is there an electrician in the house?

[GearSlammer]

i bought an electric boost gauge, got it to work (i think divine power was involved there), and now when i turn on my lights, the gauge stops reading boost or vac. like it just shuts off. i have the light source from the gauge (one wire) connected to the green-black wire on the dimmer switch (used the search and how-to for that) and i have my ground for the gauge connected to the white-blue wire on the dimmer switch. any suggestions? BTW the light works when turned on and it dims, just wont read anything.

 

[Pkay]

do not get your source from the dimmer switch. Variable power sources often times have issues like that.


Things to check would be

1) Ground

2) All of your power connections


Not going to go into too much detail but basicly if two things are pulling power from one line and everything isnt 100% connected often times one will take priority over the other.

If you have an 03 just connect it to the output of your foglight switch and simply leave your foglights on at all times. Thus when you turn on the lights you will have your light source.

The dimmer switch was a bad idea from the get go

 

[GearSlammer]

no, its an 03.5. if i went through another source, then i wouldnt be able to dim the gauge right?

 

[Pkay]

Just take it from another interior lighting source if you want to be able to dim it. Just not directly from the dimmer switch.

I'm not sure if we have an ashtray light or lighter light (i dont smoke) but if we do then take it off of that.


In all honesty it sounds like you have a bad ground.

Heres your test:

1) unplug the lighting power source and cap it off or cover it with electrical tape.

2) turn on your lights

If the gauge works then you simply have an issue where you dont have a good enough ground and its causing issues when two sources come into the gauge (ie the lights are on)

 

[GearSlammer]

thanks, ill give it a shot.

 

[Stormtrooper77]

GearSlammer: Is that the gauge you have in your avatar? If so, could you get some night pics? It's the same gauge I'm looking at.

 

[flat_black]

Oh, dude... If your gauge's ground also acts as a signal ground, then the dimmer's ground point will probably mess it up, given the way it's made... Use a body bolt or something similar for ground, and make sure it has a good connection. =)

 

[jus10 msp]

find a switched 12 v source. there is a few extra space in your fuse box under the dash thats where i tied my in. you can run just the bulb off of your dimmer. you will need to get a test light and a dc voltage meter. i have no problems.

thanks justin h

 

[GearSlammer]

yeah its the gauge in my avatar. ill get some pics for you, its a pretty good match. thanks for all the help guys.

 

[jurgs01]

There's no way that your boost guage lighting is taking enough amperage to even matter whether it is hooked up in parallel with the dimmer switch. All of those lights use very low amps. It really sounds like it is your ground. Never trust another source's ground unless you have no choice. Ground the guage ground to any metal part of your chassis (usually any metal bolt or screw). Anyone who is doing their own wiring should invest in a cheap radioshack multimeter. Then you could have tested the resistance (ohms) of the wire you thought was ground to a chassis ground. The resistance should be around zero ohms for it to be a good ground. The dimmer switch should adjust from zero to 12VDC on the other wire (power) as you adjust the dimming.

 

[GearSlammer]

well the only reason i was grounding to the dimmer was because it looked like thats what someone did in the how-to section "under gauge dim with cluster dimmer." no one answered me on that thread.

 

[mattybo]

well the only reason i was grounding to the dimmer was because it looked like thats what someone did in the how-to section "under gauge dim with cluster dimmer." no one answered me on that thread.

ground it to a nut attached to the body. Check out the boost gauge install in the How To section, that will show you what to do.

 

[flat_black]

The only reason I say don't use that ground is that some of the grounds in the car are 'variable grounds'. I don't know what the actual word for them is, but essentially, they're a ground, unless a certain condition is met, like the turn signals. It's probably controlled via a flasher or something in that case, though. The reason I say that you'll want a nice, solid ground off of the chassis is that the gauge needs a constant ground, both to operate the gauge, as well as to illuminate it. =)

 

[GearSlammer]

yeah, getting the gauge to work is way more important to me than being able to dim it, i guess it just a nice feature to have, thats all (dimming). well thanks again yall.

 

[Daniel Young]

I have the same gauge and I don't think that it is even made to dim. I know I hooked mine up off the dimmer switch and it will not dim with the dash lights. It stays the same.

 

[flat_black]

Hmm... Does it have a spot to pull the bulb out? If not, it might be EL, or lit by LED's.

 

[GearSlammer]

it dimmed the way i had it wired up at first, but it would stop reading boost. so its dimmable. grounded to the chassis, so it works now, but no dimming. thanks again.

 

[GearSlammer]

also here a pic like i promised.http://pictures.sprintpcs.com/i/26380976901_330_1.jpg?ext=.jpg&rand=-9180921310076423955&border=2,255,255,255,1,0,0,0,0&outquality=90

 

[t3ase]

moved to MSP car audio & electronics.

 

[jurgs01]

I have the same gauge and I don't think that it is even made to dim. I know I hooked mine up off the dimmer switch and it will not dim with the dash lights. It stays the same.

Dimmable?? Lights have a max voltage that they are run off of (and that's when they are at full brightness). There is no such thing as dimmable lights. If you want to dim any lights, you hook up a variable resistor or rheostat in line with the power, and at the minimum setting there is the max resistance and thus no current is flowing, and at the maximum setting there should be no resistance and the regular light bulb brightness. You could do this to your house lights, or any light for that matter. If you really wanted to you could dim your guage, but you would just have to get a multimeter and spend a couple of minutes figuring out which wires were what on the variable resistor (dimming switch).