Testing a headunit

[danteBirosel 5,000+ posts]

My friend gave me his pioneer deck because he thought he broke it. i was wondering if there was some way besides installing it in my car, to test if it's working. what are my options?

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[SSS 18734 5,000+ posts]

none, really... you can take it to get benched, but that costs around $30.

 

[danteBirosel 5,000+ posts]

through the wiring harnass the person that tried to install this deck, wrongfully connected the wrong wires. then i guess it blew a fuse and thought it was broken. is there damaged done internally?

 

[SSS 18734 5,000+ posts]

hook it up and see. its worth the 30 minutes or so. if it blew a fuse, the internals should have been spared.

 

[Prowler573 5,000+ posts]

If connecting the unit properly to power, ground, etc doesn't make it power on then yes, there could be internal damage. There's no way to tell without opening it up and having a look and testing the various circuitry. What do you mean "wrongfully connected the wrong wires" ?? Exactly what did they do that has been decided was the wrong thing to do?

 

[danteBirosel 5,000+ posts]

the dumba$$ just started connecting it, without knowing which wire goes where.

 

[killahbean 10+ year member]

there is a way to test it without actually installing the unit in your dash but you must do it VERY carefully...On the wiring harness for your unit, connect both the yellow wire and the red wire together....And then go to the battery under the hood of your car/or spare battery and put the yellow/red wires to the positve terminal and the Black/ground wire to the negative....if the head unit works it should light up!

 

[danteBirosel 5,000+ posts]

there is a way to test it without actually installing the unit in your dash but you must do it VERY carefully...On the wiring harness for your unit, connect both the yellow wire and the red wire together....And then go to the battery under the hood of your car/or spare battery and put the yellow/red wires to the positve terminal and the Black/ground wire to the negative....if the head unit works it should light up!

lol...

is this safe?! wat should i watch out for? wat can happen if something goes wrong? tell me the negative side to this also, so i dont screw anything up.

 

[JimJ 5,000+ posts]

Is this safe? It's the same thing you do when you install it in your dash //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

The worst case is that you hook it up backwards, the head unit's reverse polarity diode fries (or there isn't one to begin with) and you have a good paper weight.

 

[danteBirosel 5,000+ posts]

Is this safe? It's the same thing you do when you install it in your dash //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif
The worst case is that you hook it up backwards, the head unit's reverse polarity diode fries (or there isn't one to begin with) and you have a good paper weight.

so... that idea he posted up there is a bad idea to do? since something can fry?

 

[killahbean 10+ year member]

lol...

is this safe?! wat should i watch out for? wat can happen if something goes wrong? tell me the negative side to this also, so i dont screw anything up.

It is safe, all you have to do is MAKE sure positive dont touch ANY ground/ AND negative dont touch power.....And isolate the speaker wires.....

The worse that can happen is you'll blow the head unit for good or you'll just blow the fuse on the unit thats why you'll have to do it carefully.....

I've done this NUMEROUS times and this is also the method I use when I purchase a used head unit from somebody....u can actually get the unit to produce sound connecting a speaker to it....lol