New Stereo will not power up

[Robertpel9]

I meant to post this here in the first place not general:

My electrical fun continues.

I replaced the sony am/fm cassette deck with a new (well refurbished) Sony AM/FM CD with Aux Jack as an upgrade. To my disappointment when it came i saw that I would not just be able to plug in the new on as the harness plug had changed since 1995 when the boat was new.

Seemed simple enough to me to install i just cut the plug off of the old harness and matched up color for color the wires from the new harness that came with the unit. I crimped everything up real nice and to my dismay it will not even power on.

I have triple checked and am positive red is to red, black is to black, etc. Even if there was a speaker issue or wiring issue etc I would think the red and black being right would let it power on

Does it sound like i just got a defective head unit or am i missing some wiring issue here. Interestingly under the dash there is a factory harness where all of the speaker wire comes up, then there is a seperate black box with the black and yellow wires going through it where there is a fuse inside and a small round thing (looks like a small cylinder, i am an electrical idiot so i do not know what to call it, a capacitor or something) then the red wire is on its oen and there is a fuse box for that as well. All of the fuses are fine etc

Fact is that the old stereo powered up fine, all i did was trim the plug off and match up the colors, what could be wrong.

As always thanks for the help

Robert

 

[JoLin]

Re: New Stereo will not power up

The key might be in the yellow and red wires. I just replaced a Sony AM/FM/Cassette unit with a Jensen A</FM/CD. The Jensen has an additional "power" wire (either red or yellow, can't recall which) dedicated to maintaining power to memory, i.e., the presets that you set up (time, stations, stc). The "other" wire is your primary power lead. The Sony I removed did not have the separate memory wire. You may be passing your primary power to the wrong lead.

 

[Robertpel9]

Re: New Stereo will not power up

I swapped the red and the yellow and it powered up and worked, however as soon as i increased the volume to a reasonable level it cut off and went dark then made a set of 3 beeping noises, i was able to reconnect it two times after that to "reboot" so to speak, the third time it just shut off and never would come back on after even waiting 30 minutes.

I unplugged the harness so it would not drin the battery but here is the current setup:

Yellow wire on plug into back of sony headunit is connected to the red wire from the boats wiring

Red wire on plug into back of sony headunit is connected to the red wire from the boats wiring

Yellow wire from boats wiring is idle and not in use

I am now at a total loss and going nuts, what gives???

 

[bruceb58]

Re: New Stereo will not power up

Sounds like you have a voltage drop again. Get your meter and measure the voltage at the radio as you start cranking up the volume.

 

[Boatin Bob]

Re: New Stereo will not power up

I think Bruce is right on, the new stereo probably draws twice the power of the older one (larger internal amp) and might not be able to satisfy the needs of the newer one. ALso it's ok to leave the yellow and red together as most boats don't have an ACC position on the iginition switch and you don't want to have the ignition turned to ON to listen to the stereo while anchored however if the unit has a removable faceplate I would remove it when away from the boat, I know in our small boat the faceplate will drain the battery enough over a couple of weeks that it won't start anymore, if you remove it then all it's doing is keeping the memory alive for your presets, clock and other settings.

Sony 16 pin wiring connector

Pin Number Wire Color Function
1 White Left Front Positive
2 Green Left Rear Positive
3 Violet Right Rear Positive
4 Grey Right Front Positive
5 Blue/White Amplifier Remote
6 Blue Antenna Remote
7 Red Accessory 12 Volts
8 Black Ground
9 White/Black Left Front Negative
10 Green/Black Left Rear Negative
11 Violet/Black Right Rear Negative
12 Grey/Black Right Front Negative
13 Sky Blue Telephone Mute
14 Orange/White Illumination
15 Not Used Not Used
16 Yellow Constant 12 Volts

 

[Robertpel9]

Re: New Stereo will not power up

So how do i hook it up right to the battery. Is is going to be ok to bypass the fuse panel and the little box with the yellow and black wires under the dash? What wires do i need to run?? a ground and a power or just a red wire from the positive battery post to the yellow and red from the head unit directly??? I do not know what purpose the little black box under the dash with a fuse and a small electrical panel serves that has the yellow and red coming out of it.

Thanks for the help so far, please keep it coming

 

[Robertpel9]

Re: New Stereo will not power up

Here is an answer i saw in a different forum, does this make sense? If so how do i add a fuse to the wire near the positive terminal??

It's very common in boats for the voltage source at the radio to be weak. Thin wiring and corroded connections create resistance in the power wiring, which results in a voltage drop when the deck's amplifier requires more current. The problem is made worse by the fact that there's no metal chassis like in a car, so more voltage drops are introduced into the ground wiring.

The easiest fix is to run a new power and ground wire directly to the battery from your radio. Depending on the length, some 14-gauge or 16-gauge speaker wire should do nicely. Connect the deck's black wire to your battery's negative terminal, and the yellow wire to the positive terminal. Put a 10-amp fuse on the wire near the positive terminal.

If your deck is wired to turn on and off through a key switch or accessory switch, then leave the deck's red wire connected as it is now; it doesn't require any significant current. Otherwise you can combine the red wire with the yellow wire and connect both to the positive terminal.

* 11 months ago

Source(s):
MECP-certified car audio installer (with boat experience)
I've had to fix this problem in several boats.

 

[Boatin Bob]

Re: New Stereo will not power up

Sure you could do that only I wouldn't use speaker wire, I would get some real marine grade wire (red and black), you could crimp an inline 10 amp fuse (use good waterproof connectors) into it near the battery connection. Connect the red and yellow from the stereo to the red wire and black to black plus all the speaker connections and your good to go. No need to use that old black box from previous stereo then or the fuse.

 

[Robertpel9]

Re: New Stereo will not power up

cool, i will try it this weekend.

I noted that one of the front speakers sounded great when it did work and one crackled, may i need to replace all of the speaker wire as well? also could that hadve been the cause of the issue as likely or more than the power supply

 

[DRIFTER_016]

Re: New Stereo will not power up

Red wire is for a switched +12 volt source.
Yellow wire is for a constant, unswitched +12 volt source.
Make sure that you have 12 volts on these two wires and that you have a good ground (black wire) connection.
With it cutting out you more than likely have a poor ground. Check where the black wire is connected (usually a grounding bus near the fuse panel) look for corosion and loose connections. Check voltage on the red and yellow wires (should be 12 volts with engine off, approx 14 volts while engine running) Check battery connections for tightness and corosion.
It's definately a power or poor ground issue.

 

[Boatin Bob]

Re: New Stereo will not power up

For the speaker issue I would suspect the speaker itself but once you get the new stereo in then you can swap the speakers and see if the problem moves or not.

 

[BamaAlum97]

Re: New Stereo will not power up

Yellow wire is for a constant, unswitched +12 volt source.

Anyone know what the approximate power draw is for the constant power? I assume this is the power connection required for maintaining presets, clock, etc...

 

[byacey]

Re: New Stereo will not power up

What you are describing is the classic symptoms of a speaker wire shorted to ground. On many of these newer stereos that have a bridging amplifier type output, neither the speaker common (-) or (+) can be in contact with ground, or each other or another speakers leads. These have to be 100% floating. The speaker that was crackling is most likely the one that has the shorted line. This will cause unusually high current draw and can damage the output IC.

 

[haskindm]

Re: New Stereo will not power up

Please note that ABYC wiring standards stipulate that the 12-volt negative wires on a boat to be YELLOW not black. Since boats often have 120-volt and 12-volt wiring the black 12-volt negative wire often got confused with black 120-volt hot wires. If your boat follows ABYC wiring standards look for yellow 12-volt negative wires. For ABYC wiring color standards refer to: http://goldstarmarine.com/techtipsPdf/ABYC WIRING COLOR CODES.pdf

 

[Boatin Bob]

Re: New Stereo will not power up

the 12-volt negative wires on a boat to be YELLOW not black For ABYC wiring color standards refer to: http://goldstarmarine.com/techtipsPdf/ABYC WIRING COLOR CODES.pdf

Well in the link you provided it clearly says Black or yellow, does not say only use yellow and not black?

ps...I have never seen a yellow negative wire in any boat I've ever been in.

 

[haskindm]

Re: New Stereo will not power up

Its a choice at this point. I guess it is really only an issue if you have both 12-volt and 120-volt power. My 2005 Grady uses yellow negative wires. Had me scratching my head until I figured it out.