KC Pro Sport HID Issue - Stumped

Hi all,

I have (2) pairs of KC Pro Sport HID Lamps mounted on the McFly style roll bar on my truck and am running into an immensely frustrating issue with lights not working and I'm trying to figure out what the root cause is. I keep having the same issue of one specific lamp not working, but I'm trying to drill down to why.

Background

- (2) sets of KC Sport Sport 6" Lamps
- Blue Sea Auxiliary Fuse Panel, 4 GA wire to the battery through a circuit breaker
- Negative bus bar on the panel via a 4 GA wire to the battery ground wire location
- 25A fuses from KC supplied wiring harness, the relay is the system ground
- Wiring harness cut and extended in the following locations

• Just outside the engine bay, soldered and shrinkwrapped to the appropriate gauge wire
• Just inside the bed where I Have a weatherproof connector to remove the bar in the winter
• At the weatherproof KC connector for the light
• Between the connector / lamp to allow for re-routing from the bar - this is using the existing smaller KC wires, soldered and heatshrunk

All continuity is verified for the affected lamp.

The Issue
- The outside driver side lamp stopped working soon after installation. Sometimes, I'd be able to fire it in my driveway, drive down the street, retest and it would be dead.

Troubleshooting to Date
- I verified continuity on the wiring.
- I pulled the wiring out of the bar to look for any sort of crimp or damage to wires which there was none.
- I swapped the lamp with the lamp beside it, the actual bulb and assembly. The problem moved with the bulb, not with the ballast / igniter - boom, bad bulb
- I ordered a new KC Branded HID bulb, and swapped it into what I thought was the affected lamp and no dice. Realizing I likely swapped them around, I pulled out the new bulb and put it into the other assembly and as of Sunday, I had (4) working lamps - much rejoicing
- I carefully fed the wiring back into the bar, retaped all the exposed connectors and retested the lights work.

The New Issue
- I got home from work tonight, checked out the lamps, the outermost driver side was again dead.

New Troubleshooting
- I removed both driver side assemblies and bulbs and connected just the bulbs to the ballast/igniter (a combo unit on the KC). I ended up having a bad bulb (again) that moved with the bulb (again) and not the ballast/igniter. So I fished the other bulb out of the trash and lo and behold I was able to get two bulbs working again.

As such, I've seated the two working bulbs back into the lamps and now all works. However, I have about zero faith that by the time I drive tomorrow and get home that all 4 will work.

So, what I do not understand is why I had two of three bulbs working on Sunday, and now two of three bulbs working today, and yet they weren't the same two bulbs.

Both lamps I stripped down have ballasts and igniters that appear to work correctly. Swapping bulbs back and forth show a bad bulb, not a bad device. A good bulb will illuminate without issue on either lamp. I have gone up multiple times tonight and tested and all come on as expected. I've been working with a buddy and he was thinking maybe there's a bent pin somewhere in the wiring of the bulbs that the vibration driving the truck is enough to shake the connection loose. I have not removed the rubber boots on the bulbs, maybe that's not allowing a solid connection on the affected lamp.

Any thoughts from the peanut gallery?

 

@Taylor@KC HiLiTES

 

Had another light not work. It was the driver side inner lamp, which was the one I was swapping with the outer lamp (to rule out ballasts and igniters)

I have to have a bad pair of bulbs, or at least spotty bulbs. I’m returning the one I purchased and I bought 4 additional bulbs. It’s the best I can do. Never again, HID. Never again.

 

Hm this is an odd issue. Admittedly, I am not super well-versed on diagnosing HID issues. @MikeyMcFly since these are KC bulbs, did you reach out to our CX team? If not, I'd recommend talking to them for some troubleshooting so that they can help figure it out and go through the warranty process if needed! https://support.kchilites.com/hc/en-us/requests/new