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Does your stereo do this??


Air Tahoe

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Stereo turns off briefly during engine starts. Is this by design, would it be ok to wire it more directly around the ignition switch? How we we do his? 

We upgraded our factory head unit to a Clarion that has bluetooth and an apple lighting cable. Works great, except we usually turn the engine off in-between riders to reduce C02 and save gas. Well 4 minutes later when while you start the engine, the radio shuts off for a few seconds. THEN it takes a minute or even two to boot backup and we waste time trying to establish bluetooth connection again. It has really become a pain. Sometimes we never get playing again and it is a huge distraction for the driver. 

I know we could leave the engine running more, but it really seems safer to have the engine exhaust off when people are around the swim platform breathing low on the water line. 

We have dual deep cycle batteries with a perko switch and then are located under the flip seat on the passenger side. The amp is located on the wall under the driver's dash. It runs a subwoofer, 4 interior speaker and larger tower speakers. Not sure if running all of that is ok when trying to start a motor. Or ideal would be to have one battery for stereo and one for starting. But to be able to access the backup battery if the starter battery every got low. 

Please help :)  2002 VLX

 

 

 

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The red wire on the stereo's wiring harness turns the head unit on and off.  Right now it's probably wired to your ignition.  You could wire it to a different source instead, that doesn't turn on and off with the key.  Many people do this by using an unused rocker switch on the dash to turn the stereo on and off instead of the ignition.  If the headunit itself has a power button, the dead simplest way to do it would be to disconnect the ride wire on the harness from whatever it's tied to now and wire it to the yellow (constant power) wire.  Then just turn the stereo on and off from the headunit power switch.

CAUTION: Gotta remember to turn the headunit off independently at the end of the day!

Edited by shawndoggy
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Thanks shawndoggy, that is exactly what we need to do. There is a music rocker switch that is secondary to the ignition switch. I will look into removing the ignition switch wire and wiring directly to the rocker switch. 

I will use caution leaving the head unit on. Normally we just turn off the battery with the perks switch bc it is so easy to bumper a rocker switch and leave a ballast pump running all night. 

Thanks for the tip! How is the T22 treating you? The season over in Reno?

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26 minutes ago, Air Tahoe said:

Thanks shawndoggy, that is exactly what we need to do. There is a music rocker switch that is secondary to the ignition switch. I will look into removing the ignition switch wire and wiring directly to the rocker switch. 

I will use caution leaving the head unit on. Normally we just turn off the battery with the perks switch bc it is so easy to bumper a rocker switch and leave a ballast pump running all night. 

Thanks for the tip! How is the T22 treating you? The season over in Reno?

Make sure that your rocker has constant power (i.e. not connected to ignition).  If so it should totally solve your problem (and have a big red light on it that reminds you to turn it off when the day is done).

yep T22 is put away for the winter.  mountain biking season till the snow flies, then HS wrestling season starts...

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The head unit's switch IGN or constant B+ could be wired to the key switch ACC, which is not hot when the key is in the crank position. This would all the head unit to cycle off during crank. Could also be a voltage drop during crank. 

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16 hours ago, MLA said:

The head unit's switch IGN or constant B+ could be wired to the key switch ACC, which is not hot when the key is in the crank position. This would all the head unit to cycle off during crank. 

 This is exactly what it is. Only during crank does it shut off the head unit. Then it takes way too long to boot back up and looses bluetooth connection. Will try to bypass this and connect it to the radio rocker switch instead. 

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22 hours ago, shawndoggy said:

Make sure that your rocker has constant power (i.e. not connected to ignition).  If so it should totally solve your problem (and have a big red light on it that reminds you to turn it off when the day is done).

yep T22 is put away for the winter.  mountain biking season till the snow flies, then HS wrestling season starts...

Yes, will check on that and bring a multi meter. 

Used to love downhill riding mount rose top to bottom. Have fun. 

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Spent quite a bit of time trying to solve this problem and got no where. Bypassed the ignition switch and hardwired to the battery and it still shut off the radio and killed the bluetooth during an engine start :(

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On 10/16/2016 at 9:12 PM, MLA said:

The head unit's switch IGN or constant B+ could be wired to the key switch ACC, which is not hot when the key is in the crank position. This would all the head unit to cycle off during crank. Could also be a voltage drop during crank. 

 

5 hours ago, Air Tahoe said:

Spent quite a bit of time trying to solve this problem and got no where. Bypassed the ignition switch and hardwired to the battery and it still shut off the radio and killed the bluetooth during an engine start :(

How did you confirm the wre you "bypassed" is associated with the head unit? Did you use a volt meter to determine which head unit wires are running through the key switch. 

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MLA, yes I did. I used a multi meter and continuity setting to verify the wires. 

Then I completely bypassed the key switch. I plugged the stereo positive and negative lead to the battery. Dry cranked the engine and the stereo shut off. It reached 9.8 volts during brief engine start. Batteries had 11.8v resting. 

Did I do something wrong? 

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8 hours ago, Air Tahoe said:

I plugged the stereo positive and negative lead to the battery.

Which positive as the head unit has two. As stated earlier, one is constant and one is switched IGN. One should only have been connected to the key switch. 

If your boat has a main battery switch of some kind, id suggest terminating there, rather than battery direct. A helm rocker is more preferred. 

8 hours ago, Air Tahoe said:

It reached 9.8 volts during brief engine start. Batteries had 11.8v resting

To start with, 11.8 is considered a dead battery. 9.8 during cranking is likely low enough to cause the head unit to cycle off. 

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10 hours ago, MLA said:

Which positive as the head unit has two. As stated earlier, one is constant and one is switched IGN. One should only have been connected to the key switch. 

If your boat has a main battery switch of some kind, id suggest terminating there, rather than battery direct. A helm rocker is more preferred. 

To start with, 11.8 is considered a dead battery. 9.8 during cranking is likely low enough to cause the head unit to cycle off. 

 

Thanks MLA, good points you make. 

1. I connected both constant and switched ignition direct to the battery to verify and eliminate any possibility of an outside source switching off the radio during engine start. So pretty confident it is the voltage drop that causes the radio to shut off or should I say reboot during an engine start. 

2. Both batteries are 3 months old and haven't had any low battery issues. They are deep cycles from walmart bought this summer. I charged them fully before installing. 

If you say 11.8v rest is low, then I believe ya. They were charged higher then the radio would not ever reach a low voltage to shut down during a start. I don't have an easy way of charging them other then driving the boat when we are out on the water. The boat is parked at a storage with no power. Maybe I got a bad reading, but that is what the digital multi meter was reading off the wires from the battery connected to the head unit. Then as I cranked the engine, fired right up and the wires feeding the radio took a dip to 9.8volts. 

3. I like your idea of connecting to the Perko switch instead of the battery. Maybe a good solution is to wire the radio head unit directly to the Perko switch battery 2. And of course make sure both batteries are fully charged! Then use Battery 1 primarily for engine starts. Although then I would need to be switching to battery 2 from time to time to keep that battery charged up from the radio draw on a long day on the water. Because battery 2 is normally our backup. 

 

-----

"12.4 volts

It's a good place to start, though. This is called the “open cell” or “resting” voltage of the battery. Resting fully charged 12 volt batteries are around 12.8-12.9 volts, and flat dead ones are at 12.0 volts, so 12.4 volts on a resting battery means it's about 50% charged."

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12 hours ago, Air Tahoe said:

Maybe a good solution is to wire the radio head unit directly to the Perko switch battery 2

This would still be battery direct electrically, as it is wired now. The only difference is you moved to the other end of battery 2 cable. 

12 hours ago, Air Tahoe said:

Maybe I got a bad reading, but that is what the digital multi meter was reading off the wires from the battery connected to the head unit.

You've got either a big voltage drop on the wires you just ran or your battery(s) is indeed dead. 

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6 hours ago, MLA said:

This would still be battery direct electrically, as it is wired now. The only difference is you moved to the other end of battery 2 cable. 

You've got either a big voltage drop on the wires you just ran or your battery(s) is indeed dead. 

 I'll report back next time I get hands on it to try again. thanks 

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