Had my stereo out of my 03 cavalier for about a year now due to the battery draining. I finally threw in the money and bought the $100 wiring harness. I tried to wire that up myself but I got confused so I just took it to Circuit City and had them do it. So, after that everything was cool until Saturday night when I was messing with my amp, I had the stereo on and I was hooking up the 2nd 6x9 in the back when everything died. I figured I blew a fuse so I checked all fuses... by the door and under the hood and the car still wouldnt start. I had it jumped Sunday morning and took it back to Circuit city to have them check it out. I ended up buying a new deck anyway since my old one had issues with CD's but anyway, they installed the new deck and didnt know why the battery could be draining. He thought it could be my amp.. something with the capacitors or something. The amp is a Baja 440.. nothing fancy.. and it is about 5 or 6 years old and has been through a roll-over accident. So.. I'm driving around on Sunday to get the battery back up to snuff after I got out of circuit city and the amp stopped working. I pulled over and checked it out and the power cable had slipped out of its connector on the amp. I shoved it back in and the amp worked fine again..
Talked to a shop earlier this morning and I'm going to have him try to help me figure out if the amp could be causing the drain. He said that if you disconnect the negative? battery cable and touch it to the hole again.. if it sparks then there is a drain. However, he also said that on some of the newer cars, the clock and stuff like that can cause a small spark... but he suggested doing this first with the power cable disconnected on the amp.. see if I get a spark.. and then plugging the power cable into the amp and seeing if I get a bigger spark.
Heres the thing. I dont like screwing with batteries. I just figure I'm going to do something stupid and shock myself... so I dont want to do this battery cable touching bull myself..
Second thing is.. when I connect the power cable to the amp, that sparks.. is that normal? And if so.. the end got kind of frayed...so I'm afraid to touch it thinking I'll get shocked.. will I get shocked?
Any thoughts? Ideas to test to see why or how I might be draining power?
Thanks,
Chris
"There were some Luddites with some kind of PC-based, primitive [operating system], I think it's called Windows, who couldn't figure out how I got a TV on the plane." Trent Reznor referring to peoples reaction to his PowerBook G4 Titanium
hey man i think something with that amp is messed up big time. i have a 05 and dont have that fancy harness just taped into the power from behindf the harness and everything works fine for 2 years now. only prob i had was my capasitors in the amp went and im runnin a eclipse 5 channel amp. i would see if they will let you plug in one of theres to test it. because id say thats the problem. and whhy hes saying to take the ground off and see if it sparks it telling you if there is a strong currant running through the ground which mean the power is running throught the amp then the ground which is not good. hope this helps a little good luck
I was thinking about seeing if they would let me plug in a diff amp and see if that fixes the problem.. but first I want to find out how much power is being drained from the battery at any given time. First with the amp un-plugged (amp ground is still hooked up, but the power wire from the battery to the amp is disconnected), and then, see how much power is being drained when the amp power wire is plugged in.
Here's the thing though.. when I had the stereo completely removed for this past year, I didnt do anything to the amp, all wires were plugged in and there was no battery drain.
My thinking is that, when the new stereo was put in (or rather, my old one), the amp remote turn on wire was finally plugged in thus allowing the amp to see a solid circuit between itself and the stereo... my thinking is that when that circuit is whore, the amp possibly being damaged might not know when to turn off.. does that sound logical? If so, Maybe I could put a switch or something on the remote turn on wire.. turn it off when I'm not using the speaker (therefore cutting the circuit between the amp and the stereo) and turn the circuit back on allowing everything to work... its just frustrating as hell.. havent had a stereo in the car for over a year... finally get some money to get it done right.. and it still drains the battery and I'm still not sure where the problem lies.
"There were some Luddites with some kind of PC-based, primitive [operating system], I think it's called Windows, who couldn't figure out how I got a TV on the plane." Trent Reznor referring to peoples reaction to his PowerBook G4 Titanium
yea man i fully understand i rode around for a year without one trying to get my amp fixed i fully understand i was like a pimp my ride with crappy comp speaker lol. yea that makes sense do you have a meter that u can throw on the wires to get a reading? or can you get one? if you were close to nj id say come over but thats a hike for you. my next suggestion is if you have the money buy a cheap amp and return it to like circuit city within 14 days. im willing to put money on it that the amp is messed up big time. and you can bypass the remote on by throwing in a toggle switch between the radio and the amp. do you have another head unit you can try also?
Well, I had my old radio installed initially.. but just had a brand new stereo installed on Sunday since my old one didnt have front aux in and the CD player was messed up....
I'm thinking if it is the remote turn on wire.. if I can toggle that somehow.. that would work..
"There were some Luddites with some kind of PC-based, primitive [operating system], I think it's called Windows, who couldn't figure out how I got a TV on the plane." Trent Reznor referring to peoples reaction to his PowerBook G4 Titanium
i got ya yea u can deff toggle it thats easy to do
