quick question abot sony wire harness for cdxm800

[DcMaN 10+ year member]

i just have a quick question im kinda confused on something on the sony harness the orange/white wire = Positive Illumination. But on the metra harness theirs 2 orange wires, orange and orange/white. Now the orange and white one says Positive Dimmer. Is that the samething as Positive illumation ? And the the Orange wire just says Illumination. Any help would be great because im not sure which wire i should connect the orange /white wire on the sony harness too, thanks.

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[johnecon2001 5,000+ posts]

What car is this? sounds like a Nissan thing I ran across once. Whenever you do a wiring harness, just match the colors on the two harnesses. The solid orange is for something else in the stock deck that an aftermarket will not have... at least thats the way it is in Infiniti and Nissan cars.

 

[DcMaN 10+ year member]

its a 91 oldsmobile 98.

 

[KaeZoo 10+ year member]

The difference between illumination and dimmer:

Illumination (solid orange) will test with 12v whenever the parking lights are turned on.

Dimmer (orange/white) will have voltage whenever the parking lights are on, but the voltage will vary with the position of the dimmer switch that controls the instrument panel lighting...so it might measure 12v at full brightness, and down below 5v as the lights are dimmed.

Despite the color codes, I usually connect the solid orange wire to the illumination wire in the head unit harness. Most head units just have a "dimmed" display setting that activates when voltage is detected on the wire. If you use the dimmer wire for the illumination input, it might cause the head unit to suddenly brighten when you dim your instrument panel lighting.

Of course, not all vehicles have both wires present behind the head unit.