Hi all, If I turn my headlamp switch, the dial backlights come quite dimly and only at a specific point. If I turn the switch either way the backlights go out again so you have to just be at the right point to keep the lights on. Are the dial backlights supposed to get brighter as you turn the headlamp switch round? And why us this not happening? Is my headlamp switch knackered, or dirty? Thanx.
Yes. May be that the little dimmer rheostat in the switch is dirty, or gone "bald" in one place. Take the switch out and have a look. As I recall, the rheostat track is visible - worth squirting a bit of switch cleaner in it (NOT WD40 ) as a start?
Either, there is a wiper that rubs along a resistor as you turn the switch, problems are the resistor breaks, the wiper doesn't touch the resistor properly, the switch is full of crud.
Surprised me, but twiddling doesn't seem to reach the drop-out voltage of the LED strips I used. They work just fine
Oh just don't, I can't stand it Most of that sentence went over my head, but I did understand 'LED strip' as against my LED bulbs. The difference perhaps? I've just got a couple of bulbs that fit in the holes where the original bulbs went. Not that I particularly need dimmable, but "always wanting what is not" etc! The LEDs are pretty dim anyway, especially compared to my new clock which could be used to guide boats into harbour and was visible from space.
That's fine. You don't really need to dim them anyway - I don't (but I could ). I used LED strips stuck inside the housing, rather than individual ones. They're much more bright and even, I reckon.
If all us folks that use LEDs fitted the correct resistor from the output of the dimmer to chassis, LEDs would dim the same. LED strips are more dimmable because they have three LEDs in series so they black out about 9V. Single LEDs are harder to dim because they black out about 3V.
