Phoenix Gold Phorum

Sup guys, trying to install a speaker/amp upgrade to my dad's truck and running out of time, he is traveling back to ga tomorrow.

Everything is ready to go but the ignition wire we tapped into at the back of the stock headunit is not putting out enough voltage to turn on the amp we are using. It is putting out about .8 volts.

If i am going to need to tap into a different wire, where should I go? The fuse box is in the engine bay so we can get to a wire there, but which wire would be best to tap into? To assure it wasn't the amp, i jumped the power wire input to the remote wire input and the amp lit right up.

What should I do? I am so out of time...stressed.

just use the ignition wire on the deck you should be fine

the amp should power up if you jump the power/remote terminal.

check all your fuses first both under the dash and the hood. Don't even bother with the manual just literally pull/inspect each fuse and it will take less time and you can be sure they are all good.

But if you need to find another ignition wire I just go to either the ignition harness or the fuse box with my meter and start checking for power with the key on.

First off what mind of car is it?

You can always tap into your 12v connection at the cigarette lighter ...

some lighters are switched, some are constant.

I agree with ttocs just find a switched 12v source using a meter or even a test light if that's all you have. Should be fairly easy to find something suitable.

If it's a can bus car the cig lighter is usually the best spot if it's a switched power.

Hey guys, thanks for all the info, I didn't even make it back onto the forum before we just worked around the issue. We just ran the power to the remote wire and ran a wire up to the drivers seat so hed have sound for the long ride back. I told him to just make sure he disconnected the two ends if he stopped anywhere over night.

He is gonna have a shop tap into an ignition connection real quick this week, should be quick and safe that way.

Not sure why that low voltage ignition connection didn't work from the back of the radio, I have to assume the voltage was just too low to trigger the amp to turn on.

9-10 volts is normally the min that some decks will work with. What kind of car was this in?

2014 F-150, he brought it to his shop yesterday and the guy had to tap into the ignition in the steering column, glad we stopped trying when we did because I really didn't want to go into the steering column.

not sure why the ignition harness would scare you. just a bunch of wires and with a test light or volte meter it would take 3 mins to find one. It sounds like you tapped into a canbus wire. Thees are data wires that dont' carry voltage to turn things on.

ttocs wrote:not sure why the ignition harness would scare you. just a bunch of wires and with a test light or volte meter it would take 3 mins to find one. It sounds like you tapped into a canbus wire. Thees are data wires that dont' carry voltage to turn things on.

Thats prob exactly what we did.

I'm not really scared of the wires but we were on a heavy time constraint and digging into the harness and testing more wires just might have taken a bit so I wanted to avoid it if I could.

Good for you; I'v seen too many cars with sliced-up wire harnesses causing troubles sooner or later.....

there is no need to slice anything up to test ignition wires. Its normally not too hard to find a harness where the connection is exposed or else I had a test lead on my meter that was sharpened so you could go through the insulation(and your finger if you missed) to test a wire in less then a second. I know myself and most other installers would not ever try to look up a color chart for the wires, its less time to probe a couple and be sure you know what your connecting too.

ttocs wrote:there is no need to slice anything up to test ignition wires. Its normally not too hard to find a harness where the connection is exposed or else I had a test lead on my meter that was sharpened so you could go through the insulation(and your finger if you missed) to test a wire in less then a second. I know myself and most other installers would not ever try to look up a color chart for the wires, its less time to probe a couple and be sure you know what your connecting too.

I agree on that if you're in a real hurry for finding the right lead.
However, I work on cars that are somewhat older and regularly find corroded spots [causing resistance and malfunctions ], in wires that were probed using a sharp probe. [ corrosion on multiple wires at the same spot with a extra connection made on one of them... ]

Probing connectors is the right way to go, together with taking a look on the schematic [ if you got the time].
Nico

depends on how much blood gets in them I know

ttocs wrote:depends on how much blood gets in them I know