3m tape though. I did not repeat that since I now have another aluminum sheet that I could tape the harness to. Other issue is that if it is the quality of the HID kit, then it doesn't look good since this is the best selling one on Amazon. Everything else I've seen is chinese no name brand and I doubt it'd be more reliable. Hopefully itll last longer than 2 years this time.

Forgot to mention that in my new install, I soldered the connections and put heat shrink on. I was very infuriated at the quality of the joint using "lead-free" solder. That stuff is absolute garbage. I ran around looking for flux paste and proper solder before redoing it. I used to solder acceloremeters for crash testing so this, so it was aggravating using the crap they sell at hardware stores and autoparts store.