96 Ex head unit replacement - illumination wire question | Ford Explorer Forums

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96 Ex head unit replacement - illumination wire question

xj14y

Member
Joined
July 27, 2010
Messages
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City, State
Abbeville, LA
Year, Model & Trim Level
1996 XLT
I need to verify my suspicions....

Factory radio in Ol Blue finally became unusable. I'm replacing the bezel at the same time. It was shot too.

I've installed radios before, but it's been a while. Got the kits from Crutchfield, and a JVC KDX40 (no CD player, but just pop in a USB stick and you're off). I'm using the factory amp and wiring, not looking for a super sound system, just one that works. IMO, the original radio sounded plenty good enough for me, I'm an old man who likes to crank up a song now and again, just couldn't use my mp3 player without a cassette adapter.

I've got the "premium" factory sound system, which includes the amp. Crutchfield set me a kit that has the stepdown from the new radio's built in amped outputs to reduce those to line level to feed existing amp. That's fine with me.

This JVC unit has lots of bells and whistles, including display custom color choice and customized dimming (I can have a different color at night, control how dim the display is, all kinds of fun stuff), all of it you can set through the menus, so this function actually works on this unit. I want to be able to dim the lights on the display when the lights come on.. Just trying to do it right.

After reading many of the threads here, I've not found what I'm looking for. But If I've read correctly, the orange wire from the new stereo is looking for 12v to dim the unit. So I'm in search of +12v when the lights are on, correct? After looking at a few things, I may be looking for a red/blue wire. I'll check it with my meter.

I know I can't match the dimmer variable control, I'm OK with that. I just want to set up the unit to dim to half (which is how it comes from the factory) I can adjust it through menus if that becomes annoying.
 






Now I see why everyone says it's not worth the effort. Couldn't find what I wanted in the installation area, and didn't feel like running extra wires. Advice from me - get a head unit that lets you preset the brightness of the display, then set it somewhere in the middle like I did. It's low enough out of the field of vision so it's not really distracting, and you can get a lot of radios with color presets or options so it matches the rest of the lights. Mine do.
 






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