my HIDs stopped working the other day and i thought i had a blown fuse so i checked the fuse box and they were fine. i have 55 watt 6000k HIDs from ddm tuning. i also have a relay harness from ddm tuning cuz sometimes both Hids would not turn on at the same time. i took out the relay harness today and the HIDs turned on. so the problem lies within the relay harness, there was a fuse on the relay harness and i took it out and it looked like it went to hell and back. it was a 30amp fuse. wut couldve made it melt like that?

 

Fuses only melt if they get wet.

 

i really doubt it got wet cuz it was in my engine bay near the headlights so the chances r really small. should i upgrade to a 35 or 40 amp fuse?

 

Hey, that EXACT same thing keeps on happening to me. And now it's really killin my ballasts for some reason. I'm not sure of the cause but i'm thinking of swapping that fuse holder for a bus fuse holder. No plastic to melt on those fuses.

 

That's weird. I've never seen that happen with HID's.

 

If the fuse is rated too high and the wiring is too low it can do that.

Where in the engine bay is your fuse holder located? Our engine bays put out quite a bit of heat and in the right spot I could see it melting like that.

 

it was right near the horn so i dont think the heat wouldve affected it that much

 

Looks to me like the wire for that inline fuse is a bit on the small side...16awg from what I can see. I run 10awg directly from the ballasts to the battery with a relay. The rest should be fine, but the initial fire from the ballast can pull alot of amps and cause some high heat, so you want a heavier wire on the incoming power through a heavier fuse. Like pieisgude said, an all metal bus fuse (like you see with amp install kits) would be better.

 

Which horn? The amperage pull from the Ballast firing off a bulb is not that high, not enough to melt 16 AWG; to me if anything it looks like the ground and positive shorted out together, maybe a bad relay.

 

I highly doubt its the relay...and if it is, DDM has some explaining to do cause this is not an isolated incident:


http://www.mazda3forums.com/index.php?topic=146712.0

http://legacygt.com/forums/showthrea....html?t=101336

(V-Led's aka DDM {the ballasts have the same pn's internally}, so I assume same supplier, meaning same relay harness)

http://www.caraudioclassifieds.org/f...fuse-melt.html

http://www.yamahafz1oa.com/forum/sho....php?p=2166658

I can keep going. There are hundreds of complaints about melted fuses or positive wires that the fuse holder is on being melted...thus mathematically pointing to the fact that the wire is not heavy enough for the initial amperage.

OP, do yourself a favor, and run a heavier gauge wire with a GOOD fuse/holder directly from your battery to the relay, and run the same size ground wire to a GOOD solid/clean ground point. Your HID's will be brighter, will fire the first time more frequently, wont flicker, and you wont be melting fuses/wires.

 

I agree with a good fuse holder, I've got a brand new harness sitting here for a friend that I'm not too thrilled with but 16 AWG is plenty enough for the initial strike but I've never had an issue with the harness before. The relay, I however, have.

To me it looks more like a loose connection is causing these. I've caught a lot of people with similar issues (not the same equipment, but same concept, melted fuse) that have done the old stick it in the battery terminal and tighten the terminal until it squishes it method.

 

I just threw the factory relay harness that came with my HID's in the trash, and made my own. But you are right, could be loose connections in the relay plug..or the fuse holder..?

All I know is that I dont trust many "factory" supplied harnesses for aftermarket equipment. Anything that draws 2.5amps to 50amps, I simply spend a bit more and make sure the wire are more than capable of handling the job...and no I dont trust anything with less than a 12awg wire on a harness. Not arguing with you, just personal preference.

 

This happened to me before, it has nothing to do with the wire gauge. Just change out the fuse holder to a, how do you say it, a better quality one that won't let water in and you won't have the same problems. This is actually a common issue to HID's because the fuse holder is just floating and it can easily get wet. You may look at the existing fuse holder and don't find water, well go figure, it was able to melt the plastic on the fuse so it must've dried out by the heat. I can tell it's just water sipping in 'cause the metal part of the fuse is intact although corroded.

One more thing I noticed is that the insulator on the wires they used for the relay have a deep red color, which usually means a good quality wire. I never buy HID's with a sorta pinkish red wires 'cause those are the low quality ones.

Now, some will say it doesn't happen to their "$100+ HID's" and that's because they use a better quality fuse holder, like I said. Which is like what, $5-$10?

 

Nope - fuses melt when they get hot.

It could have been a cheap fuse holder or a loose, high resistance connection.

 

havent seen one go like that