I am looking at doing a retro with HID's, and i have seen guys using some sort of 12v box to power up stock headlights and ignite the HID ballasts, etc while they are not running off the 12v of the battery. My question is where do you get these and how much do they run? Also, i know computer power supplies run 12v, but i dont know if they will hold up to the amps needed, this would be definitely the easiest seeing as how i have probably 4 or 5 extra power supplies sitting around the house.
My question is why? The 12v line voltage that powers the headlamps normally will power a HID ballast. Why go through all the trouble to reinvent the wheel? And as for your other question, a computer power supply takes 120v 60Hz AC and converts it to DC voltages. Do you intend to plug your car in to run the headlamps?
I'm going to do the mockup of the retro outside of the car, so I will need to power up the headlights to get the aim and leveling right. Since my car is my dd, the only time the lights will be out of it is to swap in the projectors. So the power from the car is irrelevant.
Use a different 12v battery...? A computer power supply will put out 12v but you need to look on it to see what the rated current output is for the +12v rail. Then find out what the rated current draw on the kit is. I use an old AT PSU for 12/5 v electrical testing all the time just don't ask too much current from it.
a computer power supply should work, they can usually put out 10 amps or so depending on the ratted wattage. The yellow wires are 12v and black is ground. Just short the green wire (pin 4) of the 20 pin connector to ground to turn it on. I would bet if it can supply 10 amps at 12 volts, it should have enough current to fire up the hid. Hid's only draw about 3.5 amps once there fired up, but they draw a lot more while igniting. Otherwise a google search for "12v power supply" will probably yield many options.
You can't aim a headlamp outside of the car, as the aim has everything to do with the mounted position of the headlamp on the body of the car. Same with leveling. You aim headlamps by lining up the cutoff of the beam with a point that is equal height to the center point on your headlamp assembly. You can't just power them up and put them on a table top to do that.
