1st Gen Dash Light Tap for 5 Pin Rocker

Does anyone know which wires (and where) I can tap into, to get the bottom led of my rocker switch to light up with dash and parking lights? I just purchased my 6-Switch under-radio panel from Paranoid Fab for my 1995 xtra cab sr5 and will be doing a small wiring overhaul. I know this info is probably already on here but I cant seem to find it.. Any input is much appreciated!

 

Check your rheostat for the wire that gets powered by the headlight switch .

Wire colors are subject to change over the years

 

I'd say check my build page but Photobucket has ruined whatever shred of TW social life I had remaining.

 

Isn't there an illumination circuit in the radio harness? I have a switch panel that I need to install, and I was assuming that is how that I would do it. I've only had the radio out once, to swap a new one in, and since the old and new radios were both Kenwood, I didn't have to mess with the harness at all.

 

Excuse my noobiness in electrical.. what is a rheostat? Also how would i find this (what harness)?

 

Agh, photobucket is blowing it but dont be fooled ive seen your build many times over! (of course before the photobucket mishap) that being said, I like your truck

 

Im no expert but there is an illumination wire that hooks up to my stereo to dim the lights when my headlights are on, i just dont know how much power runs through it. Does anyone know if it is 12v? I was under the impression that it only carried enough current to signal the headunit to dim. But once again I dont know much about all this so anyone please correct me if im wrong.

 

The Rheostat is the control that dims or brightens your lights most all Toyota`s have them

Should be on the left side of the dash somewhere above the hood release

The wire for your radio light is tied into the same circuit it carries 12vdc to light your switches

Just to me harder to get to

 

If your mounting under the radio
. There's a light for the ashtray that should be on the dimmer circuit. Just tap into those 2 wires.. if your switch is lighted by an LED wire polarity will matter. The wire that cones on 12v with headlights on and never changes when you dim headlights is the 12v positive wire.

 

Let me shine some light into all these speculations.

There are two types of rheostat - one with 2 wires and the other with 3 wires. The one with 2 wires (I have that one in my truck) is useless for +12V - it is just the common from all in-dash bulbs (white-green) and the ground (white-black). If your truck has 3-wire rheostat then the third wire (green-red) is actually 12V turned on when you lights (parking lights or headlights) are on. It is fused by 10A Tail fuse (in the driver side fuse box).

Now if you don't have 3-wire rheostat, basically any green-red wire for any illuminated places would be good to tap to (I don't know what options your truck has, so I don't know which bulbs you have in there). Possible places are:

Meter combo
Hazard switch
Rear diff lock switch
Radio harness
Pass airbag manual on/off
A/C switch
A/C blower control illumination
Auto transition position illumination (in floor)
Cigarette lighter illumination
Ashtray illumination
Glow box illumination

An of course you can tap into any exterior lights (front marker, tail, registration plate illumination

Keep in mind, that this LED inside the switch will not dim together with other interior lights. Unless the switch LED is dimable (has LED Plus and minus leads separate from other contact in the switch). In that case you can connect "switch illumination minus" to "white-green" wire in all places I listed above.

 

Thanks man.

Behind the dimmer switch in the lower dash, on my 1998, there was an unused wire harness. It was dimmable. So I clipped the connector off and tapped into that for my switchbacks.

 

Thank you all for the abundance of info! Ill have to check my truck to see exactly what kind of equipment i'm dealing with. I think I have everything I need (parts wise) so I will be attempting to install these switches by the weekend. Good to know that i have such a great archive of knowledge between all of you fellow tacoma owners and enthusiasts. Ill post up again with either more questions or mission accomplished photos

 

So my install went pretty well, it turns out I do have the 3 wire rheostat so I tapped into that for my illumination on the bottom led on the switch. Only problem is that the top led stays lit all the time. Could mixing up the positive and negative do this? Remember it's a 5 pin... switch works fine otherwise. Thanks again in advance!

 

I used that wire for my switch lights, works fine. The dash dimmer is ground side dimmed so they won't dim.

 

All depends on the switch internal diagram. No clue what is inside that 5 pin switch. Can you post more detail about it?

 

I finally got around to installing my switch panel.

I tapped into the illumination circuit on my pass airbag switch, grounded at the stereo harness, and ran a wire to the battery for constant 12v (I got the USB charger as well).

I looped the grounds on my Carling switches (pins 7 and 8) together for both light grounds, and used the illumination circuit to as the input for my fog light switch, so that only works when the parking lights are on.

You might have swapped the inputs on the switch?

 

Here's the diagram it came with

 

By intups you mean the positives?

 

One thing worth mentioning is that i am using the generic wire harnesses from Amazon for this. I was originally using the cheap pushbutton switches with double sided tape, that came with the harness. I cut off the switch and basically wired up the wires to the 5 pin rocker. I assumed that the black wire was negative and the red was positive but i have no clue anymore with these china made products. Idk if this changes anything...

 

Thanks for the diagram. So you need to connect:

6 - green/red from rheostat
7 - green/white from rheostat (for lower Led to dim). Or ground for lower Led not to dim)
2 - battery + (fused of course)
3 - accessory in (relay coil plus)
8 - ground (upper Led not dimmable)

Might work or not if 8 connected to rheostat green/white for upper led to be dimmable.