Help from Audio Specialists

[J053619]

So I finally managed to connect my entire audio system, Alpine pdx v9 amp, kicker speakers and sub however my amp refuses to turn on.

I installed the power line with a 100A fuse to the + terminal, grounded the amp to a seat bolt (wire brushed it to bare metal) and tapped the ignition wire as my remote turn on wire. However it refuses to turn on. I had to tap into the ignition because my kenwood HU is not sending 12v through the power wire (blue and white)

I already checked that 12v are being sent through both the power cable and the turn on wire but the amp still will not turn on. I called crutchfield and ran through every step with them to ensure everything is installed properly and they can't find the cause either.

I'm stumped, crutchfield is stumped and i'm about to go nuts after driving in silence for over a month now. I even tested the remote turn on by passing some wire to the power wire but since its tapped into the ignition it turned on the HU but didn't power on the amp! :redbrick:

 

[UnderFire]

Try unplugging everything except power and ground from the amp and bridging a wire from the power to remote turn on, if you get nothing then there's something wrong with the input side of the amp, if it comes on, then you've got something wrong on the output side, either grounded speaker wire or rcas or something wrong inside the amp.

 

[J053619]

I disconnected all speakers because i thought i might have messed that up somewhere, like you said and accidentally grounded a speaker.

When I bridged wire from the power to the remote turn on, it still didn't turn on but it turned on my Hu since i have both Hu and remote turn on wire tapped to the ignition wire.

I even ran by bestbuy to pickup another amp and that won't turn on either. However I feel like the one I bought might have been returned since it was missing the install hardware.

 

[J053619]

Yea, I think i'm going to try this tomorrow. This is why i didn't mount the amp, i wanted to make sure it was powering on before proceeding to locate it under the seat.

I don't know if this helps, but the first time i tried bridging the power and turn on wire the amp lit up for a split second. However I had the negative battery terminal disconnected when this happened. Once I connected the negative terminal and started the car nothing happened.

 

[BrianSD_42]

Do you have another AMP you can try?

Did ever power on for even a moment?

The amp should power up if it has 12V main power and 12V "head unit ACC or head unit on" power. For testing purposes you can just bridge a wire from the main power to the "head unit on" lead.

Amps are actually very simple so if it doens't turn on then frankly the amp is bad or your wiring is bad.

 

[riceandpho]

For the kenwood decks I put in, I always use the blue white for remote and antenna power, as far for the ground, lift up the carpet under the seat, assuming you have it under the front seat, you will see a 10mm bolt where the seat grounds are connected to for powered seat. Maybe Steve can chime in about the kenwood remote wire.

 

[J053619]

I appreciate all the feedback guys!

I checked the fuses earlier today and they are all fine. The inline fuse for the power wire isn't damaged, i checked with a multimeter on both ends of the wire to double check. Also the fuses on the amp seem intact, ill see if i can find my fuse tester to double check.

When i take the amp to the car battery can I just connect the power wire to the amp and positive terminal directly, the ground to the negative terminal since that is technically a ground also? Right after I can connect the remove turn on wire to the positive terminal and if the amp is good this should turn it on right?

 

[J053619]

For the kenwood decks I put in, I always use the blue white for remote and antenna power, as far for the ground, lift up the carpet under the seat, assuming you have it under the front seat, you will see a 10mm bolt where the seat grounds are connected to for powered seat. Maybe Steve can chime in about the kenwood remote wire.

I was originally using the power turn on wire (blue white) from the kenwood but it wasn't feeding 12v. I turned on the car and the Hu lit up, but the wire still wouldn't feed 12v

 

[J053619]

FROM the manual online...

Remote Turn-On Lead (Sold Separately)
Connect this lead to the remote turn-on (positive trigger, (+)
12V only) lead of your head unit. If a remote turn-on lead is
not available, see Connection Checklist section on page 10 for
alternative method.
Note:
If using speaker input level signal from the head unit, remote
turn-on lead connection is not necessary due to automatic
signal detection.

http://support.alpine-usa.com/products/documents/OM_PDX-V9.pdf

Give the manual a readthru! can't hurt.

I've read this manual so many times before install in order to prepare and after i feel like i could write it with my left hand lol. The same way you have the remote turn on and the power line bridged is what i tried and it hasn't worked either. It did however loop back to power on the HU when i did this since I tapped the ignition wire for the remote turn on wire. I did this when i realized the power wire from the HU wasn't feeding any voltage (I checked when the HU was on).

Thanks for your help man, i really appreciate the effort you are putting into helping me out. I think the last thing is testing it directly to the battery. If not i think this amp might be bad.

 

[riceandpho]

i have a feeling that the wires are not wired correctly. did you use a harness or splice the factory harness? also what year truck?

 

[J053619]

I wish i had a spare battery. Since i bought the same amp from best buy to test if alpine can't figure it out tomorrow ill swing buy and see what they find. I can't believe the one from best buy might be bad too. Maybe just my luck? :noidea:

 

[J053619]

i have a feeling that the wires are not wired correctly. did you use a harness or splice the factory harness? also what year truck?

Its a 2006 limited v8 and i spliced into the power adapter that i bought from crutchfield 70-8117. So the HU and amp are wired to the red ignition wire on the adapter. If it wasn't wired properly wouldn't that not let the HU not power on either?

The wire that's supposed to turn on is feeding the 12v to the end of the wire that goes into the amp, so I'm really lost at this point. After doing electrical for the first time, i'd pick installing a lift in a blizzard over this any day :\

 

[riceandpho]

So you sure you got yellow to yellow and red to red, ground to black. I don't want to see any hack jobs here lol.

 

[J053619]

Couldn't sleep which is rare so I read the whole amp manual. Nice piece of hardware with a price tag to match. Feel free to send me one of the 'dead' ones when all is said and done =)....

Amp is fine!

I apparently my turn on wire was not feeding power anymore. I also changed my ground. I used the method you drew to check if the amp would power on. Below is what i originally tried, and that's how my HU turned on.

With your method the amp powers up, now the only issue left is the amp light stays red. Instead of checking all the cables for the speakers i'm going to run new wiring. Hopefully I can manage to get sound by the end of today.

 

[J053619]

Good job sticking with it!



Not a big fan of this 'wikihow' pic. Shorting +12V battery to remote turn-on at the amp means (1) The amp will always be on and draining your battery if red wire is going straight to fused battery as it should. Extra not good. (2) Also means you're 'forcing' always-on battery back through the remote turn-on *output* of the HU, which is what may have nuked the output driver or any inline fuses which sent you searching for good 'ol trusty ACC to power the HU and start the amp. Pic should probably say ''wikiwhuh?' but I don't know the context it's used in.



So with just GND, +12V, remote turn-on jumpered to +12V you get blue LED? Until you see a blue LED on that amp there's cause for concern.

Heck just tape 8 'D' batteries together in a stick and see if that turns the LED blue with ONLY PWR, GND, and remote jumpered to PWR. Or get a 12V lantern battery, or a spare 12V anything battery, or use yellow and black from an old desktop PC power supply.

Thank man, your advice and everyone elses was a big help.
I just used the wiki method to check the amp. Now that I know my amp is good I'm going to reinstall all new speaker wire and avoid tapping into the original wiring. Ill post results tonight, hopefully they're good results!

 

[J053619]

Today's results:

- I tore apart all the posi taps i used to tap into the original speaker wiring and just ran to advance auto to buy 100' wire so i could be sure nothing was connected incorrectly. Also dumped the metra speaker adapters
- I pulled out the head unit so i can make sure my remote wire was tapped properly into the ignition wire and used the multimeter to check its was being fed 12v
-I used yet another ground by the seat belt (going to change this just wanted to get everything hooked up and running)

Not sure which of these was causing the problem, but I figure it was either the ground or a combination of the metra adapters and tapping into the original speaker wiring.

Thanks to everyone that helped me figure this out. Seriously the feedback kept me motivated to figure this out. Without this forum I would have taken it to an audio shop, and being new at this I would have believed everything they would have told me.

I can finally bump my taylor swift jams haha. :cheer2:

 

[BrianSD_42]

The next time you have internet problems just remember to power off the router and power it back up.

Glad we could help.

 

[J053619]

The next time you have internet problems just remember to power off the router and power it back up.

Glad we could help.

When my brother and me worked on it and couldn't get it to power on he said this same thing. Did you try turning it off and on again :lmao:

 

[riceandpho]

theres a ground bolt to use under the carpet, and its a good solid ground. i wonder how you even hook the radio up in the first place, if you use the blue white to the blue on the harness and what ever color the amp remote to that harness should be fine, if you tap the white blue to acc on car harness you just fried that i think.