Kiwi Dan Posted September 22, 2009 Share Posted September 22, 2009 Gday raiders, I am in the final stages of doing up my boat. When we went to finish up the wiring on Saturday we couldnt get the new cd/stereo or the 2 way radio to fire up. The pumps, nav lights, internal lights, fish finder and engine all fire up but for some reason the radios wouldnt. All terminals, lugs, radios and cabling are brand new. My mate who is helping me is an electrician as well but even he couldnt explain it. We swapped out all the fuses, the battery is fully charged and giving off a good reading on the meter. The CD stereo has a small black box which has all of the wires for memory, speakers, ignition etc coming out of it. You connect the wires and plug the box into the back of the stereo. We connected the wires and placed the volt meter on the ends of the box and that had power going to it, yet it wouldnt power up the CD player. For the 2way its the same thing, power going to the leads yet it wont turn on. Does anyone have any ideas on what the issue might be? Or is it that I just have really bad luck and got 2 faulty radios from 2 different places? If anyone is able to shed some light on this it would be much appreciated. I am hoping having to pay an auto sparkie loads of money only for him to make 1 or 2 adjustments and then charge me hundreds of $$$$. thanks all Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jewgaffer Posted September 22, 2009 Share Posted September 22, 2009 Hi Dan It seems a bit strange that both your radios wont switch on Dan.....I don't suppose it would be the same problem I had trying to switch my boat radio on for the first time....I thought it was broken down until a friend told me that on button had to be held in for a few seconds for the switch to engage... Cheers jewgaffer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kiwi Dan Posted September 23, 2009 Author Share Posted September 23, 2009 Hi Dan It seems a bit strange that both your radios wont switch on Dan.....I don't suppose it would be the same problem I had trying to switch my boat radio on for the first time....I thought it was broken down until a friend told me that on button had to be held in for a few seconds for the switch to engage... Cheers jewgaffer gday JG Funnily enough we even read the instructions manual. We tried holding down the reset and start buttons etc but still no luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pauljm Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 mate what colour wires had power on them...for the 2 way it should be red positive, black negative..... for the cd again it should be red positive and black negative but there is usually another wire that has to go to positive as well....it should show that on wiring diagram.....if you have power on these then make sure there are no fuses on the back of the unit although these days they are usually the inline type anyway..... also just a word of warning when you get your 27 meg working do not press the transmit button without the aerial connected...this can and will blow the output amplifier of the unit and render it useless....they dont cover this under warranty.......good luck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kiwi Dan Posted September 23, 2009 Author Share Posted September 23, 2009 mate what colour wires had power on them...for the 2 way it should be red positive, black negative..... for the cd again it should be red positive and black negative but there is usually another wire that has to go to positive as well....it should show that on wiring diagram.....if you have power on these then make sure there are no fuses on the back of the unit although these days they are usually the inline type anyway..... also just a word of warning when you get your 27 meg working do not press the transmit button without the aerial connected...this can and will blow the output amplifier of the unit and render it useless....they dont cover this under warranty.......good luck Thanks Payatz There was a 10amp fuse on the back of the cd unit which we placed with a new one and put it on the meter. We changed the inline fuse on the 27 meg as well. The leads were all negative and positive plus the yellow for the memory on the cd which we connected to the positive as well as per the diagram. Whats was also weird was that when we connected the cables to the 27 meg radio the face of the unit didnt light up but we could hear a very very faint crackling noise each time we hit the battery terminals. We turned up the volume on the 27 meg but that didnt adjust the faint noise at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pauljm Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 Was the inline fuse blown or did u just replace it anyway?Did you have any other issues while wiring up the boat like blowing fuses or anything like that as i am wondering if u have somehow sent a spike up the line and damaged both units ....if not sounds like you have been unlucky...obviously if there is power going to the units and they dont power up take them back.... dont bother calling an auto elec.....swap the 27 meg first as that is a simple red and black only..turn it on and see if it powers up but dont hit the transmit! How big is ur boat? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kiwi Dan Posted September 23, 2009 Author Share Posted September 23, 2009 Have you tried hooking them up straight to the battery to make sure they work?? It may be a bit of a coincidence that they are both stuffed....but worth a try i guess.. If they work with direct connection to the battery, then something might be shorting out somewhere. Also...did you use wires that could handle all the power to run all appliances??? Im sure you did, but thought i would ask. Gday Tangles Yeah used all the right cables mate, we got full power readings on them. We also tried connecting both of these to directly to the battery at individually and still no go. I might just have bad luck and got 2 dudds! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Evets Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 I can see that you have checked the power. Sounds to me like it could be an earthing problem or maybe a broken wire - maybe on the earth side of the circut (notwithstanding that the wires are new its still possible). Have you earthed all the way back to the battery or just back to a buss bar? You wouldnt happen to have earthed to the hull of an aluminum boat would you? The faint crackling noise means that power is reaching the speaker either through from the radio itself or from a stray current. The fact that it didnt increase when you turned the volume up suggests that the power isnt coming from the radio - maybe from a dodgy earth. Come to think - have you mounted and connected the speakers for the cd player? If you have just disconnect the speaker wire where you joined it to radio harness. Let us know what happens. Seems odd that everything else works fine. Are both radios on the same circut? How about connecting them to another circut that you know is working - such as the lights. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kiwi Dan Posted September 29, 2009 Author Share Posted September 29, 2009 Gday all, Thanks for your responses. Tried everything mentioned above plus more and still no luck. After all that I decided I must just have rotten luck and ive purchased 2 faulty radios from 2 different stores. Took them both back today and swapped them over for new ones, sure enough the new radios both worked sweet. So all your help guys. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Evets Posted September 29, 2009 Share Posted September 29, 2009 Well there you go eh. Who would have guessed 2 dodgy radios. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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