Tapping Dash Lights

The way I do it is to connect each of the taps to a molex 6-pin plug and jumper all the pins together on each plug. Then as I add new switches I crimp molex pins onto the new red2&black wires and push them into the appropriate connector.

 

I am also taping into my fog light switch to illuminate my sienna rear slider switch....I connected the solid green form the sienna switch to the green on the foglight switch and green with white wire to the fog light switch green and white...Nothing happens,,,Fog light switch works with lights and dims....

 

It depends on the intended purpose of the wire coming out of the back of the sienna switch, and possibly the year of your truck. I'll assume that yours is the same as mine since they are both second gen, but no guarantee there since the years are different.

The green/white wire on the fog is the ground for the fog. Whatever wire for the sienna switch is "ground" should go to that one (if you want to be able to dim) or grounded somewhere else on the truck (if you don't care about dimming).

....you know what, we really need to know what the wiring coming from the new switch looks like to be able to give any form of accurate information.

 

Best thing to do is figure out what the configuration of the sienna wires are. It’s a dpdt switch so when each side is pressed the resistance will go to zero between different pairs of terminals. Apply 3V & ground to the remaining terminals in pairs to locate illumination power/ground. The Sienna switch I have has no internal resistor so 12v would blow the led, it has to be connected to the dimmer circuit or not at all. You could also have one with a smoked led, it’s just a 3mm led elaborately twisted into a brown plug and not hard to replace.
Edit- my sienna switch as well as the trac switch on my ‘14 taco both use a green bulb rather than an led. You can tell because they aren’t polarized like leds are. You can still swap for an led but you’ll need an inline resistor on either the green or green/white wire. I hate that sickly green colored bulb.

 

here is a couple of pics

 

The two wires closest to the camera. They feed and only feed the brown plug. If you’re connected to those two wires with green and green/white and it doesn’t illuminate with the headlights on then the bulb is bad. Polarity doesn’t matter. 1/4 turn counter clockwise loosens the plug and it pops out. If you replace the bulb in the plug with your preferred color 3mm led you’ll need to solder in a resistor to one of the wires(doesn’t matter which) and then determine which way to reinstall the plug since polarity does matter to leds. The value will depend on the color. Or spend too much at the stealership for a new brown plug.

 

thanks I will replace the bulb.

 

I replaced the green led in the armrest controls under the “auto” driver’s window switch with a used white 5mm led and changed the two parallel 1.2k smd resistors to 10k. Now it’s closer to oem dim but white instead.
5mm leds do a bit better than 3mm ones in terms of spreading light when illuminating larger symbols or longer words evenly and sanding the rounded end flat helps too.
Leds aren’t all equal in brightness even using the same color. I have white high brightness 3mm leds paired with 10k resistors and 5mm white leds paired with 1k resistors to make them look the same.
It takes time to achieve the results I want but in the end it’s worth it to me.

 

Interesting. I wonder if I could do something like that with the LED in the Mictuning switch to dim it down some. It dims with the rest of the dash, but is still brighter than the buttons around it.

 

You certainly can. I documented the process with plenty of pics in this post. Mod aftermarket switch to be darker like oem
Earlier in the thread there are other options using tape or inserting an additional pot into the circuit but since I’ve found that different switch logos and print call for individual adjustments this works best for me.

 

Interesting. Very nice write up.

I probably won't go to the trouble realistically, but nice to know that I have that option. Is there an easy way to tell what the current resistor is rated? Does the higher the number (you stated between 1k and 10k) on the resistor mean more or less resistance (brightness)?

 

So I didn't read every post on here but I am going to be installing a usb plug into that same open spot i have but Id like it to be on even when the truck is off and not in ACC can anyone tell me the best wire to tap into for this?

 

I ran a positive wire all the way to the battery and installed a switch so that I could turn it off when desired.

 

good idea i think i have a extra rocker switch laying around. Thanks

 

Fuse tap on the door lock fuse

 

Seems like that would be a pretty low power draw, but maybe not. Not sure what kind of devices @Northbound_Taco wants to power, but I'm assuming a cell phone at least.

 

Yeah, usb power shouldn’t be to much since it’s a buck conversion rather than boost. The door lock fuse is 20A so there should be ~ 10A of overhead on that fuse slot to draw through with a tap without overloading the contacts. I limit my taps to switching power and use relays for control. How the switch gets power then determines whether a device is always hot or ignition hot.

 

Yes i am just planning on using it for charging cell phones or whatnot doesn't need to be to much power.

 

Im finally starting the process of cleaning up some of my wiring, plus adding a few new things while Im at it. Like to have everything clean and factory looking, so Im trying to get all the independent LEDs on the switches to match up with the dimmer circuit with the GRN & G/W wires. The dependent LEDs are just jumpered to the switch contacts so they are the 'active' indicators.

Good info in this thread. Having a hard time reading the schematic on the 1st page from @DaveB.inVa though. Where are people fusing their add-on GRN & G/W wires from? Is there a fuse to tap with an add-a-fuse, or you all just using T-taps with inline fuses from one of the factory switches? From what I can make out in that pic, looks like no fuse for the G/W wire, thats supplied upstream from the same fuse as everything else.