www.iFourWinns.com

That what I dont understand, they intro the SS in 06 with all these small details, I guess to to make it "pop" in the market. They get the word of mouth and then change everything.

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Jim--I have a 2006 268V and have not been happy with the dash lights since I bought it. Can you detail a little more about the dimmer you put in, I think that would be great. I have considered even using one of the "Accessory" switches to try and wire it up to just turn them off sometimes, the are SO bright.

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2005, 268 Vista, Table Rock Lake "Choices II"

Sure, I just went in to the local Radio Shack and asked about their rheostats. The largest they had was a 25 Ohm 5 watt variable rheostat. I'm going by memory here, I know it was 5 watt - the largest wattage they had, and seem to recall it was 25 ohm. They only had about 6 to choose from. The rheostat's are 3 pin, I wired to one of the outside pins (makes no difference which) and the inside pin. The remaining pin is unused. Simply wire it inline on the power feed to the instruments. In my 200H, the feed starts at the tachometer.



The other side of the rheostat has a variable knob, mount it somewhere within reach (I made a panel in the lower right hand corner of the helm out of view) and you're in business! Nice thing about my instrument panel is that the depth gauge is wired independently. It uses a red led, and I wouldn't want to dim that anyway. If you need a p/n, let me know I can probably dig one up. Good luck!

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2007 Horizon 200
4.3L GXi/ SX 225 HP

Sounds easy enough, was the rheostat one the looked good? It's hard to tell from the picture or is it one like you would see in a house? Dimming the lights on the gauges has no effect on the actual readings does it? Once I pull out the panel that has the gauges on it will it be obvious which one is the power to the lights or will I have to do some hunting?

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2005, 268 Vista, Table Rock Lake "Choices II"

You will need to buy a knob to put on the rheostat, if that's what you are asking about. Radio Shack sells those too, pack rat that I am, I had something on hand to use. The size is much smaller than a house style dimmer, the rheostat has a diameter of about an inch, so the pic in my last post is close to actual size. I suspect that the dimmer control knob from a car would work with the rheostat, and look nice mounted into the helm dashboard.

The rheostat puts variable resistance onto the circuit powering the lightbulbs mounted in the instruments, and in no way impacts the functioning of the instruments themselves. Once you pull the panel, you will see that the power and ground to the lightbulbs is daisy chained - it should be easy to follow them back to the power source coming off the navigation lights switch.

I don't know why FW doesn't make this standard, or at least an option. Certainly preserving night vision is far more important when boating than it is when driving a car with headlights, and the instrument light dimmers have been standard equipment in in cars since the early 60's. TxJole2 noted that FW/ Faria has been all over the board in terms of backlight color and intensity, they should know that the only chance to please everybody is to provide more individual control. Not sure what brought on this rant - I got mine.

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2007 Horizon 200
4.3L GXi/ SX 225 HP

Thanks, I am going to give it a shot.

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2005, 268 Vista, Table Rock Lake "Choices II"

Ok, here's a few pics that help show what I did.

Here's the helm.


The rheostat/dimmer controls the instrument lights for 4 gauges to the right, the depth finder on the left lights up in red and is powered separately. As you can see, the gauge package in my boat have the white faces, and when lit with clear 194 bulbs, they are way too bright. The rheostat brings them all the way down to a soft yellow glow, in fact my preference is now to set the rheostat somewhere in the middle of it's range. I mentioned before I mounted the rheostat out of view. In the pic above you can see the Clarion head unit by looking through the steering wheel. Under the dash directly below that headunit, I mounted a panel.



On the panel there is an oversized white knob (the rheostat dimmer control), and a black contour switch (on the remote amp power line, turns off an amp, two speakers and subwoofer leaving the stock stereo intact). Note that the white oversize knob is something I had on hand, many different knobs are available, some of the old dash light style knobs would work too.

In the next pic, I pulled the decorative shelf below the instrument gauges and above the row of switches. FW installed two LED bars underneath, and again used very bright clear LEDs.



In the above you can see one of the two bars wrapped with red brake light repair tape and reinstalled. If I were to do it again, I'd wrap farther up the white rubber grommet thingy attaching the led to the clear plastic bar - that white rubber portion still gives off a faint white glow. Anyway, the helm is now much more 'night cruise' friendly. I was going to try to take some night shots using manual settings on the digital camera (you might be able to tell the shots above look a bit washed out or over-exposed), but I forgot.

The last cockpit navigation light challenge I have is with the Clarion head unit. It's somewhat out of the way, but the display panel is very bright. The only settings I've found on the head unit itself are for text contrast, and it does not appear to have separate power leads for the display unit backlight, so I'm still brainstorming on this one.

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2007 Horizon 200
4.3L GXi/ SX 225 HP

Very nice, Jim_R!
Your pics are very helpful. Looks like a good weekend project.

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Brian
2007 Four Winns H200 - VP 5.0L GL/SX
2003 Chevy Avalanche Z66
Canyon Lake, TX