Quote:
Originally Posted by chubbyranger  Did you find a way to manually control the cluster brightness? I have a few choice words for the idiot that decided the driver could not manually set the cluster to full (daytime/lights off) brightness.   Everything I've read in FSM has it sending the damn secret serial data messages back and forth between the IPC and the DIM to control the panel brightness.  |
I wish
Everything is on a single dual-sided circuit board with loads of hair-thin traces and mainly surface mount components--nearly as complex as a modern computer motherboard. Obviously assembled mainly by robot and soldered with some sort of solder bath in an oven as even the Phillips head screws securing heat sinks and connectors were mainly filled with solder.
As you said the dimming (both incandescent and fluorescent) is controlled via serial communication and once the light sensor in the dash detects "night" it commands all of the fluorescent displays and the tube in the cluster into dimming mode. I've worked some with dimmable fluorescents and found that there is usually quite a jump between "full on" and "maximum dim". I installed one dimmable fluorescent system that was nearly seamless, but in a land where any of the dimmable ballasts are expensive, it was hideously expensive.
I wish that a second ambient light sensor would have been installed (the casting is there in the defrost grille piece) to separate dimming from headlight operation. Will keep studying schematics for a way to add, but doubt that it's possible and almost certainly impractical.
