Stereo install woes

[jleger98]

Just spent most of yesterday installing my new system. Got all the speakers mounted, the transom remote, HU and the amps. GREAT! Then I hooked it up to the battery, hit the power and UGH!

Very little volume, and when I tried to increase the gain on the main amp, everything got all nasty. Sounded extraordinarily overmodulated, or like there was a cell phone interference, but it never went away. (I even put my cell phone in the house.)

A couple of things:
1. The entire system is independant of everything else on the boat, so I know there is no interference from that (infact nothing else on the boat is even hooked to a battery at this point.)
2. When I powered it off, waited a minute, then back on, it sounded ok, still sorta quiet, but then after about 10 seconds, the nasty sound faded back in.
3. I had the entire system hooked up in the house, off a different battery and it worked fine.
4. None of the components got jarred or anything in transit from the basement to the boat.
5. I am using a 30A relay to turn on the amps, triggered by the ACC switch.

So, any thoughts? My first thought was I had a short somewhere, but I double checked everything and it all seemed ok - nowhere for a short really.
Next I thought maybe the battery was not charged completely. I had charged it about two weeks ago, but its a used and as-yet unproven battery. I ran out of time to run in and get my meter to test it. I'll try to do that tonight.

Anyone have any other thoughts as to what the issue could be?

was really dissapointing to put a whole day into installing everything and not hearing it cranking at the end of the day.

[chpthril]

Here's a couple of thing that I would check if it were me.

Battery charge
fade/balance on HU
Speaker +'s/-'s, may have some out of phase.
I would test all the power and grounds with a test light because a poor connection can still show voltage on a DVOM, but it takes current to burn a test light.

Good luck, I know how frustrated you must be

[jleger98]

[QUOTE=chpthril;50939]
I would test all the power and grounds with a test light because a poor connection can still show voltage on a DVOM, but it takes current to burn a test light.
QUOTE]

yeah, I dbl checked the +/- on all the speakers, and power conns. I'll try the test-light thing and the battery pwr. Should be 13V+ right? if fully charged? Actually I might just swap my cranking battery in there just to see if that makes a difference before I go crawling into the amp compartment to test current etc.

[philwsailz]

Your amps have an under-volt feature, and they will shut off if attempting to play at reasonable volume, when the voltage drops under 10.5v. They will cut COMPLETELY off.

Now, that is not to say the will not turn on when you turn the radio on; a very drained battery will still often show 12 volts with no load. It is when you attempt to turn it up that the amps will see the voltage drop below 10.5 volts; when the amps actually start to try to work. Again, your amps will COMPLETELY shut off...

With that being said, yeah, still try a different battery, but your symptoms do not indicate a dead battery at this point, at least not to me.

My first thought is "kitty-whisker" shorting somewhere between the speakers and the amp; not enough to trigger short circuit protection, but enough to make the low power nasty sound you describe.

I would be chasing the speaker wires first; check to make sure there are no accidental shorts between the speakers and the amp.

Did you pull new speaker wire, or use the wire that was in the boat already?

[jleger98]

interesting. All the speaker wire is new. The old stuff was really small.

My first guess is the battery, just becasue its an unknown. I took pretty good care to make sure there were no shorts anywhere or "kitty whiskers".

One other thing that occured to me is that I can try to use the sub amp with each individual speaker to test to see IF there are any shorts.

It also just occurred to me that the HU has a battery level indicator on it. So I can fire it up and just look at that to see where the battery is.

GOD I hate sitting at work when there is work to be done on the boat

[Domsz06]

um, is your head unit good? some need a inline booster to the amps to make the quality better and louder.

[jleger98]

It was good when I had it hooked up in the house. I have no reason to believe its bad now. 50w/channel should be plenty of power.

[Domsz06]

but the outputs are not powered by the 50w channel.

after rereading your post I think your right that it's not the prob. But I was referring to on headunits the non expensive kind tend to run not as much power through the outputs of the RCA's So, you therefore have to turn up your amp/speakers more. I know on mine you do. It's going to be interesting as I have a line booster now, wonder how much louder and cleaner they will be

[spharis]

What source unit do you have?
How long are your RCAs?
Are you using a seperate wire, or an integrated wire in the RCAs to turn on the amps?
Are you using RCAs, ad not speaker leads to send signal to the amp?
Did you at any point have the HU on while plugging or unplugging RCAs?

[jleger98]

What source unit do you have?
How long are your RCAs?
Are you using a seperate wire, or an integrated wire in the RCAs to turn on the amps?
Are you using RCAs, ad not speaker leads to send signal to the amp?
Did you at any point have the HU on while plugging or unplugging RCAs?

Here is what I have.

I have a Pioneer DEH-P6800MP HU with ip-bus iPod adapter
Kicker KX650.4 4 Channel Car Audio Amp Amplifier
Kicker KX400.1 Mono Class D Amp Car Audio Amplifier
Kicker 05C10-4 subwoofer
4 Polk Audio 6.5" speakers (don't recall the model#)
Pioneer transom remote with ip-bus

I am using RCA's to the amps. Regarding power, I have a switch (the ACC) which hits a relay. That relay in turn powers a fuse-block which is what the amps are powered from. The RCA's are all 4-6 feet long cables. I hooked everything up before applying power to the system, and shut off the ACC switch before removing anything.

[jleger98]

but the outputs are not powered by the 50w channel.

Good point.

But I was referring to on headunits the non expensive kind tend to run not as much power through the outputs of the RCA's

Its not a ultra-high end HU, but its not a cheapo either. and as I said, it worked fine in the house.

[dogbert]

It sounds to me like you have a grounding problem and that there's voltage building up that results in the static noise. Make sure *ALL* of your units are grounded to the same ground. If that doesn't help, try adding a noise filter between your head unit and your amps. It takes care of this type of issue.

[jleger98]

Here is a diagram of what I've done. Maybe there is something obvious here.

And yes, I SUCK at wiring diagrams. Hopefully this won't confuse more than it helps. I left out a few non-powered things, like speakers, some IP-Bus stuff etc but all the power stuff is here.

[chpthril]

Here is a diagram of what I've done. Maybe there is something obvious here.

And yes, I SUCK at wiring diagrams. Hopefully this won't confuse more than it helps. I left out a few non-powered things, like speakers, some IP-Bus stuff etc but all the power stuff is here.

Based on the diag, it looks like the HU ground is "switched" by the relay. If so, I would recommend a "clean" ground right to the battery and use the relay to control the POS.

I made some changes to your drawing, hope that is ok. Thought it would be easier to show than try to explain.

[dogbert]

Ok, if I read this correctly, your fuse block is on the ground for your amps? Also, you have a powerbar (not sure what you mean by this) for your amps, but not for your head unit?

What I was talking about was making sure that the ground was uninterrupted between the the amps and the head unit (and your iPod if it is also powered by your boat). If you don't, you risk noise build up.

Another thing to check is to make sure your ground is beefy enough. I ended up using the 2/0 battery cable for my ground. It's important because of the length you're probably having to run for the ground (mine was 16').