Lights, Lights and MORE Lights. Good Grief.

Son, that’s what I’m telling you is that I don’t want to say that out loud. Pay attention.

 

I’m just trying to come up with a scenario that will get people to stop replying with answers to questions I didn’t ask.

I didn’t ask about remote start I asked about lighting control.

I didn’t ask about dimmers for the cluster, I asked about control for ALL OF THE LIGHTING (including the 1.2M LEDs that pepper the interior of this truck).

I didn’t say I was going to get high and drive, you said that and it has nothing to do with my lighting question.

while I appreciate that you are all very smart about things other than my lighting question, the non-answers just seem to keep coming and now you’re telling me I’m getting a dui because I’m your little fantasyland you’ve concocted I’m getting high and then driving.

I just want to hear answers about the lighting. That’s all. Not remote start, not the dui laws, not how high off the ground your moms bedroom window is, none of it, just lighting.

 

Funny initial post OP. Not sure about Toyota's, but I know on my German car (which also has lots of illumination buttons and LED's and door sill plate lights, etc etc.) It looks a lot like a Leer Jet cockpit at night, plus doesn't help that I added some gauges for battery voltage and boost pressure. Anyway, I have an OBD2 interface that lets me talk to the ECU, I went in there and with the help of a friend that speaks German that could translate the ECU coding, we were able to dim a few things down. Especially handy when I swapped my tail lights out for German-Spec LED housing assemblies. They were too bright initially because the ECU was still sending North American market voltage targets to the tail lights. I imagine there is probably some sort of equal interface for Toyota's. I wonder if the ECU coding is all in Japanese ?

 

My thoughts as a controls system developer is that this could probably all be done with code and a single kill switch mounted on the dash. Thank you for the ray of hope.

 

Found an OBD2 interface, supposedly a few apps are out there that work with it. Now as far as how good those apps are with what you can control, I do not know. On my German car, I use one app that is Open Source for Tuning, and a 3rd party app that allows long coding as well as pre-coded quick-clicks for popular adjustments.

https://www.cravenspeed.com/bluetooth-obdii-connector-for-toyota-tacoma-3rd-gen-n300/

I may get one of these myself just to see if its worth a flip.

 

Nice quoting me while deleting your post I responded to. I'm done here, good day.

 

You and this guy are in a similar boat in that you’re trying to crack the ECU. My understanding from the tuning forum is that it is encrypted as fuck and that one does not simply stroll in and read the code. Might be able to pick his brain about how he’s going about it though.
If my memory from HS serves me, the options for this situation in order of preferability are: secluded spot, dark cab, heavy tint

 

simmer down op

just dim them

you gotta warm up the truck first?
just get in and drive

 

Ya, we get that here too. And +38 in the summer. Sucks!

 

I'm in the same boat. I just fired mine up at night for the first time yesterday. Sweet baby Zeus, all that blue is hard on the eyes! And they're BRIIGHT, even on the lowest setting!

There's probably just one dashboard lighting circuit, so I doubt you could control individual lights through software anyway.

I'm wondering if you could get an old fashioned dimmer from an older vehicle, and splice it into the lighting circuit to dim them beyond what the factory knob allows. However, LEDs have a tendency to flicker once they get so low, so it's possible that Toyota has already set them as low as they'll go.

I believe that the buttons and switches have two different wires coming into them. One to power the device it controls, and one to power the LED inside. You could probably just cut the LED wire for the ones you're sure you don't need illuminated (crimp a butt splice on the end to prevent shorts), such as the steering wheel, and door controls.

The only other option I can see is pull out the factory switches, and replace them with 3rd party switches that have red LEDs, which usually don't get as bright. But that would be expensive, and they might not make them for every knob and switch.

 

It's Tacomaworld. Every one will inject their opinions making this more pages than required with a handful of actual useful posts.

I agree the lights can be a bit much when you want it dim to not mess with the night vision. I did replace the front and rear "dome lights" with the Meso LED's that can be switched to red. Doesn't help with your situation but does help with night vision a bit.