Xenon high beam upgrade from H15 halogen

[olaham]

Hi

My plan is to uppgrade my high beam on my CX-5 EU model that has the halogen lights. I was not that impressed by the high beam and i dont want to alter the front and drill and fasten some ugly extra lights, i think the original front looks great.

Anyhow, my car has the uncommon H15 bulbs with the connector angled 90 deg out from the bulb, and you twist it to the fixed socket on the car and the bulb is connected. I also notised that the bulb is a 55/15W, it has a 15W thread, on the high beam? I can say that i can never turn this 15W on, i mean i have never seen it light up. The only way i can get this bulb to light is when i turn the high beam on, what is this small 15W thread for? The head lights is on a separate reflector, the parking light has its own reflector. I have read that this is called DRL light, but i can not understand what it is for? Maybe it is for another market, US, Asia.
I have found a xenon-kit for this lamp, hopefully i will get this to work and get some powerful high beam to light up the dark forrests here i Sweden, "the darkness is coming",

Best Regards Ola

 

[yrwei52]

Actually your H15 dual-filament 55/15W high-beam halogen bulb is used all over the world except North American market on CX-5's. In NA it has HB3(9005) 60W single-filament halogen bulb for high beam and uses reduced voltage to drive the same filament for Daytime Running Lights if it's needed. You'll see you 15W filament lights up as the DRLs while your CX-5 is moving. It's normally turned off when your CX-5 is stopped so you won't see it.

Try to find some H15 equivalent LED's which should be a lot easier and cheaper to get stronger light output than doing the Xenon upgrade.

 

[RedBaron]

and uses reduced voltage to drive the same filament for Daytime Running Lights if it's needed. You'll see you 15W filament lights up as the DRLs while your CX-5 is moving. It's normally turned off when your CX-5 is stopped so you won't see it.

To be clear the high beams are (re)wired in series in the DRL position, thus each lamp gets half the full 12V applied. That's why LED/HID replacements don't work well in this application (when DRLs are on).

 

[olaham]

Hi

Some update from my xenon high-beam upgrade. Regarding the DRL function on my car is that i did not get them to light up, it did not come on even when i was driving either. The only time that bulb come on was when i start the high beam. Maybe something was wrong but i did not bother to investigate further. So i did not bother any more regading the DRL-lights and i bought a 55W 4300K Xenon H15 socket kit, very easy to install. Small ballast and they are fast to light up, i think it is a major differense from my original Halogen lights. The reflector on the car is what it is so thats hard to change but it is so much brighter now and it reach further also. I think i will be satisfied with this upgrade and do not need to install extra lights that is so much more work to install and more expensive and not the least rather ugly to have on the front in my opinion.

Ola