Tapping Dash Lights

I am trying to tap the dash lights for the switch below in the center section with the blanks. Can I tap into the A/C controls? Does anyone know which wires to tap into or is there an easier way to do this?

 

Are you trying to light the switch in the picture? Are you also wanting to dim it?

Dash lights are green and green with white stripe across the vehicle.

You need to determine if you are able to dim the switch. If it is LED and the lighting circuit is completely separate you can do this. By being completely separate I mean that there are two dedicated wires for the switch light and two completely separate wires for the actual switch.

The Tacoma dimmer circuit uses a PWM control and you have to tap both the green and white wires for proper control (you can't use either of the green or green/white wires and an available ground or a lug to the body). You also need to have an LED for the switch light or the light won't dim along with the interior lights at the same rate. On my gauge set I originally tried the incandescent lights (they will work with the PWM control), but the gauge lights would need to be fully bright just to get the gauge lights visible. I switched to LED's and they dim along with the factory dash lights.

Like I mentioned above, you have to tap into both wires from the control. I used two fuseholders and put a fuse in both wires feeding my gauges. When you turn the switch on to turn on the park lights, one wire (green) will always be 12V to the body of the truck, the other wire (green/white) will vary between a few volts to 12V to the body of the truck. If you have it dimmed pretty far, both wires will be close to 12V when measured from the wire to the body. A fault in either wire would cause issues. I have mine fused at 1 or 2 amps I believe.

Your call on whether or not to fuse like this. The wiring is still protected but by the factory equipment. However I did this to better separate what I was adding from the factory wiring. Since mine is fused at 1-2 amps and the factory is 10 amps, it is coordinated and if there is a fault on my gauge setup, then the smaller fuses should open first.

Hope this helps!

 

I remember when I did the 4WD LED add in by some user on here (I can't remember his name), in his instructions it has you tap into the AC wires and it should dim with the rest of the controls. Or if you want, you can tap into the wire that goes to your OEM Fog light harness and run the wire to your switch in the center. I used the OEM harness wire and have all 6 of my switches light up and dim with the rest of the interior. It was so long ago, I can't remember which wire exactly it was. Maybe someone else can help out.

 

It may have been me for the fog light harness. That's where I did mine because it was so easy to access and there was more slack available.

Even so you still have to use both green and green/white to get it to dim.

 

I only had to use one wire on my switches? I remember doing the two you're talking about for the 4WD LED knob. But when I did my switches for my aux lights, I only had to tap one of the wires from the fog light harness

 

I'd be interested in seeing what you used. The fog light is the first bulb shown on the left of the diagram.

If you connect to the green and ground, the lights will be fully on whenever you turn the park lights on with no dimming. I've done that before on purpose in another vehicle.

If you connect to the green/white and ground, the lights you added will be fully on when the rest of the dash lights are on full dim, and then be fully dim when the rest of the dash lights are fully bright, basically backwards! I've seen some posts on here where folks have done that.

 

Thanks for the response, it is very helpful. Yes, I am trying to light the switch and dim it if possible. There are 4 wires, 2 are for controlling my lights in my bumper, and the 2 I don't have hooked up are for the light in the switch. Didn't consider adding a fuse, I was going to just just splice into the AC wires with some quick splices figuring the switch has to be super low amperage. I don't think it's an led in the switch, just an incandescent.

 

This is a good work around, which fuse did you tap? Below is my fuse diagram. What is your reasoning for not wanting to splice into the factory wires?

 

Awesome, thanks for the info. Where did you ground it?

 

I ended up splicing into the AC harness green and green and white wires. The switch works with the dash lights and the dimmer. I didn't put it on a fuse, hopefully I didn't break anything.

 

So I checked my switches last night, definitely don't dim haha. Thought they did but nada. I never dim the interior lights anyway.

 

So 4wd switch dims but the others don't?

 

Yeah the 4WD drive one does cause I wired it using both of the dim wires. The switches just turn on with the interior lights but do not dim, but thats also because I only spliced into one wire from the fog light harness.

 

Looks good. You didn't break anything though. It'll work fine, I'm just particular about keeping what I add and the truck electrical separate. When I can't, like when connecting to a dimmer, I'll fuse it, typically way below what the factory fuse is at. That way if there is a fault on my end, my fuses should go faster than the factory stuff.

 

As long as its fused for the thinnest wire in the circuit it should be fine

 

Dave,

Based on your replies on this thread, I think you're the guy who can answer this question for me. Which wire do I tap into for switch illumination?

Some back story:
This is not to power a lightbar or any accessory lights. I had the melting headlight issue and installed a switch to disable the DTRL on my truck. The rocker switch has worked fine for years, but is an eyesore. I bought a mictuning toyota style push switch a few years ago to replace the rocker switch and it has been sitting in my center console since then. The switch is basically to re-enable the DTRL lights when the button is engaged.

Mictuning wiring diagram:


So green and red 1 will get connected to the wires that control the DTRL. I don't think there is much debate there.

Red 2 is what gives the switch light power. I see a lot of people using an add-a-fuse to get power. I suppose I could, but this is not my preferred route. I'd prefer to have the light dim with the rest of the dash lights, but that isn't a requirement since it will be off 99% of the time. I think the switch light on the fog switch is the green/white wire. Can I tap Red 2 into the green/white wire on the fog switch to illuminate the Mictuning switch when active?

Do I need to tap the ground into another wire on the fog switch to enable dimming, or should I just ground it somewhere else?

If I understood your earlier post, I can ground to either the ground wire on the fog switch (to enable dimming) or ground anywhere on the truck and it will still illuminate (but not dim). Is that correct?

 

The dash dimmer circuit has two components, 12V positive that is hot when the headlights are on and a variable ground that controls dimming(I’ll skip over the concept of pwm for simplicity). Variable ground means that it adjusts from 12V(dash lights are dimmed to off) to a lower voltage which creates a potential difference that allows current to flow and the leds to glow. On 2-1/2 gens these are the green and green/white wires that go to everything that comes on with the headlights and dims. For lower center console switches I tapped the circuit behind the AC controls and for left dash switches from the wires located there. If the colors are the same on 05-11 models then you’ll see them on the dimmer plug as well as your switches, the AC controls, and one or both of the instrument cluster plugs.

Your fused source for the green plug wire can either be always hot or hot with ignition on, there are uses for both, it just depends on when you need to use the accessory. I used a fuse tap from the in cab panel.

Orientation of the fuse tap is important. Installed correctly and the new circuit will work with no fuse for the original circuit, installed backwards and it won’t.

Green Tacoma harness wire is 12v hot with headlights on, connect this to red 2. Green/white is variable ground, connect this to black to have dimming or chassis to skip that.

the switch on led gets power from the switch when you press it, it only needs ground to complete that part of the circuit, it will illuminate when on regardless of whether the headlights are on or off. Red2 supplies power to the other led but both share the same black ground wire connection.

 

I'd like it to illuminate when the headlights are on. Preferably to have it dim with the rest of the dash.

Here is a pic of the wire coming from the fog light switch immediately next to the blank that I intend to use. For reference, this is a 2011 model.

 

So if I read that correctly, I can tap "Red 2" into the "green" wire on the foglight switch and then tap "Black" into the "green/white" on the foglight switch and I have a dimming switch.

 

Ok, success!