illumination wire pioneer avh-p4400bh? Please Help

Do I have to connect the illumination wire from the pioneer avh-p4400bh to factory illumination wire for radio to work properly? I remember reading somewhere about dash light fuse problem but can't find that thread. Thanks for any help

 

I emailed Pioneer and this was the response I got from them... Thank you for contacting Pioneer Electronics (USA) Inc. No, the illumination is only use to dim the display when the head lights are on. So I'm just gonna go ahead and not connect the illumination wire for this install

 

I have an AVIC F700BT and my illumination wire is connected. I know mine has 2 modes, headlights on and headlights off. I can set the brightness to whatever I want on either one. Right now, with headlights off, it's set at 10/10 and with headlights on it's at 5/10.

 

Ok so when your Avic dims when your headlights are on, is it the screen that dims? Or is it the buttons on bottom of unit? Thanks for any info...

 

The screen itself dims.

 

i have an avic u310bt, and only the screen dims

 

On my AVIC-D3 the screen not only dims but also changes colors to ones that won't blast your night vision. I highly recommend hooking up the dimmer wire.

 

Yeah I definitely don't wanna lose the auto dimming feature, I was just afraid to hook up the illumination wire after hearing people blew out their dash lights.

 

PLEASE use a multi-meter and TEST BEFORE connecting that wire! Then when you think you got it, test again, then a third time just for good measure. Trust me, illumination wires ruin vehicles in seconds!

For the record, mine is connected, but I am certified in mobile electronics and know 12v like the abc's. If your wire harness has 2 orange wires (one might be orange/white) ONLY CONNECT ONE!! and be sure to test it first. Trust me. Most people just connect orange to orange and get lucky, others aren't so lucky. Bad things happen to nice trucks

 

I have a volt meter...how would I go about testing it? Thanks for any help

 

The radio harness only has (1) solid orange wire correct?

On the wire harness you bought that plugs into OEM side and splices into radio harness, does it have (1) or (2) orange or orange/white wires?

 

Just curious, how does connecting the wrong wires screw up the entire truck? My harness only had 1 orange wire that was marked "ILL".

 

Pro Force I'm gonna check as soon as I get home from work today. I realy appreciate the help you are giving...I'm done at 6:00pm today east coast time

 

I was doing some google searches and found this info... An illumination wire simply lets the head unit detect when your headlights are on. When voltage is detected on the wire, the unit will dim the display so that it doesn't hurt your night vision. It is NOT for turning on the radio display lights, and it does NOT allow you to adjust the head unit display using the vehicle dimmer switch. It just dims the display when your lights turn on. The factory radio harness usually contains one or more illumination wires. You can test for it using a multimeter. A true illumination wire will show 12 volts with the parking lights on, and 0 volts with the lights off; it won't vary with the dimmer switch. You may find a "dimmer" wire, which will show voltage with the parking lights on, but the voltage will vary as you adjust the switch.

 

That's exactly how I thought it worked...which is why I asked my that question in my previous post.

 

I think some units and/or harnesses have a orange/white striped in addition to the orange they usually label them dimmer or illumination, I think the dimmer could be how factory units adjust with brightness of dash

 

ProForce I just looked at the harness...You are correct the pioneer radio harness only has one orange wire/actually it's orange with white stripe,it's a thin wire. In the pioneer owners manual it's listed as Orange/white it says to (connect to lighting terminal) the wire itself is not marked.

The main metra harness only has one orange wire/it's also Orange/white stripe and it's markes Dimmer on the wire

 

I just realized something! The correct definition for illumination is a feature that when you turn on your lights for night driving the stereo dims so your not blinded by the bright radio lights. Well hello mcfly lol...My Tacoma doesn't have that feature at all. The only way I can turn down the brightness of my radio lights would be to manually use the dimmer dial. So doesnt that meen my truck doesn't have an illumination wire in the factory radio wiring??? I meen this is common sense right

 

No...I'm pretty sure there were two wires for illumination going to the factory head unit. One controlled the brightness of the buttons as part of the dash dimmer function, the other turned on the lights for the display when you turned on the headlights. Or was that vice-versa?

 

I won't know until I get my volt meter out and test them.