Cant get my new HU to work!!

[stay_high 10+ year member]

I just upgraded head units. Ordered it off crutchfield. I simply cut all the wires away from the old one (power, ground, ignition turn on, and remote wires to amps). no speakers get plugged into the HU because they are hooked up to an external amp. Then i re-krimped them to the wires coming from the new HU. But i cant get it to turn on??? I dont know what coud've possibly gone wrong?? Any ideas? I made sure all connections were secure and all but i just cant get it to work. Any help is appreciated.

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[stay_high 10+ year member]

Another thing, i didnt plug in the "illumination" wire. Because i believe this just dims the HU display when you turn you lights on and it is not needed. Correct?

 

[Sub Woofin 10+ year member]

you prolly blew a fuse when cutting the wires

 

[winkychevelle 10+ year member]

check your fuses maybe when you cut the wires one of them touched the ground, and check your ground sometimes a radio needs a better ground than the factory and certain vehicles like nissan's need dedicated grounds run to the frame since the factory is run through the antenna. double check your connection for the speakers wires i know it sounds stupid but you may have connected a positive and negative together on the radio side and just not noticed it. this happens to me often with the purple wires

 

[stay_high 10+ year member]

check your fuses maybe when you cut the wires one of them touched the ground, and check your ground sometimes a radio needs a better ground than the factory and certain vehicles like nissan's need dedicated grounds run to the frame since the factory is run through the antenna. double check your connection for the speakers wires i know it sounds stupid but you may have connected a positive and negative together on the radio side and just not noticed it. this happens to me often with the purple wires

No the speaker wires are just going from the amp to door speakers. Which were all working with the old HU. But i believe i blew a fuse. One of the wires sparked a couple times so thats probably it...

 

[Kangaroux 5,000+ posts]

No the speaker wires are just going from the amp to door speakers. Which were all working with the old HU. But i believe i blew a fuse. One of the wires sparked a couple times so thats probably it...

If you saw any kind of sparking then you shorted it out and blew a fuse. Check your fuse box, I believe when it blows a fuse it's under "electric" unless your car has something specific for your headunit

 

[stay_high 10+ year member]

you prolly blew a fuse when cutting the wires

Probably did. Any clue where this fuse would be located on a ford focus? =P

 

[winkychevelle 10+ year member]

look in the owners manuel but common places are the drivers side dash on the side and on the bottom and under the hood of coarse

 

[stay_high 10+ year member]

If you saw any kind of sparking then you shorted it out and blew a fuse. Check your fuse box, I believe when it blows a fuse it's under "electric" unless your car has something specific for your headunit

Yea it sparked two seperate times. But i KNOW that the power wire never touched the ground...

 

[Sub Woofin 10+ year member]

check the HU's fuse if applicable and also the fuse box(s) on the car. they should be labeled on the cover. and theyre most likely 10 amp fuses

 

[Dr. Slam 10+ year member]

What kind of car do you have? I know that some GM cars need special harnesses to work properly when installing an aftermarket head unit

 

[stay_high 10+ year member]

What kind of car do you have? I know that some GM cars need special harnesses to work properly when installing an aftermarket head unit

Its an 08 ford focus. But i already had an aftermarket sony xplod HU in there. I just needed a HU with more pre amp outs so i upgraded. But after an hour of searching i found a fuse box. I replaced 2 blown fuses on it and it didnt work. I later found out that the ones i replaced went to the two cigarette lighters in the car. Theres ANOTHER fuse box located all the way under the steering column thing i had to remove a panel to get to it. Its like impossible to reach. But any way theres a fuse in there labeled "radio start" or something. It must be that but its like 11 pm i gota sleep before work tomoro so itl have to wait..

 

[stay_high 10+ year member]

and that BETTER work. Or else

 

[goingdef 10+ year member]

hook the illumination wire to the turn on lead or some other 12v+ or the buttons won't light up!

 

[Buck 5,000+ posts]

hook the illumination wire to the turn on lead or some other 12v+ or the buttons won't light up!

What?

Make sure you are getting voltage from your remote and constant via DMM, that's the first step.