JCritt

Battery is constantly being Drained.......

I just bought a Kenwood KDC-4011s (160watt), it has a cut harness that has labels on each wire:
(Example: Front L, Front R, Rear L, Etc.)
^ Blah blah I connect those wires to the correct wires to the civic radio harness.

Now a problem is starting. After matching the wires my battery is constantly dying.......
Can anyone explain this? I just color matched all the wires, and it works but it keeps draining my battery? Looking for help...

jayare05

go to autozone and have ur battery tested.. ur battery might just be old or bad alternator.. a head unit wouldnt drain that much power for ur car not to start

JCritt

i just replaced the battery the other day, and it died on me this morning,,, its not the alternator, im almost 100% its the headunit becayuse when i leave it unplugged my battery doesnt die, oh yeah also it seems as if when i turn off the car with the radio plugged in it, the battery dies?........

This morning:
(Had the radio unplugged all last night, this morning car started fine, plugged the radio back in, drove aroudn fine, forgot something at home so i turned around, got home and shut off the car. Tried to start it up again, no luck... dead battery.)

Here is the diagram i followed:
http://www.streetdreams.com/wi....html

wtf is going on?

killer6993

I'd try posting in the Audio Forums. People are more likely to help with the wiring there.


I would say check your wiring, never hurts to double check.

Ricey McRicerton

I'll be more than happy to break out my Helms and write you something up when I get home. Just PM and remind me.

JCritt

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by killer6993 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I'd try posting in the Audio Forums. People are more likely to help with the wiring there.


I would say check your wiring, never hurts to double check.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Checked, and it matches....... have a thread over in audio no response :[. ty for post

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Ricey McRicerton &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I'll be more than happy to break out my Helms and write you something up when I get home. Just PM and remind me. </TD></TR></TABLE>

Thanks.

Ne1 out there that knows the answer -- save ricey from a tedious writeup

jlacoy82

Well........does the deck stay on after you turn the car off? And are you running any external amplifiers to speakers/subs?

JCritt

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by jlacoy82 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Well........does the deck stay on after you turn the car off? And are you running any external amplifiers to speakers/subs?</TD></TR></TABLE>

Not running any amps/ subs....

I believe this is the problem too! It seems like the deck stays on after i turn the car off? Its not sposed to do that correct? Why does it do this? Even if i take off the deatachable face plate, its still on?

Ricey McRicerton

I actually need to know what year car you have before I can say what you need to do. The speaker wire colors are being omitted, as I'm sure you can figure that out if you haven't already.

96-00

White/blue- constant power
yellow/red- switched power
black -ground
red/black - lights on switch
yellow/black- power antennae motor (for 99+ only)

The pins are different from 96-98 and 99-00, but the wire colors are the same.

EDIT: If you need more assistance with what pins go where or anything like that, feel free to PM me.

JCritt

96-98

jlacoy82

Ok, there is a black (ground), yellow (constant power), and red (switched power/accessory) wires on the harness. If you have and know how to use a multimeter, with the car off and the keys out, put the meter on the red wire and if there is voltage at that wire, there is your problem. The red wire is the accessory wire that should only receive power when you turn the car on/to acc.

If its constantly getting power, the deck stays on until you manually power it down or remove the face plate. If in fact that is the case, you need to find a switched source of power in the dash, which Ricey would probably be able to help you out with if he has wiring codes.

IF this is not the problem, I'm not quite sure, the deck may be faulty?

Ricey McRicerton

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by jlacoy82 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">IF this is not the problem, I'm not quite sure, the deck may be faulty?</TD></TR></TABLE>

A multimeter is a huge asset when trying to troubleshoot things like this, but if you don't know how to use one, it doesn't help you out at all. I gave him color codes, so he should be able to figure it out. A faulty headunit can't pull power from a switched source no matter how crazy it is. Sounds to me like he possibly got his switched power and his constant power running off of the same wire or has them backwards. I wonder if having them backwards would allow the headunit to keep it's presets and such.

jlacoy82

If they were backwards, no, the radio presets would be lost every time he turned the car off for more than a few seconds, and would also cause the deck to stay turned on constantly.


*** Disregard faulty unit thing, Ricey is right, if the unit is faulty at all, its alot more likely to NOT turn on at all than it is to constantly draw power.

JCritt

Damnit...

Bought the unit used from a dude who had it installed in his car... So it shouldnt have been faulty if he had it installed (?). If it IS faulty, its because he set me up -or- it became faulty from my ride home after the purchase ha ha. (On second thought he did tell me that he was goign to have amps for sale.. so he wouldnt have said that if he sold me a faulty player(?).)

alright, i'll test out the red wire to see if its constantly supplying power. Thats really weird if it does.......... i dunno what i did to F* that wire up. Finding another source of power will be a pain(?), but i will shoot ricey a PM if thats what i gotta do.

Edit: and i will triple check my wires again

TGrant

most likely your new head unit is causing a parastitic draw nothin you can do but pull the head unit out and recheck all of your wiring

JCritt

Thanks guys for your help.... i finally fixed the problem. Error in my wiring :]

for helpful peers

jlacoy82

Were the red and yellow wires swapped?

JCritt

actually i had the power antennae wire connected lol

"Power Antenna - Red / Silver - Blue"

I had a blue wire left and a red one left so i connected the two....... Doh! Disconnected the two and im good to go. Lol i guess i wanted a power antenna badly