What does the DIMMER Wire do ??

[DTColeman]

I'm tired of bothering Garett.... who's been too helpful. I just go my Z-3 re-wired.... Everything works great. Only problem is..... I got an EXTRA wire !!

 

The extra wire is the DIMMER wire. I don't notice anything different about anything.... My ILLUMINATON wire hooked up to the Orange wire on the Z-1. Should I leave this wire capped off..... or am I going to find a surprise at some point ??

 

I've read two schools of thought...... Ground It....... 12V it...... obviously, those are two extremes.... don't want to blow the unit out

 

Thanks

[CatchMeIfYouCan631]

the dimmer wire, when hooked up, dims your unit when you turn your headlights on so its not so blinding at night time

[garrettoomey]

I believe the dimmer wire that you are mentioning is part of the car, or the car adapter that you used to install the Z. I don't recall the Avic Z having both an Illumination AND Dimmer wires. Connect the Illimunation wire to the the AVIC z (orange/white), and cap off the Dimmer wire. As long as the GPS map changes to night time (dark sky) when you turn on the headlights, then you are hooked up correctly.

[ducatiboy]

Yes there can be a car's wiring harness with 2 wires ILLUMINATION and DIMMER. I'm sure someone can find a car where this wiring and behavior does not work, but from what I have seen.

 

Illumination: is 0 Volts when the lights are off and 12 Volts when the lights are on.

 

Dimmer: is a variable voltage, like the adjustment you have on your dash lights. (many subtle levels of brightness)

 

The Avic only had 2 settings, bright and lights are on dim. There is no automatic adjustment for how dim it goes. You can set the brightness when the lights are off and the brightness when the lights are on, but it won't respond to how dim you make the lights in the dash (most cars have this adjustment). The dimmer wire will usually use pulse width modulation (older cars use variable resistors).

 

The nice thing is that the Avic doesn't really care which one you hook to. It will take an ILLUMINATION signal (just an on or off) which is how you should do it cause that's the way it operates. If you happened to hook it to a DIMMER signal, it will sense the "partial" voltage and just dim to it's "lights on dim" setting.