'95 Civic alternator question...

ever since i installed my indiglo guages and my stereo, my lights get really dim when i push on the brakes and then they come back bright after a second. could this be fixed with a higher output alterantor or am i missing something? thanks...

you probably just hooked up your stereo and guages to the wrong power source. where are they hooked up to?

mine do it too, but i dont have indaglows... when i press the brake when im parked, my headlights dim, and when im stopped my headlights dim, AND when i slow down/stop, my blower motor dosnt blow as hard... i have aftermarket fog lights, if that matters, and nokya bulbs. sry, i dont wanna jack your thread, just sayin me too

How's the batteries in both of your civic's? I can't imagine that the indiglo take all that much juice.

You can get your charging system checked @ most any suto store for free.

my battery is only about 3 months old and it's a die hard platinum. i try not to skimp out when it comes to basics like that, that's why i'm so baffled. i went to see my friend at a local garage and went auto zone to get my charger and everything else checked. the only thing they found was a blown fuse, which i knew about cause my dome light had blown a couple of days ago. however, it had nothing to do with my lights cause they're still doing the dimming. i can't seem to figure out what it could be. any other ideas?

What did you connect your indiglows to? Do you have any other electrical mods (large stereo componets, underglows, neons, HID headlights ect)?

How about this bright people. Disconnect the dang stereo and lights and try it out. Does that fix it? Now find a better source of power.

Great assistance there Bruce but I think those of use who are trying to help may know something you don't. Please don't be rude, It doesn't help get things done. The reason we need to know where he's getting his power is because maybe there isn't any other place to get power from, maybe songsandstars directly connected his power for the glows to his battery. If that's the case then moving to a different source isn't feasible and would suggest that there are more problems than are evident. It's also possible that this entire thing isn't related to the stereo or the gauges. Maybe the wiring for the brake lights are starting to cause a small enough short in the system to cause the dimming or, the pump for the hydraulics is starting to wear so bad that it's causing strain on the engine to an amount that it slows to where there aren't enough rpms to sufficiently power all the applications that he's running. The alternator is usually designed to put out peak performance at 2000 rpms. If he has enough of a strain on his system then the alternator may not be bad right now, it just may not be able to output enough amps to power everything he has working in his car. I can think of many other scenarios but I think you get the idea now. Please don't comment again until you have something truly usefully to say. Any of us could have just as easily suggested that he swap power sources but that may not have solved the problem then he would have been back and we would have been going through this all over again. Better even than that, he may have decided that we're a bunch of idiots because it didn't work and so he didn't want to come back for help. Would that have done him any good? Solve the problem to it's fullest and it won't come back to haunt you. Songsandstars we patiently await an answer to our questions. I have one more question. Are you using your A/C when this happens?

humm, i dont know how old my battery is, but my fog lights are connected directly to the battery, with an inline fuse. I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO "SYSTEM" all 6 1/2" and a keenwood headunit. the only thing i can think of is my bulbs, thier output is like 100w...? kinda high. i thought if you had the true hid bulbs, it actually takes less energy, like 35watts? im movin to that in a few weeks.but the whole dimming thing sucks... o well

nope...i don't have any neons or anything else, just a stereo and indiglos, and even my stereo I can tell you isn't the problem (no subs or anything. plus i had it hooked up before the indiglos and no dimming occured). the only thing that i can think of, that it also might be, is that when i ran my indiglos, i connected the ground wiring to the actual ground wire in the factory dimmer switch, as instructed to do so. i suppose i could try and actually ground the wire to the car, but even if so would that one wire make everything, even my healdights go dim? hard to think that that much power would be on one circuit or fuse.

p.s. thanks for the willingness to help fiberglass. electrical is the only part of cars that challenges me and i've tried everything else.

i think we should all try and be a little more like bruce. he's super smart and helpful.

not using the A/C either...winter. :-(

How many wires were hooked up for the indiglows 2 or three and where are you getting the positive power from now that we know your grounded to dimmer.

i hooked up 3 wires and all of them i put throught he dimmer switch as instructed. ground and postive are both on the dimmer switch but i think it's overloading the circuit. what do you think?

Did your glows come with a seperate dimmer switch? If so then you need to hook the red positive up to a constant power, the white your park lamps and then ground the black wire to a chassis ground. I don't think it would over load the circuit. It's definately not that though.

Your indiglo gauages are pulling to much voltage from that circuit (note not ampage). It's casuing a voltage drop in that parelle circuit leaving other lights to operate with insufficent voltage.

The reason you haven't blown the fuse yet (fuse 19-10amp, under dash fuse block), because you haven't use all the options that fuse provides to at the same time.

I don't know the schematics for your indiglo, so I am assuming there is only a positive (B+) and negative (ground) wire to a black box like converter and then from there to the gauges (if not please let me know).

I recommand you to relocate the indiglo guage power source to "fuse 2" at the uder dash fuse block. It's empty/no fuse there, but it's a constent battery volage source instead of hot when you turn head light switch (You can use that slot to customize it to whatever after market electrical system you want as long as it uses under 50 amp).

You just need to put a fuse (in this case I am guessing a 5 amp fuse should be enough) in the slot and connect a switch before it to control it on and off.

Your ground wire that connects to the dimmer switch is fine, there is no need to relocate it, but it's easier for you to remove it when you relocate your power source, just hook it up to a chassis bolt.

Wow. You've got that really off track. Voltage is the constant force pushing the electricity. Amperage is the amount of electricity that's moving at one time. It's like water coming out of a garden hose. Voltage would be how hard that water would push against your hand and amperage would be how many gallons flow through the hose per second (or minute or whatever you would like to put there). Because this world is based off of a constant voltage (which is easier to produce over constant amperage) most electrical devices are centered on the need to frequently change amperage. The dimmer in the car is designed to change the amperage of the electricity passing through it. By changing the amperage, this determines how many electrons are available to be released from the lights. With fewer electrons, the light will be dimmer because there aren't as many there to be released. Now onto the voltage portion of how this works. Voltage can also be looked at as a magnetic force (thus the reason for 12V+ and a - ground) the higher the voltage the further the electricity can travel and pass through resistance. This is why you have a 12V system in your car. It allows more than enough force to travel the entire length of the car and back multiple times. If he was experiencing a voltage drop then it would be because of his battery or alternator because on a parallel circuit, voltage stays the same while amperage changes, thus the reason for a fuse with an amperage rating and not a voltage rating. The voltage isn't going to change unless the source changes or the device using the voltage changes it via a transformer (such as the high voltage application for glass tube neons) and the voltage change in that application never affects the voltage of the source because the transformer would convert current to voltage. According to the description of how the indiglows were placed into the already existing circuit, then we know that it was a parallel attachment which means that there would be an increase in amperage because there is a need for more. If this increase were enough to cause a major problem, then the fuse would have blown, thus giving us an indication that it needed to be relocated or, a fuse rated with higher amperage needs to be used. I would agree that it wouldn't hurt for the indiglows to either be placed on their own direct line to the battery with an in-line fuse or that the fuse needed to be replaced with a higher rated one if the dimming was of the interior lights but the dimming was also in the headlights, as previously stated. The headlights are on separate fuses. The only other problem that the indiglows may have caused would be that if the alternator was bad (bad meaning that the recommended amperage output was low) then the indiglows would have simply made obvious, a pre-existing problem.
Did they tell you what your amperage output on the alternator was when you had it checked? If not, have them (or someone else) check it again. If you’re not blowing fuses left and right on your interior lights then it’s not the indiglows. I'm going to stick with the alternator until we can find a different culprit. Have you added any other electrical items to the car like upgraded headlights? Eurobeaner is using 100/120 watt bulbs (100 watt low beam, 120 watt high beam) and I think that it may have a small part in why his headlights are dimming.

they did come with a seperate dimmer and it has a red, red and black, and black wire. right now i have it wired with the black one grounded under the dash, the red and black one connected to the red factory dimmer wire and the red on isn't even hooked up to anything (per the instructions i received). what do you think?

Who is the manufacturer for those indiglows? I personally don't think they are causing a problem. If they are working fine and you aren't having to replace fuses all the time, then you don't need to change anything. That's why I needed to know if you've upgraded any other electrical components or added anything.

Actually fiberglasscivic is right (good save). Sorry for the confusion, I switched the fundermental of the parellel and series circuit by accident (falling asleep last night).

There seems to be insufficent current going into the circuit, that's why your lights dim when you apply the brakes. Possibilities are your alternator is not putting out enough ampage for your use, a loose wire connection in that circuit, or somehow a damage wire.

When you had your charging system check, did they tell you how many amps does your alternator put out and how many amps is going into the battery when you have all the electricals turned on?

Anyways, the red wire from your indiglo is for in case if you want the factory dimmer to control the gauges instead of the one it comes with.

If you want the factory dimmer to control your gauges, just disconnect the ground wire from your indiglo and tap the red wire from the indiglo to the factory dimmer red wire.