'95 Civic alternator question...

[songsandstars]

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...

[snowman2005]

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

[eurobeaner]

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

[polacek]

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

[polacek]

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

[songsandstars]

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?

[fiberglasscivic]

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

[Bruce Hunt]

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.

[fiberglasscivic]

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?

[eurobeaner]

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

[songsandstars]

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.

[songsandstars]

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

[fiberglasscivic]

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.

[songsandstars]

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?

[fiberglasscivic]

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.