Hello. I just had my brother-in-law installed No-xenon aca headlight on my 2003 convertible and it looks great. However, the headlight does not retract when you turn off the light, and when you open the door after turning off the engine, the light on center console stays on. I thought it may turn off if I lock the car but it doesn’t. Has anyone experienced the same issue or tell me what I can do to fix the problem?

 

try flashing the high beams

 

it does retract when I flash the high beam, but do I have to do that every time I turn off the light from now on? Or is there a fix to this?

 

Where did you buy them?

 

I bought it from sharp light innovations.

 

what did they say when you asked them? I’m surprised your having this problem given the price of those things. They are on the forum. Maybe they will chime in to help you.

@TheRadioFlyer can you help out with this?

 

Did this get resolved? I’m curious. Thanks.

 

For what it's worth, mine retract without using the high-beam trick but only if I turn them off while the engine is still running (higher voltage from the alternator I presume is the reason). If I shut off the engine first and then turn off the headlights, they don't retract without the help of the high beams.

 

Would really like to see what @TheRadioFlyer said about this. I was under the impression these worked flawlessly for that price.

 

FWIW, I had a similar problem after installing LED headlights in my ‘03z. Solution was a resister wired off the headlight feed and going to ground. Only my rh side headlight door failed to close, lh door worked fine. The resister solved the problem.

 

@Minmey did this issue get resolved?

 

I have had these capacitors for a year now and will solve the LED bulb retraction issue. They simply install as part of the harness of the low beam bulbs and present the system with enough voltage draw to operate as designed.

XtremeVision LED Anti Flicker Capacitors - Error Code Canceller Capacitor (1 Pair) - 9006/9005 / 9012 / H10

 

I guess I’m just shocked that the $600+ headlights don’t come fully functional out of the box.

 

I had the same problem on a 98. As WaltG said if you turn the lights off before you turn off the engine they work fine, otherwise the high beams must be on to close.

 

I’m also shocked that a forum vendor @TheRadioFlyer isnt responding. We see that you’re active in the forum today. Let’s respond to customer concerns here! You’re always posting 12 days of Christmas sales and in the c6 forums but yet here we have an after sale customer and you’re ghosting. Where’s the customer service?

 

I would tend to agree. For some reason when it comes to any other part the Vette community expects perfection in exchange for the Vette tax. This vendor gets a pass for some reason. I bought the hi-4 harness from them when I first got my car and had to solder the damn thing together myself after a month when the connections fell apart. I put up a thread about it and was met with quite a bit of resistance on it with fan boys. I was so pissed in fact I bought bulk amounts of parts to build 10 of them the right way to sell so people have a reliable harness.

 

Apologies to all for not responding sooner. Apparently "@theradioflyer" does not trigger search criteria or notifications. Thank you to CF member "STRMLNE" for bringing my attention to this thread.

As to the problem listed: From my research, the headlight doors open and close when triggered by a the high current draw of the halogen bulbs. HID ballasts have a High startup current, but then stabilize current draw at a lower current. Cheaper ballasts that claim to be 55w will not actually have a 55w stable current draw. We go to tremendous lengths to ensure that our ballasts do have this high stable draw both for this purpose and to ensure that the proper amount of light output is generated. In my research, the headlight doors require a minimum of 3.9 amps to retract. The current generation of ballasts have a stable draw of 4.6 amps at 13.5v. (This draw has only been tested on a bench power converter and not on a battery) but should be more than enough to trigger the headlights to lower.

There are several possible issues at hand here:
1) The headlight control module (which controls headlight doors) has failed or is failing
2) The HID ballast (although firing) is not drawing the appropriate power
3) There is a unique issue as yet undiscovered.

We have sold well over 200 of these kits and all ballasts used have been upwards of the minimum 3.9A stable draw. If the issue were with the ballast inherently, I would expect all customer to be reporting the same issue. I will need to know more information from each individual customer to diagnose the issue and take appropriate action. If you are having the "fail to retract" issue, PLEASE send a photo of the ballast you have to president@sharplightinnovations.com so we can gather more information.

 

I'm pretty sure his lights are NOT LEDs but are HIDs. To the best of my knowledge (not many brain cells left), his kits are plug and play as stock would.

 

Correct. I am currently in contact with customers who have the current generation ballasts and so far the ones I have heard back from indicate the kit is working as it should. This indicates either a one-off issue with the ballasts or one-off issue with the car. Either way, customers with non-lowering headlights are encouraged to contact me directly to resolve issues as it appears "public paging" is not a reliable way to reach me.

I can be reached at president@sharplightinnovations.com

 

A while ago I ordered ACA the Taiwanese (not China) made lights and took out the H11 projector and retrofitted Morimoto 5.0 D2s projectors and added Osram D2s CBB bulbs into them (which produce a beautiful light BTW)
But that is not the relevant part...

If I recall there were 2 harnesses that came with the lights one for each side that allowed the low beam to stay on with the high beam.

The relay harness that came with the lights had a built in resistor that is enough load to trigger the headlight to close when BOTH of the harness were connected.
I experimented with this trying to use only one harness (to try reduce all the wires floating around) - which does not work BTW as the headlights flicker w the 50 W HID ballasts I am using.
It needs both harnesses to work apparently.

I found with one harness or if you unplug the low beam on one side the headlights only retract w the high beam technique.
So apparently the harnesses supply just enough resistance to close lights if it is 2 harnessed on the circuit.

Did you install 2 harnesses or one?

This is the kit I bought:


Honestly, I liked the headlights staying up and using high beam to close. My thought is reducing wear and tear from reduced opening and closing these fragile, plastic gear driven, bouncy lights as much as possible.
But that is just my opinion.