Panel Lights control with Garmin panel

[reed99]

 

Seems like all the Garmin gear has a photocell to control lighting intensity of buttons and backlights. Most also have a pin for external control (the G5 being an exception). Does anyone use the external control or just let the photocell do it? If not, what did you connect the Panel Lights control to?

[ArtVandelay]

I pulled the CB for radio lights and it doesn’t any effect.
Panel lights light the instrument panel.

[Mooney Dog]

My panel light control is a light for my steam altimeter only. I would care more but everything i need is fully digital and backlight already. 

[PT20J]

My panel is all Garmin except the audio panel which is a PMA450B. Unless you want the legends constantly full bright, it requires connection to a dimmer. It seemed silly to connect the the dimmer to just one thing, so I connected it to the lighting bus (lighting bus 1 on equipment with two inputs) on all the equipment in the radio stack. That gives you the option if you want to use it.

The lighting in Garmin units is very programmable — it’s just that no two units seem to have the same setup. It’s like they were each designed by a different engineer.

EDIT: I should add that connecting the wires is trivial when the radio stack is out but a PITA once reinstalled since Mooney rivets the whole thing in place. 

I set my units up so that the display backlights are photocell controlled and the button legends are controlled by the dimmer. However, there is a programmable point at which the photocell will take over from the dimmer as the dimmer is turned down. This allows the photocell to control the legends during the day when the panel light control is off. So, if you decide to let the photocell control the legends all the time, just leave the panel light dimmer all the way off.

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