Illumination vs. Dimmer

I'm installing a Pioneer AVH-P4300DVD in my 2010 Access cab. When I was soldering the new harness to the adaptor I found that the existing wiring has both a dimmer wire (orange with white stripe) and an illumination wire (orange). My Pioneer has 1 orange/white wire identified as "connect to lighting switch terminal". My gut says connect this to the illumination wire but I figured I would defer to you folks first. Any knowledge you could throw my way would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

I'm going to guess that maybe the harness has both wires for multiple vehicles. I'm reading your post a couple times just to make sure I understand it correctly. I would match stripe to stripe, not solid to stripe before I tried it the other way around. Harnesses are designed to somewhat 'standardize' the color coding. You should also double check on the other vehicle side to verify that there is even a wire actually coming out of that pin.

I haven't wired a standard stereo in a taco yet, so I can't say for sure, but experience tells me that most harnesses just match the colors.

 

Twist the wires together first...turn it on..see if it works..if not..twist the other one...solder the correct one.

 

This happens all the time with harness. The illumination and dimmer wires don't matter too much. I always connect to the solid orange and the harness. Having the dimmer control is only an option if you're deck has that.

 

That would work in this case. But I hope that isn't your method to figuring out stuff all the time when it comes to wiring.

 

Metra and Scosche both make wiring adapters to plug into the OEM wiring and then have colors to match virtually all standard aftermarket headunits.

The Metra part is here. Click on the image of the wiring parts and it will show an enlargement. Look for the Orange/White wire, and from that and the factory wiring connector, you should be able to figure out which wire to connect. Even easier is to actually buy the adapter part, but...

 

jfenech, did you hookup the White/Orange on the radio to the solid Orange on your Metra harness? Just wondering if is working. I have a 2002 Tacoma Pre-Runner and just got the AVIC-X930BT with the Meta 70-1716 harness, but I do NOT have a solid orange wire on mine!

I have the Orange/White and an Orange/Black. On the radio I have the Orange/White which say to connect "to lighting switch terminal." I'm not sure if this is a dimmer or illumination wire on the radio??

I called Metra and they said that both the Orange/White and Orange/Black were dimming wires (and would most likely be coming from my dimmer switch to dim the lights on the dashboard). They say hooking this up would cause the radio display to flicker and turn off. That makes sense, but I can't understand why I don't have the Orange wire on my harness. It lists an Orange wire as "Illumination" on the packaging and the Orange/White as "Dimmer", but does NOT list the Orange/Black.

Since the Pioneer X930BT has a day/night function, such that when I turn on my headlights, it will dim the display - I'd really like to use it and connect this Orange/White wire on the radio. But if I can't use the either of the orange wires on the Metra harness, where do I get this signal? Does it need to be positive or negative (i.e. +12V or ground)?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Best Regards,

DataCrypt

 

I tried both to no real effect. It seems that the Pioneer either doesn't want to switch from day to night or doesn't like the signal it's getting from either wire. No worries, it works great always in day mode for me. Good luck.

 

All you need to do is run that orange/white wire coming out of the pioneer head unit to a 12 volt source that turns on with your parking/headlights. It's that simple! Personally I will be tapping into the wire in my center console that powers my shifter illumination lights. I will post the color of the wire and photos this week end.