Hey, my nakamichi turns off if i turn it up really loud, it turns off or "resets".. this isn't a sign something is shorting right?

I was thinking maybe it runs out of power to give the speakers? I don't have an amp or anything

//Alex

 

Bad connection somewhere most likely, shorting out somewhere. Check those speaker connections and everything behind the deck.

 

!!! what should I be checking for? something "loose" ?

//Alex

 

Loose, bare wire, make sure they're all secure and well insulated. Check them everywhere, speakers, deck, etc. The key is to isolate the problem. Keep checking different parts...

 

make sure the ground is solid and possibly even put a different fuse in the fuse block.

 

yea, id agree with the others, its probably just some loose wiring.

 

hmm.. check this guys.

I upgraded to the nakamichi - everything went well... every connection was soldered, etc. only "turned off" by itself at almost the highest volume (52-54 out of 60) in FM radio, didn't really think much of it.

Got these free speakers from my friend, and my stock ones had started to rattle so I said hey why not.. I replaced the left one (didn't do the connections properly, exposed etc), and my deck turned off around 38-40 volume (very unusual).. so I posted - then I realized ****, I did a shitty job with the connection.. So I soldered everything, electrical tape, everything perfect.. Still did it but at a higher volume. (not as annoying).

Then i unhooked the right speaker - left it off - and the deck didnt turn off at ALL, so?? when only one speaker was hooked up - even though it was an aftermarket one with my connections - everything was cool. So i decided to install the other aftermarket one in the right - soldered, taped everything cool.. Now it does it, but only on an even higher volume.. Around 50 it'll shut off (kindof like in the beginning on the FM).

Any more insight on this? I appreciate your help guys, you are the only ones I can turn to right now and i'd like to get this figured out

I did all the soldering myself - only thing is i'm not sure if i'm correctly grounded on the head unit - There was a ground coming from the head unit harness, and a ground coming from the stock harness (2 grounds), I only grounded one of them - I think the one coming from the deck. And its grounded on one of the metal pieces below the deck.

//Alex

 

good problem isolating the problem.. it does sound like a wiring problem still to me.. as long as your ground is good, which it does sound like it is.. it sounds like you have a short in one of your speaker wires somewhere you may not see.. get a fluke mulitmeter and test the speaker wires behind the headunit for ohms the speakers should read out b/w 3.5-4.5 ohms.. best way to do it is unplug the unit and put the postive and negative terminals into the harness and check it.. also while your testing it them make sure that you have all the wires correctly, cause you could have wired a positve to a negative and negative to positive and it would do the same thing..

the reason the stereo is turning off is because of a protection feature built into the unit itsself so that it will not blow the internal amplifier inside the radio

 

whew.. at least i'm not frying things .. Could it be the ground isn't grounded well enough? I'm gonna take apart my dash and take some pics.

Wouldn't the speakers not work if I connected the + and - incorrectly? or would it work no matter what?

//Alex

 

its definetly the decks amp protecting itself against failure such as heat or overload.

First thing, you should'nt have your deck at 90% volume, usually anything after 2/3s induces distortion and THAT is what kills your speakers more often than raw power. If you need volume up that loud, get a nice amp (it'll sound better, and your speakers will thank you!)

With that being said, if you already have the deck pulled out, try changing over the factory power and ground to something of higher gauge. The stock is usually very shitty and around 22 gauge with 24 gauge speaker wiring, you might want to try 16 all around..or if you can do it, use 12 gauge to the deck and then 16 to the speakers (more than enough).

See if the above helps by runnin a fused 18/16/12 gauge wire to the deck, and the same out to ground before taking the time to run everything.

-Rage

(consider an amp jeez!!)

 

yes the speakers will still work connected backwards they will just be out of phase, meaning you lose some bass and sound quality.. make sure the ground is good meaning grounded to good metal on the car w/ no paint and like someone said maybe run a new power wire to the unit..

 

the problem is probably the load your putting on your amp how many ohms are you running? most amps will handle a 2 ohm load but if you have lower than a 2 ohm load it is trying to get more power than your amp can put out and your amp gets hot and goes into protect. another thing is your power wire and gound wire to your amp any decent sized amp you should have a 4 gauge wire connecting. to test how many ohms you are running just use a multimeter and put positive on the speaker positive and ground on the speaker ground. make sure it is on ohm reading and that will tell you the ohm of a speaker now if your bridging the amp your going to have to figure out if you ran the subs in parrallel or series and then you might have to divide by 2 depending on your setup. hope this helps if you didn't figure it out already.

 

thanks for your writeups and your extensive help guys! I wouldn't know what to do without you

Anyway my decision is its time for an amp! I shouldn't be pushing my head unit that hard anyway.

//Alex

 

Just wait man, it's one bad cycle after another. First is the deck, then the speakers, then an amp, then some subs, etc. I hope your ready