I'm going to be using another line to trigger the relay coil, so if that line is not constant, and not a negative circuit, then i think everything should go according to plan! I guess I'm really just going to have to go get in the truck and do it, instead of spending time soldering stuff, and on the forums lol.

 

On the offhand, does anyone what wire I need to tap into the dimming circuit, so that I can power the led's and dim them with the gauges? I think I read somewhere that there's a plug behind the radio/hvac controls that can be used, as well as tapping into the headlight switch. I need a switched power on when the headlight switch is turned on, and also whatever wire is hooked up that dims the lights.

 

usually its an orange and/or orange and white stripe wire on the radio harness.... pull of the wiring diagram for the radio and look for "illum" or "illumination"....

 

I dont remember that wire from when i installed my aftermarket head unit, bc my radio does not dim. I will have to get in there and see if i can find it.

 

Most radios have a dimmer setting that is defaulted to "off" change it to "dim" or "on" and it should dim when ur lights get turned on, but it wont "dim" when you move the dimmer switch... that's just how most of them work.

There should definitely be an ILLUM wire on the aftermarket radio harness.. they are almost always Orange..

 

Right. My last vehicle had one, but I don't remember that wire being connected to the factory harness, I know usually there's one that doesn't pin in to the harness. I'll just have to get in there and do some digging I suppose.

 

There can usually be a few that don't connect, illumination, rear camera, remote signal (12+), and sometimes a negative illumination...

 

If you want to din your LEDs, you need an LED controller. It is not advised to connect LEDs to a rheostat switch that dims filament type bulbs.

 

Why would it be a bad idea to power them using one of the wires that is controlled by the gauge dimmer switch? I've seen other threads where people have done this as well with gauges, such as autometer gauges and such. I didn't figure that it would put enough load on it to be a big problem. I didn't really want to have to install an additional pot to control the brightness, and I wanted them both to dim at the same time. I was also under the impression all the gauges in the cluster, hvac, and headlight switches were led's based on the led dash conversion how to.

 

It's not the load that is an issue but the rheostat switch itself works. IDK how it would be in the Dodge but other vehicles I had, those switches gave nothing but problems later when other things were connected to them