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So I've had this problem for a while and never really though much about it, but you guys are here and might give me some insight...

I live in the middle of nowhere and it's real dark without any streetlights. Usually after I leave the city and it gets real dark I reach down and dim my dash lights so it's easier to see the road.
My radio dims the opposite of my dash lights though. The dash lights get dimmer, the radio gets brighter. The radio never dims beyond what I assume is the default level (which is where it stays if I unplug the dimmer wire). I would like to hook the dimmer back up and have it work the right way round, but I'm not sure where to start.

The stereo was hooked up with the wiring harness kit from the stereowarehouse. The dimmer wire is currently unplugged.

not to be unhelpful but.. plug the dimmer wire in, lol. when you say it's unplugged, do you mean on the harness side or the radio side? some heads (ie cheap ones like mine) don't have a dimmer wire on the radio at all, in which case you're SOL.

Some decks dim the oposite way, it's weird. I had one that did that, it got dimmer when I turned on the lights.

Ninjajim4: It's unplugged between the deck and the harness. I have it unplugged because it gets massively bright when I make my dash lights dim, sortof defeats the point of turing them down. With the wire unplugged it is at least tolerable.

Mad Cow: It'd be nice if I could get it to work the right way, but it seems like the power is just being diverted from the dash to the deck.

Demonic1 wrote:Ninjajim4: It's unplugged between the deck and the harness. I have it unplugged because it gets massively bright when I make my dash lights dim, sortof defeats the point of turing them down. With the wire unplugged it is at least tolerable.

Mad Cow: It'd be nice if I could get it to work the right way, but it seems like the power is just being diverted from the dash to the deck.

The deck I had was designed to do that, I even read the instructions and it said it's supposed to dim when you turn the lights on.

Mad Cow wrote:

Demonic1 wrote:Ninjajim4: It's unplugged between the deck and the harness. I have it unplugged because it gets massively bright when I make my dash lights dim, sortof defeats the point of turing them down. With the wire unplugged it is at least tolerable.

Mad Cow: It'd be nice if I could get it to work the right way, but it seems like the power is just being diverted from the dash to the deck.

The deck I had was designed to do that, I even read the instructions and it said it's supposed to dim when you turn the lights on.

Mad Cow, that actually makes sense, and it's differnt from his problem. if you at look our clocks, they are actually dimmer when your dash lights are on. turn your headlights on in the middle of the day, and you can barely see the clock. that shouldn't prevent it from dimming however...

sorry man, i didn't read as carefully as i ought to have. hmmm.. i honestly have no idea but i would suspect it is miswired. don't really have much advice except check the wiring diagrams

Well everything was labeled on the deck and I used the wiring kit so all those wires were labeled. I wanted to make it easier to get it out if I needed to sell the car.
All the wires on the deck are accounted for, and the harness should have been correctly wired.

I'm either thinking it's my dimmer switch or the deck was intended to act that way.

some radios have a opposite dimmer on them. if you leave the dimmer wire unattached it wont dim. i didnt hook my dimmer up to the d3 just for the simple reason is it lights up every nicely

Yeah, it seems like it might be an opposite dimmer. And my dimmer wire is currently unhooked, but the radio is still too bright.
My problem is that I have 12 miles worth of driving after the streetlights stop and am still running stock headlights. I need to be able to see the deer before anything happens. Currently when i leave the streetlights behind I dim my dash lights and throw a bandanna over the headunit.
Wondering if there's a way to reverse the polarity with some simple electronics ...

Demonic1 wrote:Yeah, it seems like it might be an opposite dimmer. And my dimmer wire is currently unhooked, but the radio is still too bright.
My problem is that I have 12 miles worth of driving after the streetlights stop and am still running stock headlights. I need to be able to see the deer before anything happens. Currently when i leave the streetlights behind I dim my dash lights and throw a bandanna over the headunit.
Wondering if there's a way to reverse the polarity with some simple electronics ...

So why don't you hook up the dimmer wire so that it dims when you turn the lights on? Or you could try looking through the manual for a brightness option, every deck I've had including a horrible jensen deck had the ability to change brightness.

what were you doing with a jensen deck? tell me it was a last resort of putting that god awful thing in your car.

chrome730 wrote:what were you doing with a jensen deck? tell me it was a last resort of putting that god awful thing in your car.

When you have a car that can be opened by any key, you don't put expensive crap in it...

Mad Cow wrote:

Demonic1 wrote:Yeah, it seems like it might be an opposite dimmer. And my dimmer wire is currently unhooked, but the radio is still too bright.
My problem is that I have 12 miles worth of driving after the streetlights stop and am still running stock headlights. I need to be able to see the deer before anything happens. Currently when i leave the streetlights behind I dim my dash lights and throw a bandanna over the headunit.
Wondering if there's a way to reverse the polarity with some simple electronics ...

So why don't you hook up the dimmer wire so that it dims when you turn the lights on? Or you could try looking through the manual for a brightness option, every deck I've had including a horrible jensen deck had the ability to change brightness.

My problem is that with the dimmer wire hooked up it doesn't ever dim. If I dim the dash lights my deck gets brighter. The manual is crap and doesn't mention the brightness option. I'm going to send them an email and see if the tech support can help.

chrome730 wrote:what were you doing with a jensen deck? tell me it was a last resort of putting that god awful thing in your car.

It was in the car when I bought it, I replaced it and now I don't even remember where I put it.

And Flyer, come on man, be nice.

i dont know if your question was answered but you probably inversed the dimmer wires behind your radio, (im currently in the middle of fixing this properly on my 94, it was not a apparent problem on my 92) the red and red stripped wires behind the radio. the power is blue & red stripe, the accessory(key) is blue/black strip, im currently asking the question on where wich wire goes. ill get back to you on that shortly