Question re: Instrument Cluster Lighting

[Jim45]

Still feeling my way round the car, is the instrument cluster supposed to be permanently backlit? I set off whilst almost dusk not quite dark enough to automatically turn on the headlights but dark enough that I couldn’t read the dials, hence my question. It then appeared the dials lit up and the headslights came on later and as is the case with auto lights they would occasionally turn off when we hit slightly lighter sky as did the dials.
Hope your following this!
I have made an OBD11 adjustment I saw on the OBD11 forum that relates to dimming, could this be causing the problem?
EDIT this is the change
Auto Dimming fix

Thanks to mattb82 here

Control Unit - (17) Dash board
Illumination algorithm - Scale_switching_algorithm
Old value - parking_light
New value - lds

 

[Deleted member 103408]

Jim don't know but the quickest way is to reverse the change and see if its any better.

As an aside do you have your drl's on and do you have your lights on Auto.

 

[Jim45]

The lights were set to Auto (using the cheap Chinese switch/ sensor), the DRL’s were on until headlights came on, then dimmed I assume as per stock.

 

[Jim45]

Just to update, I removed the dash illumination change mentioned in the first post and all now seems well.

 

[Jim45]

Just to update, I removed the dash illumination change mentioned in the first post and all now seems well.

Correction to the above after removing the mod, still not happy with the instrument lighting, the way it changes intensity is really annoying during daylight hours. In sunlight it’s brightest but go under a bridge or a heavily tree lined road in shadow but not dark enough to switch the lights on and the instruments disappear with just the needles lit, really annoying.

The adaptation made no difference, anyone else tried this on a facelift?

 

[DEAN0]

Is this conventional clocks or the virtual cockpit ?

My VC stays the same brightness all the time but gives me a warning to switch the lights on when it thinks it has gone dark ( tunnels etc )

 

[GTunney]

Correction to the above after removing the mod, still not happy with the instrument lighting, the way it changes intensity is really annoying during daylight hours. In sunlight it’s brightest but go under a bridge or a heavily tree lined road in shadow but not dark enough to switch the lights on and the instruments disappear with just the needles lit, really annoying.

The adaptation made no difference, anyone else tried this on a facelift?

This is a design feature for those without autolights designed to get you to turn your lights on. Since you’re using the after market auto lights I’d suggest trying to adjust the on lux level for auto lights to similar to when the dash dims. That’s if you can with after market ones.

 

[Jim45]

Is this conventional clocks or the virtual cockpit ?

My VC stays the same brightness all the time but gives me a warning to switch the lights on when it thinks it has gone dark ( tunnels etc )

Conventional clocks

 

[Jim45]

This is a design feature for those without autolights designed to get you to turn your lights on. Since you’re using the after market auto lights I’d suggest trying to adjust the on lux level for auto lights to similar to when the dash dims. That’s if you can with after market ones.

It’s a silly design feature as rapidly changing light whilst driving causes the dash to pulse in and out quite often, very annoying.

I don’t believe you can adjust the aftermarket sensor lux values.

 

[Walone]

This is a design feature for those without autolights designed to get you to turn your lights on. Since you’re using the after market auto lights I’d suggest trying to adjust the on lux level for auto lights to similar to when the dash dims. That’s if you can with after market ones.

This 'Design feature' is the same even with auto lights, it's very annoying at times.

 

[Jim45]

This 'Design feature' is the same even with auto lights, it's very annoying at times.

Definitely agree on that one, it’s a silly idea. Has anyone managed to ‘neutralise’ the dash lights on a facelift?