Disabling Button Illumination?

i hear you, im the same way where my older vehicles i had it damn near dark with a hint of light. The 19 i have you can turn it down but not like i prefer.

 

Are you saying the dimming element is analog? The switch (on my 23) is an encoder so it drives something else and isn't a rheostat.

 

At some point somewhere it has to be controlling the resistance to the circuit, so for practical purposes, yes.

 

This should end the thread.
The switch takes it to near black. Removing the fuse takes it to black.
Apparently the OP has a wire cutting fetish...

 

I think the means by which the illumination is changed in intensity, is by adjusting the duty-cycle (square-wave relative time on, vs. relative time off).

It's true that each LED will have a current limiting resistor resulting in max illumination. Increasing the resistance (either on the circuit board, or on the bulbs) will change the voltage drop across the resistor thus changing the voltage drop across the LED. Or you can think of it as changing the current through the current limiting resistor and the LED. As that resistance goes up, yes, the LED max illumination will go down.

 

Well, I spent an afternoon with the multimeter, and disabled the illumination for the door & steering wheel buttons, the overhead console, and everything on the dashboard except climate control and the gauges. Pulled the pin from the harness instead of cutting the wire, so they can all be easily put back if needed.

It's much more to my liking already!

In my 2022, it's the dark green wire for everything, but I've heard others say it's a purple or red wire. Use a meter, if anyone decides to do it themselves .

Gave that a try. It does disable the button illumination, but not the gauge illumination. Unfortunately, it also prevents both LCD screens from dimming to their nighttime level.

I pulled out the gauges, and traced out the headlight wire going into the unit. I'm wondering if a pulse-width modulator could be thrown in there.

It keeps a constant 3 volts when the headlights are off, and 12 when they're are on. I expected 0 volts when off, like the green wire used for the buttons, so I'm not sure what that's about. There's a few lights that are always on, but dim when the headlights turn on, so perhaps they use the 3 volts for daytime mode.

Maybe I'm an anomaly? I've been driving since I was 14, and I've always turned the dashboard lights down to the point that they're barely on. Now I'm getting old, and I want it dimmed to what I'm accustomed to.

Blue light is notoriously difficult for the human eye to focus on in the dark, which is why manufacturers have traditionally used red or orange lighting, and fog lights have traditionally been yellow. Toyota's decision to go with blue may play a factor, too.

Oncoming traffic isn't a problem. It's the bright lights in the peripheral vision of an otherwise dark cab that I find distracting.

This seems to be the case. I tested it while I had my meter on there, and it remained at 12 volts, regardless of the brightness level.

You can usually dim an LED a lot more with PWM than with resistance, so I'm not sure why Toyota wouldn't have allowed owners to dim it to near zero.

 

Yes, with pulse width modulation (PWM), you're likely not going to see a change in voltage on your VOM because of it's "slow response" to a change in input.

 

I have been poking around Combination meter control unit and under Customization there is Display Brightness settings (Normal, Dark1, Dark2, Light1, Light2). Mine does behave the same and was set to Normal. So I set the settings to Dark2. It seems darker, but I need to drive to verify.

 

All Japan built Toyotas have the rheostat to dim the dash completely out.
You may be able to add this to the circuit
https://www.ebay.com/itm/2854258481...486&ssuid=&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

 

Not entirely true. Most vehicles have used green in the past. The human body is more sensitive to scotopic light at night, which is blueish-white. This is also the reason LED headlights can seem way brighter than halogens despite giving off much less light in terms of Lux readings.

 

The cold color temperature is not as pleasant as the warmer, more traditional color temperature given off by incandescent bulbs. Although not universally true, and maybe it's a perception issue on my part, the people obtaining these LED replacements (possibly with new lens housings) are not re-aiming their headlight pattern.

 

There's lots of reasons beyond just aiming the headlights. But yes, we've evolved to be more comfortable around warmer light colors. But we're more sensitive to scotopic light at night because of the reflection from the moon. LEDs are way brighter than a bit of moonlight though and therefore it can have a blinding effect if they're not done correctly.