2nd Gen Non-Engine/Transmission Wiring Gauges with LED's

[EBramwell]

OK, I need some advice. I've got four DiPricol gauges, egt, fuel, boost, and trans. They all have the LED lighting in them, one gauge (egt), has a dimmer dial on it.

Questions:

Because they are all LED is there anything special I need to do to wire the gauges?

Do they all need to be wired to the dimmer switch wire?

Also, I noticed that the EGT gauge that has the dimmer will be inaccessible when I mount it.

Thanks

 

[DMoon]

Wire them to the dimmer switch and you'll be just fine. I installed mine earlier this year and am very happy.

 

[WTBurke]

EB,

The dimmer circuit in our trucks does not go to zero voltage. You might want to wire one of your new LED style gauges up and examine the brightness in a night driving situation. I too have the LED back-lighting system on my Hewitt gauges and mounted on the A-pillar. I have found that even though I have reduced the dimmer control to the most minimum the LED's are still quite illuminated at less than 5. 15 volts of DC excitation. The factory incandescent style bulbs are nearly extinguished across the dash at that point but, the LED's are still quite bright.



I noted in the last Geno's catalog that Autometer is offering a separate little box designed just for their LED back-lit platforms. It has it's own dimmer control for setting your LED's to you own preferred level.



BTW, all these cute LED's are really quite nice and draw less than 20 milliamps each. Just for grins I tested the ash-tray incandescent bulb and found it to be drawing 220 milliamps by it's self at full DC potential



So... by transferring to LED lighting in various locations you will be saving DC load demand across the system.



I don't use the ash-tray for anything but candy bar wrappers so I tapped directly into that convenient location for the DC to power my LED gauges.



William