Everything you ever wanted to know about auto dimming rear view mirrors

What did you do to get the screen to come on? The red wire and black wire should have been all it took to make the compass work and screen display. What are you using for a power source to fire it up? As for the temp reading, did you wait a while with it plugged in to see if it would change? The temp sensor can go bad, but it's not common. What temp sensor are you using?

I eventually got the screen to turn on by simply disconnecting and reconnecting the connector. I'm not sure why it wouldn't turn on cause I did the same thing I always had. Just supplied power. But now it comes on every time so that's not an issue. My power source is a car battery lol. And yes I did leave the mirror hooked up for awhile. When I first got the screen to work it displayed -34. The warmest it ever got was -22, that was about half an hour hooked up for it to change that much.

EDIT: Temp sensor is right from the donor truck

Well I am stumped with this.

I got a gentex out of a maxima with the auto dim, homelink, and compass. 3 wires thus should have been simple, as I had autodim wiring to start with.

Installed it and now the homelink works fine, but the autodim and compass work only in reverse. No D,N,P,3,2,1. Only reverse. The previous autodim came on properly and I am using the same wires.

Well I tore my mirror apart and checked it out. I didn't see anything out of the ordinary. I popped the screen off and all the pins and solders looked good so I'm not sure what's wrong with mine.

http://i544.photobucket.com/albums/h...ps2ad807b8.jpg
http://i544.photobucket.com/albums/h...ps27e80fd2.jpg

And I'm also curious what this is for

http://i544.photobucket.com/albums/h...ps124313ea.jpg

Quote:

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Originally Posted by EJOUIE

Well I am stumped with this.

I got a gentex out of a maxima with the auto dim, homelink, and compass. 3 wires thus should have been simple, as I had autodim wiring to start with.

Installed it and now the homelink works fine, but the autodim and compass work only in reverse. No D,N,P,3,2,1. Only reverse. The previous autodim came on properly and I am using the same wires.

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You must have used the old disable in reverse wire, and put it into the pin that supplies power to the autodim/compass, so it's operating in the opposite order (no power till the car is put in reverse). I'm glad you mentioned it's from a Nissan, because I just snagged a Nissan mirror myself a few weeks back, so by freak luck, I may be able to help you out on this, as I found something rather interesting when trying to power it up. The HomeLink mirrors can get weird. Lots of variations and arrangements on the 10-pin harness. For example, I got the same mirror you're describing (auto-dim, HomeLink, compass) out of a Nissan Rogue. It's only 3 wires vs. the 4-wire auto-dim and HomeLink only one I grabbed from a Hyundai Sante Fe. It loses a feature, yet gains a wire. :th_scratchhead: This is why. Both have a separate positive wire each for the HomeLink and auto-dim (+ comp on the Rogue one), and both have a single negative. The reason the Rogue one doesn't have a 4th wire is because it doesn't seem to have a disable auto-dim in reverse feature, which is really odd, so it's possible yours may not either. This means you will have to run a new power wire for the auto dim/comp. OR, if you don't care about HomeLink not having a constant on power source, just tap both of them (HomeLink + auto-dim/comp) into the same preexisting power wire from your car. For now, if you're not too concerned about having HomeLink right away, you can swap the power wire over to the auto-dim/comp power supply pin. Here's the pinouts for mine:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3.../HmLnkHrns.jpg

The numbers start at the top right, and go up from there. So pin 5 (yellow and black) is the power supply for the HomeLink, pin 6 (red and black) is the power supply for auto-dim/comp, and pin 8 (solid black) is the negative. On my Hyundai mirror, pin 7 is the disable auto dim in reverse feature, so I presume if you stick the green wire off your car in there, it should activate that feature. Pretty sure the circuit board is the same for all of them in that regard.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 4THGENCAMAROFAN

Well I tore my mirror apart and checked it out. I didn't see anything out of the ordinary. I popped the screen off and all the pins and solders looked good so I'm not sure what's wrong with mine.

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It's hard to say, as I've never really heard of a Gentex having an issue. Have you tried wiring it up to a power source and wiggling the harness to see if the power flickers on and off? I know the joints on a few of the Donnelly mirrors I opened up looked fine, but I resoldered them anyway, and it fixed the problem on all of them. But those definitely flickered when the harness was moved around, so I knew regardless of how it looked, they had to be bad joints.

No wiggling the harness doesn't change anything. And even if it did I should loose the autodimming and the screen. Autodimming always works properly, green light always lights up when powered on. Screen just kinda does its own thing.

I found a rear view mirrow but I have no idea if it will work.. it looks like it is part number gntx-120.. it has a slude on the bottom that sais off m and c/m.. it has a 7 pin connector with 5 wires. I have a 3 pin connector..


editing this post.. I just decided to plug the mirror in and see what happens. the mirror had a 7 pin connector, but the 3 piin connector I had just plugged right in. The mirror has a built in compass and works great. The only thing I'm wondering if I like the auto dimming.. I guess I'l try it tonight..

Really cool!!!

At the risk of sounding like a noob what wires need 12v constant and which ones need to b switched thanks :)

It depends which mirror you have. See what numbers and letters are printed on the back, the model will be somewhere there. Then we can find a pin out of the connector.

I've been looking into auto dimming side mirrors as well, but so far I haven't had any luck finding ones that would be the correct shape. I doubt I'll have any luck, but man would that be nice.

I wonder if there's any way to either alter the rate of dimming, or make a manual dimming controller. I've got tinted windows and my mirror doesn't always dim as much as I'd like.

So I pulled an Onstar mirror out of a 40th Anni car. Has a 16 pin connector. Any info on this mirror Rare?

EDIT: Found wiring info for it. To make this style mirror work(Gentex 015607) I used:
Ambient temp+ Pin 6 which is Light green/black stripe
Ambient temp- Pin7 which is gray/black stripe
Ground-Pin 8 which is black
Power- Pin 13 which is yellow

I didn't wire in the autodim shutoff feature but it's Pin 9 which is light green.
This worked for my mirror but obviously check to make sure your mirror is the same. Not my fault if you screw something up.
http://i544.photobucket.com/albums/h...ps1r8v4dat.jpg