New radio speakers made everything go crazy!

[jscott84]

I have a 1993 Bayliner Capri 1850. Everything worked fine until I installed 2 new radio speakers yesterday. After hooking up the new speakers I turned the radio on to test it. The radio worked great however when the radio was on, it made all my gauges jump back and forth and continued until the radio was off. I then lost power to everything except the radio. After unhooking the radio power, all the gauges remained in their highest position and I still had no power to any lights, blower, horn etc. I tried to start the engine and it would try to turn over for the first few times and then after that, all I heard was a click. I gave up and left, came back after a few minutes and noticed all my gauges had reset to normal. I then tried to start it and it fired right up and I now have power to everything again. I hooked the radio back up and everything is fine now. Any ideas what could have happened?? Also when I installed the speakers, I didn't mess with any power/ground wires, just the speaker wire and the new speakers are 100W each when the old were 30W each. Don't know if that helps or not. Thanks!

 

[Silvertip]

Re: New radio speakers made everything go crazy!

First, when speakers are labeled 100 watts that doesn't mean they draw 100 watts of power. It means they are capapable of "handling" 100 watts of output power from the radio. If the radio output power is 30 watts max you spent money on speakers needlessly.

If you were anywhere near the back of the radio to make speaker connections you did indeed mess with power and ground in some fashion. What that was I can't say. But obviously something you did caused the issue. When everything went dead, apparently a circuit breaker opened which apparently was an auto reset type as it reset itself. Gauges have no reset capability.

I suspect you bumped, dislodged, or moved something in the installation process which caused the issue. I would suggest you look very carefully at your speaker connections and double check under the console if you messed with things under there.

 

[John_S]

Re: New radio speakers made everything go crazy!

I suspect you bumped, dislodged, or moved something in the installation process which caused the issue. I would suggest you look very carefully at your speaker connections and double check under the console if you messed with things under there.

I suspect there was some sort of short caused by tugging on the speaker wires or bumping others. (battery was near dead) This could be from pulling the speaker wire over some sharp edge, exposing the conductor, a mounting screw through wiring, etc. Could have happened long ago, and the recent work just made contact with live 12v.

 

[jscott84]

Re: New radio speakers made everything go crazy!

Thanks for the advice everyone! I'm at work now but will check out all the wiring closely when I get home and will let everyone know.

 

[wicawic]

Re: New radio speakers made everything go crazy!

i agree with the guy who said if you messed with the radio then you bumped something...all you needed to do to change your speakers was to remove the old ones and disconnect the positive and negative terminal then just reconnect both back to the new speaks. from what you wrote it sounded to me as if you actually were accessing the back of the radio. no need unless you were running new wire..and to the guy who said something about the wires rubbing and causing the short. from my radio knowledge i'm pretty sure that when a speaker wire comes in contact with a grounding point the radio usually will shut the the output channels off to protect itself....this is just from personal experiences...

 

[jscott84]

Re: New radio speakers made everything go crazy!

When I installed the radio, I did not mess with anything in the back of the radio, in fact I never even pulled it out. I only hooked up the current speaker wires to the new speakers. I just got done looking behind everything to see if when I pulled on the speaker wires if it could have messed with any wires. From what I can see, I highly doubt anything else was moved because about 2 feet back on the speaker wires from the speakers, they have a plastic clip around the wires that is screwed to the boat. The wires are tight in it and won't move at all. So from the clip back to the radio and other wires, there was plenty of slack that shouldn't have been moved at all. Everything is still working fine, I'm just very curious what could have happened.

 

[John_S]

Re: New radio speakers made everything go crazy!

i'm pretty sure that when a speaker wire comes in contact with a grounding point the radio usually will shut the the output channels off to protect itself....this is just from personal experiences...

Most modern receivers that is true. I am not sure about a '93 US Marine unit. They were very value oriented. I don't think it was shorted through the speaker wire. It would have blown the output device if it wasn't protected. Had to be unfused or high trip current to run battery down that quickly. Either that or a very weak battery.

If all other devices are working, no fuse was blown. Auto reset breakers are usually used only on trolling motors. I wouldn't get comfortable by the problem just going away.