by Jon11582 » Tue Jun 19, 2007 10:18 pm
DRLs systems for halogen lights run the DRLs on lower voltage, and the ballast becomes unpredictable run on lower voltage than the ballast is speced for. Ballasts and other voltage changers are made to take a specific voltage in, and output in a specific different voltage that will work with the HIDs (You will see this spec on the label of the ballast).
Running them on reduced voltage may make your HIDs flicker, and will reduce thier life. It may even kill hem outright. You will notice that on cars with HIDs stock, the DRLs will typically be a seperate halogen bulb, which may be shared with the highbeam. Its because halogen is fine with lower voltage, resulting in just a dimmer light to be used for DRL, but the HID Ballast is not. For Solaras, I believe this is only an issue doing an HID install on Gen1 for your normal low beams. I think Gen1.5, 2, and 2.5 all use the highbeam bulb for DRL, and the highbeam is a halogen bulb. If you changed your highbeam bulb for an HID, then it becomes a problem again, and DRL should be disabled.
You will notice the same kind of problem if you use a standard dimming switch meant for a normal incandescent bulb in the house on a compact fluorescent bulb. A dimmer reduces the voltage that gets to the bulb, and the the voltage inverter in the base of the CF bulb doesn't getting the voltage it expects, and outputs a completely different voltage from what the light needs to operate.
2000 Black Solara SE
