Ultimate guide for those considering Euro projector headlights - all the basics in one thread!

[Remi]

For the 2015 Fiesta, the DRL logic is a tad tougher. I'm currently trying to figure it out. I removed the 20A ignition coil fuse and used the add a circuit in its place using both the 5A fuse and 20A fuse in the add a circuit slot. Right now, it just stays at Low output DRL.

Is it the same issue with the 2014?

I'm looking into buying a 2014 FiST, and I'm already thinking of doing the Euro headlights. I hate halogens lol.

 

[Eldrote]

Black Depo's on eBay, $200+ per pair more than non-black.

Looks like these black Depo's got sold out or something. Anybody has another link to buy these? I want the black ones because I hate all the chrome on the regular euro headlight.

 

[danbfree]

Is it the same issue with the 2014?

I'm looking into buying a 2014 FiST, and I'm already thinking of doing the Euro headlights. I hate halogens lol.

Sorry for the bad link, here they are on eBay for ~$580 shipped
And also on Cars245.com for about $120 less after shipping... and since it would likely be 6-7 weeks from either source, I'd ask on Cars245 how long it would be, the customer service guy there Constantine is good... both come from Latvia so could be the same or related company so may as well order from the cheaper site.

 

[Blindeye_03]

Sorry for the bad link, here they are on eBay for ~$580 shipped
And also on Cars245.com for about $120 less after shipping... and since it would likely be 6-7 weeks from either source, I'd ask on Cars245 how long it would be, the customer service guy there Constantine is good... both come from Latvia so could be the same or related company so may as well order from the cheaper site.

There is one seller on ebay that IS Constantine - but the prices are higher on ebay. Its the same guy, just get it from cars245. I got my TYC lights from him on ebay 2? years ago.

 

[Jensen567]

So in the first post you mentioned activating the leveling motors for adjustment. Any idea how to actually do that? I cant imagine just hooking up a euro switch works without adding wires somewhere since the headlight harness doesnt have the pins to use the motors.

I just installed my OEM euro lights and my passenger side is aimed far too low, with the manual adjustment all the way up. These were ordered from fordpartsuk back in late 2014, early 2015 and sat in my garage until today. Was unpleasantly surprised when I first turned them on.

Even if I can just manually "bump" the motors by probing the connector with 12V that would be fine, I only need them so i can get the adjustment set then they wont be used.

 

[danbfree]

So in the first post you mentioned activating the leveling motors for adjustment. Any idea how to actually do that? I cant imagine just hooking up a euro switch works without adding wires somewhere since the headlight harness doesnt have the pins to use the motors.

I just installed my OEM euro lights and my passenger side is aimed far too low, with the manual adjustment all the way up. These were ordered from fordpartsuk back in late 2014, early 2015 and sat in my garage until today. Was unpleasantly surprised when I first turned them on.

Even if I can just manually "bump" the motors by probing the connector with 12V that would be fine, I only need them so i can get the adjustment set then they wont be used.

Wow, I'm surprised the OEM's were aimed far too low without enough adjustment.. Honestly I've forgotten all about having to do a motor connection, there are some buried threads on here about it if you do enough searching.

 

[Jensen567]

Yeah, unfortunately all I have found so far is getting them to lower, nothing about raising it. Its low to the point that I can only see about 1 car distance in front of me. Passenger side was able to be adjusted normally. Will keep searching.

I might also pull the light off to see if I can investigate the motors some more.

 

[Jensen567]

For some reason VirtualRonins thread about DRLs seems to have been deleted also.

 

[Blindeye_03]

So in the first post you mentioned activating the leveling motors for adjustment. Any idea how to actually do that? I cant imagine just hooking up a euro switch works without adding wires somewhere since the headlight harness doesnt have the pins to use the motors.

I just installed my OEM euro lights and my passenger side is aimed far too low, with the manual adjustment all the way up. These were ordered from fordpartsuk back in late 2014, early 2015 and sat in my garage until today. Was unpleasantly surprised when I first turned them on.

Even if I can just manually "bump" the motors by probing the connector with 12V that would be fine, I only need them so i can get the adjustment set then they wont be used.

Could you buy a euro headlight switch with the manual height adjustments then wire it up and fix the lights that way?

 

[Jensen567]

I dont know. Our cars don't have the wiring stock, so not sure what pins I would need to add to the harness or where to connect them on the switch.

 

[Jensen567]

Alright guys, major progress tonight. I need to eat some dinner, fix my car, gather all my data, then maybe take a nap, but I will be back.

I have gotten the level motors to move, I can go all the way in, all the way out, or anywhere in between, and I even know how to control it.

 

[Jensen567]

Right, so this was a rollercoaster. As it turns out, the leveling motors were not my issue, shipping damage was. Both my sideways adjustment and my static pivot balls had popped out of their sockets. The sideways adjuster was easy enough to get back on, but the static pivot was a giant PITA. I got it all back together though! So all is well, and my lights work, and are able to be aimed. Here are some pictures of that progress.









Enough about that though, the real progress for the community tonight was that I was able to figure out how to control the leveling motors, and it is fantastically simple.


Lets start with the headlight connector pinout, since none of the ones I have seen posted for the euro lights are 100% accurate. I traced every wire from the connector, and followed them to termination, so I am confident this is correct, at least for OEM.





As we can see, we have 3 wires listed for motor function, this makes sense, as if we look at the motor in the housing we can see a small 3 pin connector.





I first took chalitunas advice, and connected 12V from LED High+/Motor+ to Motor-, and sure enough, the motor retracted. Now I had to get it to extend. Well first I tried every combination of 12V between the three motor wires, and got absolutely nowhere.


At this point I almost gave up, because I hadnt found the popped out ball joints yet, and assumed I made it even worse by retracting the motor. I was about to accept the fact that I had ruined a $400 headlight. In a last ditch effort, I decided to Google the part number on the back of that leveling motor, not expecting to find much.


I hit gold. Most of what showed up was just scrap yards selling them, but one result caught my eye. It was a Russian video that appeared to be a teardown of one of the motors.


https://youtu.be/DdmV605yxZ
4

I have no idea what most of that video is about, but for about 10 seconds at the end they show a close up of the PCB inside, and a few seconds of that are even in focus, which was all I needed to see. I grabbed this screenshot of the board.





It's hard to see, but that chip says TDA3629T. Googling that I found this datasheet.


http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.434.3172&rep=rep1&type=pd
f

Well look at that, its a purpose built headlight level controller (albeit an old one). Reverse engineering the circuit as best I can from the board screenshot I get this.





So, between the schematic and the datasheet, I was able to figure out that basically it is just looking for an analog voltage that is between about 1V and just below battery voltage on the Motor Position pin. The easiest way to get that is a potentiometer between all 3 of the pins, with the two ends hooked to Motor+ and Motor-, and the adjustable wiper hooked to Motor Position. Then connect Motor- to ground, and it will operate anytime the LEDs are in high mode. Like this.





To get the full range of the motor extra resistors may be needed, and I havent figured out the ideal potentiometer value yet, but hey, I did all this on my phone in the garage.


I had a 10K ohm potentiometer in the parts box, I hooked it up with alligator clips and my M12 drill battery and I was able to move the motor with the knob.


If we want discreet positions like OEM all we need is a multi-position knob switch and a resistor divider with multiple taps. Could even use 3 resistors and a toggle switch for a simple 2 position low and high.


If there is enough interest I can figure out the exact values of resistors to get the max extension, but this should be easy to add in if you really want it, just 3 wires into the cabin, and 2 extra pins into the headlight harness.


This could also be done with a microcontroller using an analog output and an op-amp, if we wanted to make it programmable.



Keep in mind the one restriction with this is that they only work with the LED on high mode. So if you have VirtualRonins factory style harness setup, or the 1 wire always high mod, you will be fine. If you run low LED with the headlight on, the adjusters would not work.





Here is my end result with aukee LEDs, still need to find a flatter spot to aim them, but good enough for now. The dust boots still fit with these LEDs, how long they will last sealed up is another question.

 

[danbfree]

Right, so this was a rollercoaster. As it turns out, the leveling motors were not my issue, shipping damage was. Both my sideways adjustment and my static pivot balls had popped out of their sockets. The sideways adjuster was easy enough to get back on, but the static pivot was a giant PITA. I got it all back together though! So all is well, and my lights work, and are able to be aimed. (The rest redacted for space consideration)

WOW, this is freaking fantastic, I'd highly recommend taking all of this the as is and creating a new thread on "How to fix poorly aimed Euro headlights" or something... but also mention that this will work with TYC or Depo since they are replicas they are exactly the same as Euro in operation/wiring/motors... this is absolute GOLD!

 

[KyleS]

So if I wanted to do a one time adjustment all I need is a 12 power supply and a potentiometer knob? Awesome.

 

[Jensen567]

So if I wanted to do a one time adjustment all I need is a 12 power supply and a potentiometer knob? Awesome.

Correct. Really any power source that is even close to 12V. I did mine with my M12 drill battery because it was what I had sitting on my bench. It would probably even work with a 9V battery, as the input voltage and position voltage scale together.

WOW, this is freaking fantastic, I'd highly recommend taking all of this the as is and creating a new thread on "How to fix poorly aimed Euro headlights" or something... but also mention that this will work with TYC or Depo since they are replicas they are exactly the same as Euro in operation/wiring/motors... this is absolute GOLD!

I may do that, an Ultimate Euro Light Wiring thread or something. I'm actually working on a scheme now that might allow the use of the LEDs as factory style low/high DRLs without modifying the car wiring at all.

I think I can do it with a fairly simple comparator + relay circuit that sits inline between the car plug and light plug, then changing the setup in Forscan to the Canadian dipped low beam DRLs. Sort of like an active version of VirtualRonins adapter harness. Need to measure the actual output voltage of the dipped beams compared to the full power lows to see if it is workable.

Could easily add a small connector that sticks off the side of that adapter to add motor control too. Then just need to find somewhere nice to mount a knob in the car and run a 3 wire cable to said knob.

 

[danbfree]

Correct. Really any power source that is even close to 12V. I did mine with my M12 drill battery because it was what I had sitting on my bench. It would probably even work with a 9V battery, as the input voltage and position voltage scale together.





I may do that, an Ultimate Euro Light Wiring thread or something. I'm actually working on a scheme now that might allow the use of the LEDs as factory style low/high DRLs without modifying the car wiring at all.

I think I can do it with a fairly simple comparator + relay circuit that sits inline between the car plug and light plug, then changing the setup in Forscan to the Canadian dipped low beam DRLs. Sort of like an active version of VirtualRonins adapter harness. Need to measure the actual output voltage of the dipped beams compared to the full power lows to see if it is workable.

Could easily add a small connector that sticks off the side of that adapter to add motor control too. Then just need to find somewhere nice to mount a knob in the car and run a 3 wire cable to said knob.

Nice, I always thought it might be possible to use ForScan settings to be part of a simpler solution, that would be awesome man! And with as many people as it seems have shipping or however caused damage to the OEM/replica headlights it would be really helpful!

 

[BlackBeanAndRice]

So I wired up my Depo headlights the simple add-a-circuit and move the parking light pin method.

My issue is that sometimes the DRLs stay on high for several minutes. I shutoff car and get out, they're on low until I lock the car, at which point sometimes they go off, and sometimes they go to high for several minutes.

Probing my fuse box (or just listening), it seems the engine power sometimes stays on for a while. Usually not a big deal, but I would hate to have it happen when trying to street park at night and having my DRLs blind everyone on the street.

Anyone have any suggestions?

 

[danbfree]

So I wired up my Depo headlights the simple add-a-circuit and move the parking light pin method.

My issue is that sometimes the DRLs stay on high for several minutes. I shutoff car and get out, they're on low until I lock the car, at which point sometimes they go off, and sometimes they go to high for several minutes.

Probing my fuse box (or just listening), it seems the engine power sometimes stays on for a while. Usually not a big deal, but I would hate to have it happen when trying to street park at night and having my DRLs blind everyone on the street.

Anyone have any suggestions?

I wouldn't worry about DRL's blinding anyone, many of us ran them on high all the time until this new method was determined. But that is still weird, maybe the spot you used for the added power, which you connect for high DRL, is staying on for a while, you may need to find another spot that immediately shuts off with ignition.

 

[Intuit]

Since people are removing and replacing headlamp assemblies, the white clips underneath them have (and will) undoubtedly break for some people.

The way overprice white clips are available here...
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FZM5BPW
...I see they dropped the price a bit. (still way overpriced)

Part number shown there is "BE8Z-13N129-A".

EDIT 23y08m07d
BTW if you want to keep them from breaking, grease them.

Also make sure that they're shifted forward/backward as needed prior to pressing the headlamp assembly onto them.


.

 

[Intuit]

So I wired up my Depo headlights the simple add-a-circuit and move the parking light pin method.

My issue is that sometimes the DRLs stay on high for several minutes. I shutoff car and get out, they're on low until I lock the car, at which point sometimes they go off, and sometimes they go to high for several minutes.

Probing my fuse box (or just listening), it seems the engine power sometimes stays on for a while. Usually not a big deal, but I would hate to have it happen when trying to street park at night and having my DRLs blind everyone on the street.

Anyone have any suggestions?

It's normal for the marker lights to stay on until either the car is locked, or a relatively brief delay expires.