Illumination wire issues (Lancer)

[DannyboyDS]

Hey everyone, YES my car is a commodore, my sister drives a lancer and we are having a few "issues"

we recently installed a new stereo and the stock unit has a wire for illumination which the new unit does not need, however now her dash lights no longer work, I have done a temporary work around by hooking this wire up to the stereo power so when the car comes on all dash illumination comes on straight away, as well as her parker lights

dodgy temporary fix but what could I do at the time.

Anyway if anyone out there knows what I should have done to make it work properly?

The car is a 2001 Lancer, I have scoured the net for nearly a week and have found nothing, this question has been asked a few times on a few lancer forums but has never been answered.

[azzfox]

that sounds really odd. isnt the illumination wire a 12v source? sounds like your making the circuit flow backwards somehow.

you might have to source a wiring diagram for the car to sus it out further.

[UNKNOWN]

The illum wire is to dim the lights on the stereo face when u turn ur lights on... Not to make it light up.

[DannyboyDS]

so the million doller question is why wont the interior lights work without it recieving power, all fuses are intact and I tried swapping the relays over for the illumination/dimmer etc, etc,

[azzfox]

maybe it needs to be grounded? (be careful with that one just in case it isnt! )

[kopper69]

Grab your multimeter DannyboyDS and check the voltage on that illumination wire when the car lights are off and on. Tell me what you find. Should be 0V when the lights are off and 12V when the lights are on.

[DannyboyDS]

cheers kopper i'll give that a go, still leaves me wondering what to do with it depending on the result though, i'm pretty good with electronics and have built allot of circuits and such over the years, this however has me stumped.