[dmarland]

Hey all,
I haven't posted in a while. I did post the question below on the audio thread and no anwers yet.
I had my Sony Xplod intalled about two years ago by a chain electronic store. No problems until about three days ago. All of a sudden the radio shut off. Well I thought maybe a ground came loose. now that I have the counsel torn apart and the wires exposed.... I can't find where the issue is. I found the wire (I think) that gives the radio power. I also reconnected one of the main grounds from the radio harness. However, When I turn the radio up the power shuts off. Any Ideas?

dmarland
1985 Alfa spider veloce

 

[ghnl]

Maybe your Spider does not like your choice of music...

 

[dmarland]

She loves my music!!!! Thanks for the idea though.

 

[kevinl]

Try wiring the radio direct to the battery, then turning it up. If it still does it, then the radio is suspect. You do not say that it is blowing a fuse?

 

[Spider77rebuild]

I Like the sony xplode units. I have 2 of them .
The first thing i would do is to make a new ground, There is a screw hole in the center of the radio back you can use.
some of these radios have more than one power line ,
make sure you have each one, fixed right, download a (wiring sam) if you need to.
Do you have a amp on it or is it just speakers.
If a amp is pulling to much it will shout down a radio , ( it can over heat them ) .
allso make sure if you have a amp it is powered and grounded right allso. If this does not help your radio could be bad.

 

[dmarland]

I also have two of the xplods. I hooked up my other one to see if it cut out...and it did. So this leads me back to a ground issue. I do not have an amp just speakers. Is the red wird coming from the radio harness supposed to go straight to the fuse box on #5?

 

[60sRacer]

Maybe your neighbors or other drivers don't like the high volume? Have you found any bullet holes?



Robert

 

[vf31rhill]

On my old Nissan Frontier I had a similiar problem which no one could fix. I kept replacing radios to no effect. The radio would cut off at higher volumes and not come back on until you turned off the ignition and restarted the engine. Then the same thing would happen again. Even the audio experts were stumped. I finally noticed that if you cranked the volume up one of the door speakers (this was a 4 door crew cab Frontier) would get real scratchy just before the system cut off. I finally figured out the problem.

Modern audio systems have a overload circuit which cuts the unit off in case it starts to draw dangerous overloads. Prevents the unit from burning out the amplifier circuit. It will not reset until you turn the power to the unit off completely (turn off the ignition and remove the key). In my case, subsequent investigation revealed that some PO passenger had spilled a sticky drink into the speaker grill. This fluid caused the flexable portion of the speaker fabric to become so brittle that it over-drove the unit to make it flex. This caused the unit to trip overload. Solution was to replace the faulty speaker. No more problems after that and I still have a couple of extra units in the attic which were never needed in the first palce.

Expensive lesson learned. Try unhooking the speakers one at a time and see if this solves the problem. if it does, replace that speaker (or all of them if they are old and have been rained into.

Good Luck, Robert Hill in Memphis, TN

 

[60sRacer]

Speakers in Alfa doors are always exposed to the rain. The inner side - next to the door cards is always covered with a plastic sheet because the window allows lots of water inside the door. Speakers that cut thru this sheet are in the rainfall unless they have a waterproof backing.

Whenever you take the door cards off, be sure to inspect the drains in the bottom of the doors - junk collects here, and the doors will rust out if the drains are not kept clear.

Roebrt

 

[dmarland]

I tried the blown speaker suggestion mention by could not find one blown. However, another weird thing is if I have one speaker hooked I can turn the volume up without the radio shutting off. I can also set the balance to one speaker and turn it up with any issue. But as soon as I bring both speakers into balance the & turn it up it shuts down. I gues for now I will not turn it up very loud. If anyone has any other suggestions please post. I will try just about anything (with-in reason).

 

[vf31rhill]

Check the OHM rating of the speakers (you will have to take them out to look at the back side). There are 4 and 8 ohm speakers. I don't know why or what the resaoning here is, but if you have 8 ohm speakers you might try replacing them with 4 ohm speakers.

I think I would try another set of speakers anyway, just to eliminate any possible problem with speakers. It sounds like your unit is being driven to overload circuit shut- down by some kind of higher than normal resistance in the speaker circuits.

Good Luck, Robert

 

[swagner]

When the radio is loud enough that it cuts out are there any other noticeable electrical issues? Do the turn signals work? Flashers? All guages? Is your battery light on? This happened to me when my alternator was going. It was only putting out about 10.5v which could run the car, but when the radio was cranked it just sucked too much juice.

Good luck.

 

[60sRacer]

What is the power output of your radio at full volume? Some of the modern high-end radios can put out lots of watts (several hundred), which takes a lot of current - 480 watts needs 40 amps!! That's why you see BIG power wiring on custom stereo installations. You could simply be sucking too much power for your wiring or battery/alternator to supply.

Robert

 

[dmarland]

What is the power output of your radio at full volume? Some of the modern high-end radios can put out lots of watts (several hundred), which takes a lot of current - 480 watts needs 40 amps!! That's why you see BIG power wiring on custom stereo installations. You could simply be sucking too much power for your wiring or battery/alternator to supply.

Robert

I have only been trying the radio with the key turned to accessory. Maybe I should try and run the motor and then turn the radio up and see what happens.

 

[Spider77rebuild]

The xplod are a 52watt x 4 @ 4ohms If you are only using 2 speakers ,Dont forget the fader . you might have the wires warped up some how.

 

[oz3litre]

I had this problem with my car when I installed the Kenwood deck out of the burnt wreck in it. I thought the deck might have got water in it and bought another one, only to have the same trouble. It turned out to be the speaker wiring being wrongly connected due to me using the original Alfa plug. They wired them up in a strange way in terms of the earthing and I got it wrong. I cut the plug off and wired the speakers up direct as per the Kenwood diagram and it worked fine. I have a spare deck now.

 

[Kyle]

This happens to me as well. If very loud, the radio shuts off and then comes back on at a lower volume. It is powered through the live wire at the wiper switch. If I turn on the wipers on with the radio even at low volume it shuts off. I guess I need a direct and heavy power cable from the battery?

 

[kingslandauto]

There is a red a yellow and a black, these are what power and ground your radio, red is usually ignition on, yellow memory so it is constant hot and black well thats for ground, if the radio does not have its own fuse in the fuse block you need to run its own circuit for it. Next remove the factory radio speaker wires and run brand new speaker cable to the door speakers, check the resistance of your speakers and the radio specs. If you can turn up the volume on any one speaker and which one does not matter then they should not be blown, putting it to both and cranking the volume seems like it is overloading the system.

What is the exact model number of your head unit and the model number of your speakers?

I'm an automotive and marine electronics tech.

 

[dmarland]

There is a red a yellow and a black, these are what power and ground your radio, red is usually ignition on, yellow memory so it is constant hot and black well thats for ground, if the radio does not have its own fuse in the fuse block you need to run its own circuit for it. Next remove the factory radio speaker wires and run brand new speaker cable to the door speakers, check the resistance of your speakers and the radio specs. If you can turn up the volume on any one speaker and which one does not matter then they should not be blown, putting it to both and cranking the volume seems like it is overloading the system.

What is the exact model number of your head unit and the model number of your speakers?

I'm an automotive and marine electronics tech.

It is a sony xplod deck model # GTX43OU. Not sure of the speaker # but they are sony xplod also. I now have the issue of the meomory not holding. Where does the yellow wire go to?

 

[kingslandauto]

I have a feeling you have the CDX-GT430U

Yellow wire is memory constant hot, this wire connects to 12v at all times. Red is 12v key/ignition on. you can run black ground directly to body ground.