Retrofit Troubleshooting Question (H1's)

I don't think it's the solenoid, neither does TRS. I'm going to test it that way to try and isolate the problem though by confirming the solenoids still work. The reason we don't think it's the solenoid is because it would be odd for both of them to give up at the same time. He said there was some sticking issues in the past but because the whole kit is new and they worked before, we're thinking it's a wiring issue. The POS PIAA relay giving up probably fried TRS's control box

 

Bumping this up because I really need help...

I went through TRS's troubleshooting, replaced the relay, TRS sent me a new control box and I still can't get the damned things working...

Here's the breakdown of what I did, I tested all the truck's wiring and it works fine (has worked fine for 5 years before this ), I've got power through the headlight circuit on both the low and high beam wires. This also transfers power through the circuit through the TRS side of the connection also. I've got a tap onto my high beam circuit that runs through a switch in the cab and then controls a relay for a set of lights. Wiring for this has worked perfectly for years but, for the sake of doing a thorough troubleshoot, I used the passenger side headlight plug to take any of my wiring out of the equation.

So... here's the problem. The retrofits worked perfect for about 2 weeks, both high and low beams, then all of the sudden, I flip on the high beams and everything went black. The 10A high beam fuse blew. I replaced the fuse, changed out my old PIAA relay for my lights to make sure that wasn't fried and reconnected everything. Then, when I switched the high beams on, the low beams stayed on, but my aftermarket lights will still cycle. Great so power is getting through to the TRS circuit, just not slipping the shroud down. TRS sent me a new control box, thinking that was the problem. I swapped that in today and now, whenever I throw on the high beams, everything goes black and the high beam fuse blows. WTF is going on I'm about 30 seconds away from ripping the damned projectors out and going back to halogen

I'm pulling power for the TRS system from the battery. I tested the circuitry through the TRS relay, it's got power going into the control box but when I cycle the high beams, power is not making it through to the solenoid to cycle the shrouds.

What do I test next, what could possibly be going on with this kit??

 

I am assuming that you mean the factory high beam fuse on the driver's side? Sounds like you are using the driver's side plug to trigger the aftermarket stuff? If that's the case, I'd figure out how to plug a normal halogen bulb into the plug for testing purposes. If that works without blowing a fuse, it HAS to be downstream of the driver's side headlight connector. It sure sounds like it's in the kit somewhere.

Have you checked every inch of the aftermarket wiring for damage or shorts to ground from rubbing on a sharp edge or something like that? Did you send the original control box back for credit? If you still have it, I'd be tempted to rip it apart and see what makes it tick. I'd guess it's nothing more than a couple of relays in that box. They could even have a run of them that are misswired. I'd hope that they would have caught on to that by now, but who knows? Toyota has a few defects out there that have gone years without being resolved, so an aftermarket company could certainly do something stupid and not catch it for awhile.

 

OP, did you ever try this? If so, did you put a fuse inline while testing them? Thinking maybe they work okay, but pull too much juice and pop the fuse. Might not be enough extra amps to fry anything when hooked directly to the battery, but just more than the fuse is rated.

 

You are correct, I was using the factory wiring to trigger some aftermarket stuff. To rule the aftermarket stuff out, I re-wired the retrofit harness to the passenger side plug and pulled the fuses for the driver's side headlight plug altogether. The problem replicated using the passenger side plug also.

Talking to TRS, the controller box is basically a relay with a capacitor so the ballasts don't lose power when switching from low to high beam. They mentioned tapping on the box to see if it would 'free it up'.

I tried it and the solenoids would cycle. There wasn't power running through the controller box to cycle the solenoids last time I checked.

Tomorrow, it's supposed to be nice out so I'm going to completely unhook everything and rewire the whole thing. I'm out of 10A fuses and only have one left for the low beam so I need to pick up a bunch of them as well.

 

If the controller doesn't cycle the solenoids, that means whatever load the two solenoids pull is going through the factory 10A fuse. Here's a theory: you probably had the original Toyota fuse in the fuse block when you initially installed the kit. Perhaps the solenoids don't pull more than 10 amps constant current, but they pull more than that instantaneously when they are initially energized? I know there is such a thing as a "slow-blow" fuse that will handle that type of thing, but not sure if that applies to automotive fuses. I'm wondering if the first fuse you had in there tolerated a few times of higher instantaneous current draw, then gave up, and the replacement fuses just blow right away?

What about building another supplemental relay harness? Start with a 20A fuse at the battery, wire that to a couple of relays (one for high and one for low beam), and use the factory wiring to trigger them. Then wire a headlight plug to the outputs of the two new relays and plug that into the HID harness. Sounds complicated, but it's not much different from wiring aftermarket driving lights. The end result would be a 20A circuit to power the solenoids and relay box in the kit. If you blow a 20A fuse, there has to be a problem in the headlights themselves.......having two bad control boxes isn't very likely.......the vendor probably sells enough of them that he'd be getting phone calls like yours from all over the country.

Edit: I think I have seen aftermarket harnesses designed to run overwattage halogen bulbs at Autozone. They should be designed for at least 20 amps. You sound like you are pretty good with wiring, but maybe it might be worth $50 bucks or so to you at this point, just as a troubleshooting tool.

Edit: Like this: http://www.autozone.com/autozone/ac...-H4-bulbs/_/N-264k?itemIdentifier=377842_0_0_

 

The HID harness does not use the factory headlight sockets to power anything directly other than the relays and the solenoids.

On low beam, the low beam power feed closes a relay that connects battery power to the ballasts.
On high beam, the high beam power pulls in another relay that powers both ballasts, and is tapped for the solenoids. There is a capacitor and likely a resistor that holds the relays closed during switching so the HIDs don't flicker when the truck switches source. You can see this momentary delay (<1 sec) when you turn the headlights off.

The solenoids don't pull anywhere near 10a when being energized.

 

OK, so problem identified. It's the driver's side solenoid. If that one is unplugged, the passenger side will cycle fine. If the driver's side is plugged in, the high beam fuse blows. I've left that unplugged for now and will contact TRS tomorrow. The reason I didn't realize this sooner was because if I plugged the driver's side solenoid into the battery, it would cycle so it's just taking more than the allowed amperage it's getting from the factory wiring.

It is very weird that the 2 controller boxes did different things. The old controller box used to leave the low beams on and just not cycle the high beams (I'm guessing maybe something inside the controller box blew), the new controller box would blow the high beam fuse and everything goes black. Old controller wouldn't blow the high beam fuse after the first time.

 

I just got off the phone with TRS and Andrew is going to send out a new solenoid. Unfortunately, that means I'll have to tear down the headlight again but this should resolve my issue. Apparently, I'm the first case of a failed solenoid

 

Bummer man sorry to hear. Hopefully this will square it away and be problem free after that.