So I just got done installing my Rally Innovations lightbar and a pair of Hella 550/Comet 550 amber fog lights. These: After being on roughly 60 seconds, one started emitting a small amount of smoke. Of course, I immediately turned them off thinking it was the wire inside melting. After removing the lens from the housing, I saw no signs of melted wires. My next step was to turn on the lights with the lens out of the housing. I discovered that the smoke was coming from inside the lens itself and escaping in small wisps around the bulb and clamp. I guess I should mention that I'm running 100w bulbs instead of the included 55w bulbs. The 100w bulbs are Hella bulbs. I did not touch the globe of the bulb. I'm tempted to believe that the reason is the 100w bulbs, but why is only one smoking and the other seems perfectly fine? Plus, if a Hella 500 can handle a 130w bulb, surely these can handle a 100w. And if anyone's curious, I ran 12g heavy duty wire all the way to the bulbs. I used a 40A Bosch-clone relay, and the grounds run directly to the negative battery terminal. Everything is fused. Any ideas what's going on? I'm thinking I might try swapping out a 55w bulb or just removing the 100w and inspecting it. I guess it's possible the bulb is bad? Here's an installed pic, in case anyone was curious what these look like on the STi: I have 4 Hella 700's to install as well; two above and two on the right and left of the fogs. They'll probably block the factory fog lights a little, but honestly, they're not really doing anything anyway.
10ga wire soldered crimps heat-shrink off-road connectors never had any luck with clone relays touch the bulb with bare hands? bad idea
12g wire is overkill as is. Each light has its own positive/negative lead that runs all the way to the battery. 100 watts / 12 volts = 8.3 amps. Round that up to 10 for resistance and heat from the engine (that's being very generous), and 10A is still fine. At 200° F, 12ga wire can still handle up to 15A. Everything is soldered and everything is heatshrink wrapped. I seriously doubt the relay is causing the light to smoke. I never said I touched the bulb with my hands. In fact, I said that I did not touch the bulb.
Relax i missed the bulb comment I've always run 10ga with high wattage lights especially with multiples bundled from the batteries Are these Mexican or German made?
Not knocking the choice but why the 80's Marchal throwback size? Check the body for heat distortion, if none just keep an eye on it for a while, might be a fluke.
Heh, "Marchal"? Never heard that one before. When I was shopping, I knew I wanted amber fog lights. Hella doesn't (currently) make round amber fog lights as far as I know, and I had already decided on 700's for the driving lights. I wanted matching lights (same brand), so I opted for the Comet 550's. As it turns out, they perform beautifully. They have a sharp cutoff like an HID headlight, and the light produced is a very rich yellow/gold color. With the 100W bulbs they throw out an enormous amount of light and if they were aimed higher, you could almost use them as headlights. Personally, I like the way they look too. You gotta picture 4 more Hella 700's on the bar to see where I'm going with these.
Forgot to mention...the smoke is gone. I had a feeling it might be something just burning off inside the reflector. Turns out, it was. I removed both lights from their housings and turned them on with a fan blowing across the lenses. After about 30 seconds I started seeing the same light emit more smoke. Rather than turn them off, I left them on for about 5 minutes, just to see what would happen. Sure enough, the smoke eventually went away and everything is fine.