Dimmer wire in Radio Harness? (JBL non-nav)

[Solved]: Dimmer wire in Radio Harness? (JBL non-nav)

Hey everyone,

I haven't found a source for this particular question yet...

I am installing a Kenwood KOS-A300 ipod interface in my Prius IV with JBL.

I have found wiring diagrams for both the JBL and non-JBL headunits, and I saw that there was an orange wire labeled "dimmer" (or something like that) on the NON-JBL headunit harness, but I can find no such wire on the JBL version of the wiring diagram.

I attached the copy of the JBL diagram, along with the instructions for the Kenwood unit. I emailed Kenwood to find out if the dimmer wire in its harness MUST be connected (does it actually supply the power for illumination?), but I am waiting on an answer.

What is your opinion - can this wire be ignored, or does someone know where this mysterious wire I need to tap into would be?

Thanks!
Jeff

 

Did you hook it up to the orange wire on your non-JBL harness? My problem is that the "dimmer" wire appears to be missing from the harness that connects to the factory JBL head unit... But there is one on the non-JBL radio.

Thanks

 

It's OK -

I did get a reply from Kenwood - they said that the wire from the iPod interface is supposed to go to the headlight switch. And that it basically tells the device when the cars lights are on - and dims the Kenwood display's lighting. I thought it was supposed to sync up the dimming with the interior lighting as you dim that.

I read something about a wire that goes to the ECU that might work, but I think I will just leave it disconnected if I can't find some better detail on where that wire is!

Thanks
Jeff

 

Interesting - thanks for the heads up. I just posted a question in that thread for green curry expert to see if he can shed light on that one!

 

So did you tap into the orange wire of the non-JBL harness? (I could be wrong about the color, but I am almost positive it was orange in the wiring diagram which I can't find anymore).

 

Thanks...

Now I just need to find the equivalent wire in a JBL-equipped Prius! Seems odd to me that the non-JBL and JBL versions of the radio would be different when it comes to this wire.

Jeff

 

Good point. Once I have it in my hands, I might do that. I did get it from CF - supposed to arrive tomorrow.

 

Interesting - so there is an orange/white wire on the Pac TATO? I wonder which wire this connects to in the factory Toyota harness? Maybe I can find the pinouts for the PAC and the Toyota and cross reference.

 

UPDATE: I think I found it!

I ponied up the $15 for techinfo, and I found a diagnostic pinout of the radio connectors.

Apparently pin 2 (wire color "G" - I assume green?) in the L40 harness is the illumination wire, which should read below 1 Volt when the light control switch is off, and should be between 11 and 14 Volts with the light control switch on "tail".

Not sure why this wire isn't shown in the other diagrams, but I will try this one when I hook up my iPod adapter display.

Question is - when they show the pinouts of the connectors, are they showing it from the connector side, or the wire side? I can probably figure it out when I pull out the HU, but I just wondered. (I am thinking it is the connector side, so pin 2 would be 2nd pin in top row (from the RIGHT)).

So my connections are:
Batt: Pin 1
Accessory: Pin 11
Illumination: Pin 2

The only "wrinkle" is the Illumination Rheostat wire which is described as having a pulse generation signal when the light switch is in the "tail" position. This would be pin 12.

I am going to try pin 2 - this one makes more sense from what I heard from Kenwood.

 

Another update:

I installed this Kenwood adapter this week.

The info I posted above was correct.

Pin 1 was the battery feed (light blue wire?), Pin 11 was the Aux feed (gray wire?), Pin 2 was the illumination feed that I needed (green wire next to battery wire). There are actually 2 illumination wires - the one I used reads 0 volts when the lights are off, and 12 volts when the lights are on. This is the signal that the Kenwood was meant to use. (The other illumination wire carries a pulsed signal that depends on the setting of the interior light dimmer switch.)

For ground, there was a nice ground screw immediately to the right of the shifter assembly on the "bridge". This was much easier to use than having to add a 4th splice connector to the L40 harness. The ground wire for my adapter used a "fork" terminal at the end, and it worked nicely on that ground screw (I did check the metal structure of the "bridge" for continuity with the ground wire in the harness).

Hopefully this helps anyone else out there. I am not sure if the illumination/dimmer wire detail was ever discussed in these forums (I searched extensively). There were some references where you had to use a wire that is in one of the Main ECU harnesses (either L7 or L8, I think). The one on the radio harness was much easier to use, but the wiring diagrams for the audio system with JBL omits this connection. I found the info on an audio troubleshooting document that details the readings/signals on each wire of the harnesses.

Finally, once I got the radio out and started probing the terminals of the harness with my meter, I found that the pinout diagram is meant to be read from the WIRE side. This wasn't what I expected, but became apparent when I wasn't getting the voltages I expected when I had incorrectly assumed the diagrams showed the connector side.

When I get time I will mark up an image of the connector with labels for the wires and post it here.

Thanks
Jeff

 

OK - Here is my markup:

Hope it helps!