H4 HID conversion question

[Hyuga]

I'm under the way of installing my H4 HID kit but I found that there is a wire which called "polarity adjuster", the manuel says that I have to get it connected between the ballast and the bulb if my car has a positive(+) current but not to connect it with a negative(-) current car. Anyone knows this please help me, and yes i did the search on google and here as well but couldn't find anything.

[Toobs]

It's probably in engrish... possibly relating to negative and positive switching or negative / positive earthing.

[SL666]

that would be my guess too.. eg if your car runs a + chassis and switches earth then connect it.

[takai]

Most (older) Toyotas negative switch btw.

[SL666]

just check the earth strap

[Hyuga]

so positive current = negative earthing right? and so I'll need to have it connected then, thanks people. By the way could someone tell me what is mean by negative/positive switch?

[SL666]

On a normal modern car, the negative on the battery is attached to the chassis.. grounded.. and to provide power to something you need to provided a switched wire from the positive.. positive switched..

its reversed on some older cars...

i would suggest you don't connect it.. i would think its there in case your car is positively charged to the chassis..

lets not get into physics though.. that makes it even more confusing

[bansheebuzz]

from what i understand it as, the manual is talking about the switching method of the headlights. I.e is the headlights switched positive or negative to change the beam. Most toyotas up to recent times have negative switching headlights.

I cannot see the manual refering to chassis polarity as positive chassis was only really used by the poms and went out 40 odd years ago

[BrianRA23]

For the high/low beam globe there is the common wire shared by both filaments. On a Ford this goes to earth, being negative and the power is given when the lights are turned on and then the dip switch activated from one to the other.

On a Toyota the common wire on the globe is provided with positive power when the lights are turned on. To go back and forth from high to low beam the negative side is switched up oon the column.

I am not familar with setting up HID, but if the instructions are assuming the common goes to the chassis then in your case the common is positive.

Another thing is that with the Toyota setup is that the high beam indicator light gets positive power through the low beam bulb, although you headlight does not light up since the current is so low. Since the HB indicator light is wired in parallel with the dip switch when low beam is selected all the current goes through the switch and there is no current going through the bulb to make it glow. Since HID has such low power consumption you might find that low beam will stay on when high beam is selected. If this happens you will need to look at some wiring changes or the addition of relays and a diode effectively making you setup like the Ford setup but without cutting any of the Toyota wiring. It would be unfortunate to ad relays when you are installing a low current setup but if you need to do this then PM me for the link on a wiring diagram.

[SL666]

banshee: i think you might be right there... i was assuming because the ballast would be polarity sensitive..