what causes instrument panel lights from comming on

Tail light fuse. That is so you won't be driving without tail lights and not know

But you also need to find out why the fuse blew unless you accidentaly dimmed them to nothing. I have done that

i have tail lighs and when i turn up dim switch dash lights are still out davidh25

OK, Then it may be a ground issue..very unlikely all bulbs will go out at the same time. May have to begin tracing wires, that's the only other thing I can think of is a ground come loose/off. Hopefully somebody will come along with a better solution than to begin taking the dash apart.

I just though maybe just maybe the dimmer switch itself could be bad, to test, it needs to be taken out and jumped from hot to dash feed, if the dash lights up then, it's the dimmer