Fix for dash/panel/instrument lights
 

I had a problem on my 98 Grand Voyager, the dash lights would not light up when the headlights came on. We used DOT-IT LED battery powered lights and such for a while. The problem is they die and get left on ect.

Well, I pulled out my dash board and checked the solder joints. They were fine. Dimmer switch, fine. Headlight switch, fine.

Hmm. While it was out, I put a 12V trasformer across one of the bulbs. Immediately, all the lights fired up. So, it got me thinking. I soldered two cables to the light bulb, and afterwards cut one off.

Fix:
Solder a wire, doesn't have to be thick, to one of the bulbs on the dash. If you look, near one of the bulbs, there is a small "-" which stands for negative. The terminal on the bulb next to that gets ground to the car. So make sure your wire faces onto the other pin, just turn the bulb round.

Run this cable down the steering colum to the fusebox (on the right hand drive models in drivers footwell).

Then wrap it round the fuse on one pin named "PNLIGHTS" and make sure this pin faces the floor. This is a tempory position.

Turn your sightlights on. BAZAM! All my radio lights and control lights came on.

Put the dash back together.

Now find the cable comming out of the fusebox on the PNLIGHTS and splice into it. Join your new cable onto it and you're done.

Very happy with this fix. After Googling I couldn't find any fix, and was going to replace the circuit board. But this works great. You could find the wire that goes to the positive on the bulbs and splice into that, or solder directly to the board, but my iron gets to hot so I used a bulb.

Sorry for the lack of pictures. Next time my dash bulbs go, I'll take some.

Hope it helps, Josho.

RE: Fix for dash/panel/instrument lights
 

Well done!

Thats a handy tip, I'll keep it in mind. Its a useful technique for other systems too.
Does the dimmer work now? If not you could re-route your new wire to the dimmer out-put.

Talking of back lights etc. I've just wired a reversing camera monitor to the power feed to the trip computor on the roof, the weird thing is it'll only power up with all the doors closed! Not a bad thing as you don't want to reverse with a door open any way!

Have a good one

Gareth