Dimmer circuit wire in C5 Corvette dash??
Thread Starter
Joined: Sep 2004
Posts: 3,212
Likes: 1,612
From: Michigan & Florida
Dimmer circuit wire in C5 Corvette dash?? I bought a Kenwood HU #DDX5707S for my 2000 C5 Corvette about 1-1/2 years ago, from Crutchfield. There's an orange wire coming from the HU, or the harness Crutchfield sold me, that is supposed to dim the display automatically when the lights turn on. I never hooked it up. Now I'm seeing why! The only way I can dim the display is to go into the HU settings and follow prompts to the dimmer settings. There, I found 3 choices; On, Off, and Automatic. Automatic won't work, because the wire isn't connected. It's not the end of the world, but it is a PITA to always manually dim the display at night, then have to go back into the HU to turn off the dimmer for daytime driving. You usually forget to do this before you hit the road. So this results in either trying to reset while driving, or pulling over and doing it. So, I called Crutchfield yesterday, and the tech I talked to says the C5 doesn't have a dimmer wire in the dash to connect the orange wire to!! He says the dimmer circuit is data driven, and the computer does the dimming! There must be some way of doing this. Anyone have any ideas? I'd really appreciate any help I can get. Thank you, guys.....
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 11,329
Likes: 346
From: Jacksonville, FL (originally from Toronto Canada)
If Crutchfield sold you the usual Metra adapter harness then it will have two orange wires - one plain and one with white stripe. The plain orange is used to connect to the dash dimmer output (variable voltage) which your apparently don't have. That's okay because basically none of the common aftermarket head units can make use of that signal. The orange/white wire is used by almost all of the popular aftermarket systems... it's a simple on/off circuit which gets connected to the parking light circuit and dims the display whenever it gets voltage (i.e. when the lights get turned on).
Unfortunately, the Bose system in your car doesn't have a parking light circuit wire in the head unit harness like most systems, but there are countless other places in the car to find it. GM typically uses brown wire for the parking light circuit and your car is no exception. For example, you can find the appropriate brown wire on the back of the fog light/hatch release switch or in the rear view mirror connector or even in the C200 connector which goes through the firewall. And of course it is available at every parking lamp/marker lamp socket if you wanted to pull wire that far. Just extend the orange/white wire from your head unit harness to the most convenient brown parking light wire and the head unit display will dim whenever you turn on your lights.
Unfortunately, the Bose system in your car doesn't have a parking light circuit wire in the head unit harness like most systems, but there are countless other places in the car to find it. GM typically uses brown wire for the parking light circuit and your car is no exception. For example, you can find the appropriate brown wire on the back of the fog light/hatch release switch or in the rear view mirror connector or even in the C200 connector which goes through the firewall. And of course it is available at every parking lamp/marker lamp socket if you wanted to pull wire that far. Just extend the orange/white wire from your head unit harness to the most convenient brown parking light wire and the head unit display will dim whenever you turn on your lights.
Thread Starter
Joined: Sep 2004
Posts: 3,212
Likes: 1,612
From: Michigan & Florida
If Crutchfield sold you the usual Metra adapter harness then it will have two orange wires - one plain and one with white stripe. The plain orange is used to connect to the dash dimmer output (variable voltage) which your apparently don't have. That's okay because basically none of the common aftermarket head units can make use of that signal. The orange/white wire is used by almost all of the popular aftermarket systems... it's a simple on/off circuit which gets connected to the parking light circuit and dims the display whenever it gets voltage (i.e. when the lights get turned on).
Unfortunately, the Bose system in your car doesn't have a parking light circuit wire in the head unit harness like most systems, but there are countless other places in the car to find it. GM typically uses brown wire for the parking light circuit and your car is no exception. For example, you can find the appropriate brown wire on the back of the fog light/hatch release switch or in the rear view mirror connector or even in the C200 connector which goes through the firewall. And of course it is available at every parking lamp/marker lamp socket if you wanted to pull wire that far. Just extend the orange/white wire from your head unit harness to the most convenient brown parking light wire and the head unit display will dim whenever you turn on your lights.
Unfortunately, the Bose system in your car doesn't have a parking light circuit wire in the head unit harness like most systems, but there are countless other places in the car to find it. GM typically uses brown wire for the parking light circuit and your car is no exception. For example, you can find the appropriate brown wire on the back of the fog light/hatch release switch or in the rear view mirror connector or even in the C200 connector which goes through the firewall. And of course it is available at every parking lamp/marker lamp socket if you wanted to pull wire that far. Just extend the orange/white wire from your head unit harness to the most convenient brown parking light wire and the head unit display will dim whenever you turn on your lights.
