I just double checked the schematic and sorry, you should be using the green/white wire on the dimmer. However, with the dimmer at full brightness the EL's should still work... Did you try playing with the switch and dimmer on the inverter? I'm pretty sure the switch on mine said On/Off on the switch, but in the off position it works too (for different colors with the speedhut gauges faces...)

Using a voltmeter, try testing across the two wires connecting your inverter to the dimmer. You should read 12V. If you read nothing, something is wrong with the dimmer circuit, dimmer, or your wiring. If you get 12V then the problem is after your own wiring... Play with that inverter.

Unfortunately for all we know the EL gauge faces don't even work.

edit: just to confirm, the needles still light up right?

 

LOL well yesterday I ended up splicing into the dimmer thanks to Redz' advice. I actually spliced into the green/black wire like you said earlier and now when I dim the interiors the gauges get brighter and vice-versa (fail). So now I should try the green/white wire instead?

 

green/white wire is a constant +12V
green/black wire is a floating ground (0V at highest brightness setting, higher voltage for lower brightness).

tap into both and use the green/black as the ground for the gauges and green/white as the positive

if you use black wire (ground) and green/white wire, gauges will always be at full brightness
if you use black wire and green/black wire, well you saw what happens haha

by the way, when someone says "Off the top of my head", you need to doublecheck (plenty of wiring stuff on the site, i myself posted the rheostat wiring diagram at least once)

 

I did doublecheck the rheostat wiring thread, but apparently I'm not as good at interpreting the diagram as I thought I was. I read that the black/ground was the variable ground, but I had thought it worked differently.

 

o, yea the diagrams can be confusing

well no harm done, just rewire it smile.gif

 

will do fing02.gif thanks for the help, I'll get back to you when I'm done.

everything works perfect now. thanks guy.