Cencom Core Backlighting question

ffjwhite

Member
May 21, 2010
1,082
Bombay, NY
Hey folks. I am looking for some help trying to get my backlighting to work on my cencom core. I can get it to work with the wire however what I would like to do is have a high power and a low. I currently have the backlight wire to low but I can not get the high-power to stay unless I assign it to a button. Would anyone else be able to lend me a hand with this?
 

NoLimitSquads

Member
Feb 11, 2021
330
Minnesota
Hey folks. I am looking for some help trying to get my backlighting to work on my cencom core. I can get it to work with the wire however what I would like to do is have a high power and a low. I currently have the backlight wire to low but I can not get the high-power to stay unless I assign it to a button. Would anyone else be able to lend me a hand with this?
What do you want to trigger your high power? Are you connected to CanBus? Do you have a photo cell?
 

ffjwhite

Member
May 21, 2010
1,082
Bombay, NY
Canbus- no
Photo cell- no

So ideally what I would like to do is, on ignition sense the unit go full backlit and on the backlit wire, go into low power mode.
 

NoLimitSquads

Member
Feb 11, 2021
330
Minnesota
Ok. There are a few different ways to do this, but this is how I would do it. Make an event. When ACM input ignition is ON, and ACM input backlight is OFF. Then adjust your backlight to highpower in that event state. Then make another event. When ACM input backlight is ON. And set your low power backlight in that event state. And then make sure to set your priorities. Since the ignition is always on, I would make your backlight input a higher priority than ignition.
 

NoLimitSquads

Member
Feb 11, 2021
330
Minnesota
Or a much easier way that would probably work. Just click on your ACM input IGNITION, and set your backlight to highpower. Then click the ACM input BACKLIGHT, and set low power. As long as your BACKLIGHT input has a higher priority than IGNITION input, it should be on highpower until the backlight wire is activated, which should set it into low power.
 

ffjwhite

Member
May 21, 2010
1,082
Bombay, NY
Forgive me for all my noob questions. This is the first time really diving into the Command software. I used it with my HHS4200 but it wants this complicated lol
 

NoLimitSquads

Member
Feb 11, 2021
330
Minnesota
Ive never used Core without CanBus, so I guess Ive never really checked to see if the ignition sense showed up in ACM inputs. Do you have any extra un-used input wires? You could just tie one of those into the ignition wire. And for everything that I instructed above, use that input wire instead of ignition. Im not at work right now, but I could check it out in the morning to see if there is a way to use the ignition input wire.
 

ffjwhite

Member
May 21, 2010
1,082
Bombay, NY
Yeah. I have tried a bunch of different way to try it. I used one of the J14-3 wires to make it like a high-power and it wouldn't work. I would have liked to use it but I have a 2014 F150 and its not compatible with it. I do plan on getting a newer one next year so I am sure it will be easier then to run with some of those Can bus features. I will try it again with one of the other inputs and see if I can get it to work. Now that I think about it. I might not have set the priority's up right when I did it. smh
 

NoLimitSquads

Member
Feb 11, 2021
330
Minnesota
Yeah. I have tried a bunch of different way to try it. I used one of the J14-3 wires to make it like a high-power and it wouldn't work. I would have liked to use it but I have a 2014 F150 and its not compatible with it. I do plan on getting a newer one next year so I am sure it will be easier then to run with some of those Can bus features. I will try it again with one of the other inputs and see if I can get it to work. Now that I think about it. I might not have set the priority's up right when I did it. smh
Did you adjust your priorities correctly? That is a big deal that often gets overlooked. The input that is on all of the time should have a lower priority than the input that you want to change things.
 

ffjwhite

Member
May 21, 2010
1,082
Bombay, NY
Well after trying all these things, I was able to finally get it to work. However none of these actually worked lol.
The problem was, that when the Backlight setting was in the off stage, Whelen decided to use disable backlighting on the controller instead of just none. I just changed that value to 100% when in the off stage and now I dont need to use an additional wire to activate it. So now it works as it should. Something that has been going on almost a week trying to figure out was the simplest but damnest thing. Thanks again for your help @NoLimitSquads
 

NoLimitSquads

Member
Feb 11, 2021
330
Minnesota
There are so many updates in command, things that worked a month ago, no longer work. You really have to pay attention now. I was just making a program today, and enabling low power on some outputs, and it was setting low power at 1%. Im glad that you got it figured out. Your solution makes sense, and seems like the easiest way to do it. The easy way is easy to overlook.
 

NoLimitSquads

Member
Feb 11, 2021
330
Minnesota
Well after trying all these things, I was able to finally get it to work. However none of these actually worked lol.
The problem was, that when the Backlight setting was in the off stage, Whelen decided to use disable backlighting on the controller instead of just none. I just changed that value to 100% when in the off stage and now I dont need to use an additional wire to activate it. So now it works as it should. Something that has been going on almost a week trying to figure out was the simplest but damnest thing. Thanks again for your help @NoLimitSquads
To me, it still seems like if you had another input with a higher priority than backlight, it wouldn’t matter if the backlight off state disabled it. The higher priority telling it to turn on should have worked.
 

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