Electrical advice, 99 EX

[CivicRacerX]

Ok, I'm preparing to install my indiglo gauges, and my only problem is that my dimmer happens to be this stupid little touchpad with two arrows and it just looks, well, stupid. I want to use a potentiometer, but how do I know which one to buy? I have a Jameco catalog and they've got several of them, none of which are expensive, but I want to make sure I'm not going to make some kind of electrical foul-up by hooking up the wrong one. I'm not terribly educated in electrical matters. I know the positive, negative, ground concept, etc... but I keep seeing different designations on these potentiometers that don't mean much to me as far as their functional ability when paired with my gauges.
The feed from my gauges' "black box" has 3 wires, which look to pair correctly with a pot, so I think the little touchpad might just be a digital representation of the pot, but regardless, I hate it, it looks crappy. So:

Do I want a 'Linear Taper' potentiometer?
If so, they come in 1/4W - 5W, and 1k - 100k OHM models...Which is right?

There's a whole host of different models, including physical appearance and functional characteristics, but what should I be looking for? Any advice is really appreciated.

[Swonder67]

How bout wiring it into the vehicles stock dimmer peteniometer

[CivicRacerX]

I considered that when I first got the gauges, but if that's possible, I have to wonder why all of the gauge sets I've seen include some kind of dimming device. If you can just wire it into the factory pot, why aren't people doing it? Unfortunately, like I said I just don't know enough about electricity to make a very educated guess here. To me it makes sense to use the factory pot, but I guess I'd like to know the results from someone who tried it. If I don't find a documented answer in the next couple of days I'll probably just give the wiring a shot and see what happens. As long as the connections are sound, even if it's schematically unsound it shouldn't damage the car.

[Swonder67]

well the petentiometer should have two wires coming out of it. I dunno about your indiglo gauges, but does it go, the gauges, two wires, (+)(-) those wires should go to a relay box. then, there should be two power wires coming out that go to pos. and neg. then there should be two more wires coming out of the box that go to the petentiometer. is that right? If you want to buy a petentiometer, look at the digital touch pad. it might/should have a power rating on it. you can get it from there. Just remember, if you get one rated too high, it won't be sensative enough and it will hardly dim. on my indiglow "H", the peteniometer says 100K

[CivicRacerX]

:help: Actually, strangely enough, the line from the relay box (called an "epicenter" by the manufacturer) has 3 wires coming out of it. Most of the potentiometers that I looked at also have 3 connection leads. Unfortunately, I have no way of knowing which wires are which just by looking. I suppose I need to by some piece of testing equipment, hook the assembly up to my battery, and test the lines to see which is which. What do I need to do this? Should I just buy a multimeter?

[Swonder67]

My petentiometer has three leads too, but I only use two.