| there are two main issues: #1: radiated EMI/RFI
from poorly engineered Chinese ballasts causes the processor to hang up requiring a restart. The last revision included a copper foil shield that surrounded the board which took care of the problem. Serial numbers starting in Z have the shield " INSP: Z*** "
Aluminum foil around the ballasts is also very effective at taking care of this problem. for reference, while bench testing ~10+ Chinese ballasts and handful were able to freeze up my wireless mouse, my data acquisition system, and cause the blue screen of death on a nearby computer (!!!) The OEM Hella, Valeo, and Matsushita (G35/350z) ballasts wouldn't hang up the translator or anything else after hundreds of attempts. In contrast the Chinese hardware was anywhere from 1 in 2 to 1 in 20. Cold bulbs are also worse as the breakdown of the xenon is more of a challenge. 
The effect was so drastic that I was blind to another problem: #2: Conducted noise (EMC)
It took a long time to catch on that this was there. Its extremely fast... the cars electrical system goes from the normal 12V to as high as 300V in about 20 nanoseconds! The spike goes just as negative and eventually damps out. Its so fast that filters have a tough time keeping up including the one that has been on the board since the very first unit (TVS - transient voltage suppressor) The existence of this filter was a contributing factor to me missing this as a problem as was the difficult of detecting such a quick event with the scope. The next figure is from one of my test reports: 
I'm trying to develop a filter that can stop it at the ballast level so the entire cars electrical system can be spared the exposure as well. So far its tough going but I have an few more options to try. The idea is that this would be distributed to any existing customers. In addition, we're just finishing a revision that includes a dead man reset switch... every 4 milliseconds the processor sends a signal to this switch telling it "Wait, don't restart me yet!" If the processor ever gets hung up, it can't delay the reset and within 8ms, the processor is up up and running again. At 2000 rpm, there are 10ms between ignition/fueling events so at low rpm all you'd hear is a single misfire (maybe 2) when the headlights turn on. Now that you're up to speed, what should you do? Remember that not everyone that runs Chinese ballasts has a problem. The reporting rate is somewhere around 5% of all sales which is relatively low (although 5% higher than I'd like) If you're considering buying Chinese ballasts and already have a translator I strongly urge you to buy an OEM brand. This could be causing all kinds of other issues with the car that aren't so immediately obvious. If you're an existing customer I think about you everyday... morning till night. If a filter can built that stops this, know that you will get a pair for free the moment they are built. I'd love to give everybody an updated replacement, but I would go bankrupt. (literally) In the meantime, to weather the storm here are some suggestions: 1: Rock the halogens for a while! :)
2: wrap you ballasts in aluminum foil for issue #1
3: Warm up your headlights for a bit, turn the key to the off position to restart the translator, then start the car. This avoids the more violent cold bulb voltage spike. Thanks for reading this far! If you feel compelled to email me on this issue, please make it easy to read and respond to! I have a day job as well as all of this and free time is something I haven't seen for years. Help me get to that finish line! Another note... while testing I found that "slim" style ballasts that look like those in the picture below are much much better than all other Chinese options. 
www.selindesign.net 
|
OFFICIAL UPDATE: Here's where things are as of today... - 
