Tip: No orange wire? Use a Sharpie!

hehe, hope ya enjoy this one... I have a new Panasonic CQ-C8403U, for my '93 Bonneville beater. I bought what I was hoping to be the latest & greatest tech-toy Head Unit, since I plan to keep it a while, and don't want to be upgrading units ($$$) regularly... Well, it's got a spiffy graphics display, and other than crappy control layout & navigation, the thing looks cool in the dash- during the day. At night, I can vary the brightness of the graphics screen, but there is NO control over the 'backlight' blue lights that "highlight" the knobs, buttons, and a plastic strip that runs across the whole unit. Distracting as hell, this unit was brighter and overpowering my normal dash lights, even with them turned full-up! I couldn't tolerate that. Panasonic is NOT going to dictate how bright MY stereo lights will be. As we know, most HU's have an orange wire in the harness, to play nice with the other dash lights, and vary brightness to equal them. This unit does not! I talked to one install tech about it...he had no answer. No orange wire? I'm screwed. NOT! Warranty be damned...I (carefully) opened the face assembly, and noticed all of the tiny LED's spaced purposly. Access to many of them was tight, so I took a light blue Sharpie, and using a Dremel-tool, re-shaped the tip to be long & slender. NEW CLUE: DON"T use a Dremel on a Sharpie...ink will fly! (alcohol removes it, but, still messy.) BTW- A Sharpie "Fine Point" is not designed for as much flow as required for some under & side "painting" areas to squeeze into, for an even coating. Anyway, I colored all the tiny & two big LED's blue, and it DID work! -Not dark enough though. What to do? Pull the thing apart again, and use Q-Tip swabs & alcohol to clean off the light blue ink...then use a DARK blue Sharpie to re-color the lights. NEW CLUE 2: A razor-knife trims a Sharpie tip nice, without flinging ink. Just right! Now it's not distracting, and feels more 'in place' with the other lights. HEY Panasonic, be "user friendly", and install the orange wire to play nice! Just thought I'd post my solution to a "problem" that seemed hopeless. (I love to mod & fabricate stuff!)

Great idea but i dont know if im ready to take apart a head unit just yet.

Yeah like how to use a hard drive ribbon cable to mount the face of the radio in the sunvisor and the chassis in the glove box..........   Lotsa fun!Cause I'm So white and nerdy...

First Class Certi-fried installer

That trick can also be used to alter the colour of lighting to match the dash lights in some cars. I have seen it done in some radios that didn't offer little condoms to cover the LED's to do a color change.sparky

hehe, thanks for the feedback! Yea, it WAS fun to do! Don't sweat it advanced_audio, just be REAL careful not to lose any screws or springs! After removing the six screws, I gently twisted & slid my thumbnail under the wide center to get it started. once seperated, all kinds of little buttons, and parts will fall out. I did it over a newspaper, but I think a shoebox cover would work well too. Putting it back together is cake. All parts only fit one way, also consider - little kids in China are assembling these things like a hundred an hour, so it's not rocket science... Color change...I WISH! My GM dash lights are all orange, and the HU plastics are molded in blue, so all I could do was darken them. It works out alright though, since the lights I have for the floor & center are also blue. Lousy color mix, blue & orange, but at least now the brightness is equal. Best I can expect, and worth the effort! have fun!