Gauge Wiring Help

Ok just want to start by saying electrical is not my strong point!! I tried to be smart but failed miserably!!

So installed & wired up EGT & Boost gauges to dimmer switch directly (1st fail!!) Gauges light up but don't dim or measure anything when the dimmer is rotated the needles spin back & forth before stopping where ever!!

So I wired red to pink
black to black
yellow to blue

I am guessing yellow to blue maybe correct (for the dimming?) but from the other posts I have read wire the + to something else like cig & wire the black direct to battery?

Any help greatly appreciated!! Spent 3 days doing everything & very over it now!!

It all started with the crappy fit pillar mount! But soo close & yet so far!!

Ok you have got the dimmer switch connected to the gauge instead of the lights. Don't know what gauges you have or the wire diagram so don't know what colour is what.
Black to black is probably correct (earth) First you have to get the gauges working and worry about the dimmer later. What brand of gauge are you using so I can look up the wireing diagram on internet?

Gauges are Autotechnica. The dimmer switch still dims the dash lights! & the lights on the gauge only come on when the headlights are on! If that helps at all?

Doesn't he;p. from what I can remember, the dash light dimmer on the Patrols works on the return side of the light cct so that it increases the resistance to dim the lights, rather than reduce the pos battery feed. Could be that you have wired the return (earth) side of your sensor input to the return for the light dimmer. Thqat would mean that the dimmer switch would change the readings on the gauge. Gonna try and get a cct diagram on the net and will get back to you. If anyone else knows the answer please jump in.

Nope no luck. Do you have a drawing or wire by wire instructions that came with the gauges that you can post here (scan or photograph)?

Cheers 4bye4!! Yeah I will post the diagrams later! I don't have them on me! They are fairly simple!! I just tried to be smarter without understanding what I was doing!! You live & learn! I'm pretty sure its a simple fix tho!

http://img.auctiva.com/imgdata/1/1/3...54540273_o.jpg

I managed to find this which is what I have! So basically wired the sensor red & black to the gauge red & black then into the dimmer! & same with the EGT gauge! Im now thinking I shouldn't wire the sensors to the gauges but to their own power/ earth sources? Is that correct? I was just being lazy trying to splice as little as possible!!

Ok I think it should work like this.
red on gauge to +ve ignition - This can be from the back of the cig plug or off the fuse box.
black on gauge to -ve battery or earth - usually you can get this off the cig plug as well if you want to. I wouldn't rely on bolting it to the chassis though.
green wire throught the firewall and connect to the green wire on the sensor.
red on the sensor to +ve switched battery. It's possibly ok to use the gauge red and black wires but remember to connect them to battery and earth as well. Otherwise you can get switched battery from the blue wire on the windscreen wiper feed loom.
black on the sensor to -ve battery or earth. I'd connect it to -ve terminal on the battery.
That leaves only the yellow wire marked accessories. I think this is your backlight positive feed. I would leave this off until yopu get the gauges working Ok then we can decide how to connect that one.

Switched +ve in the engine bay.
Attachment 57635

These work well for picking up battery feeds from your fuse box. I used one tyo connect my uhf radio.
Attachment 57636
Availably on line or from Jaycar

Ok sweet cheers!! I think that makes far more sense!! Lol will give it a go & see what happens!

Hey mate, I have exactly the same gauges as you and probably just as much experience lol, any chance you might be able to explain where you ended up connecting everything to get it to work?

Cheers

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Originally Posted by IronVoid

Hey mate, I have exactly the same gauges as you and probably just as much experience lol, any chance you might be able to explain where you ended up connecting everything to get it to work?

Cheers

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Gday IronVoid, I just completed a gauge install incl dimmers. All the info and a circuit diagram is in my build thread (check signature block for a link). Cheers and good luck with your install.

Pick up a dash light circuit from somewhere, I used the blue wire that goes to the "Power/Normal/Hold" switch for the auto (mines a manual so this plug was unused) for the +Ve feed to your gauge lights and for the earth I pulled the corner of the dash apart to get to the back of the dimer switch and connected the negative wire to the PINK wire, now the gauge lights only come on with the headlights AND they dim properly with the dimer switch.


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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rocket55

Pick up a dash light circuit from somewhere, I used the blue wire that goes to the "Power/Normal/Hold" switch for the auto (mines a manual so this plug was unused) for the +Ve feed to your gauge lights and for the earth I pulled the corner of the dash apart to get to the back of the dimer switch and connected the negative wire to the PINK wire, now the gauge lights only come on with the headlights AND they dim properly with the dimer switch.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

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Hey Rod..
Just installed a set of Autotecnica gauges and dam they are Bright..
So these gauges run a positive (red), negative (black of course) and accessories (yellow). The signal wire is green..
Would you say I need to wire in the black as you did to the dimmer Pink wire to have the back light dim??

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bigguwesty

Hey Rod..
Just installed a set of Autotecnica gauges and dam they are Bright..
So these gauges run a positive (red), negative (black of course) and accessories (yellow). The signal wire is green..
Would you say I need to wire in the black as you did to the dimmer Pink wire to have the back light dim??

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I would think so mate.

Out of interest, what's the yellow wire for?

The Autotechnica gauges I had were just cheap shit. Yellow is the memory wire, should be on constant 12v to keep the backlight colour setting.

These gauges like so many now use LED lighting and do not work well with dimmed circuits. Bad thing is, they are way to bright for night work, even on red.
Before mine were yanked and binned, I resorted to drop resistors to get them as low as possible before they started playing up then used window tint to darken them some more.

As for the wiring, I didn't bother with switched back-lighting, just had them on when ignition was on.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rocket55

I would think so mate.

Out of interest, what's the yellow wire for?

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Well not 100% sure. In the box they have a display setup. And run 2 x 9v batteries.
Both red and yellow are twitched together to positive...
I might pull the fuse. See what doesn't work. ..

I currently have red fused to engine control using a piggy back, and yellow into accessories on the key barrel.. and black to earth..

I have tried following your wiring procedure step by step. after finishing I noticed that when I adjust the lights with the dimmer switch my gauges go mental. There is Boost, pyro, water temp and oil pressure, the are autotechina brand, all the yellow wires are the positive for the lighting and all black are negative. I have had to revert back to all thee yellows going to headlight wire and black to negative, any advice would be appreciated as the lights are very bright at night

Could I get away with wiring all the yellow wires to a p+ in the lighting circuit some where that is controlled by the dimmer switch?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SKID

I have tried following your wiring procedure step by step. after finishing I noticed that when I adjust the lights with the dimmer switch my gauges go mental. There is Boost, pyro, water temp and oil pressure, the are autotechina brand, all the yellow wires are the positive for the lighting and all black are negative. I have had to revert back to all thee yellows going to headlight wire and black to negative, any advice would be appreciated as the lights are very bright at night

Could I get away with wiring all the yellow wires to a p+ in the lighting circuit some where that is controlled by the dimmer switch?

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Pretty sure I read the patrol is regulated on the earth..
So tapping the yellow positive into a negative dimming circuit may be not good..
I'm going to simply add a diode to the yellow wires to reduce voltage untill the led is a nice output. .