Whats this wire

[JAL232 10+ year member]

i have a Knukoncepts amp kit. I installed this weekend. Or at least ran back to trunk. What is the little wire that is in between the RCA cables...Where does this tie into at the HU and at the amp?

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[j3bus2k3 5,000+ posts]

IIRC, its the remote wire and it ties into the headunit...

 

[DeViOuSoNe 10+ year member]

Yupperzz

 

[skadude016 5,000+ posts]

remote wire (REM)

 

[JAL232 10+ year member]

Okay..I do believe that was the blue wire on the HU..haha...It was like 2 am...I hooked it up to remote pretty sure..it was blue or blue and white..we will see

 

[mokedaddy 5,000+ posts]

You will know soon enough after you hook it up. The blue wire behind the deck is usually the power antenna and the blue/white is the remote. If you arent getting any sound when playing a cd, chances are you hooked it up to the wrong one.

 

[JAL232 10+ year member]

Well I get sound thru the car..I have not yet hooked subs or amp up yet..I will be doing that tomorro night...

 

[revrider1 5,000+ posts]

Its your remote wire

 

[AK SloPok 10+ year member]

To confuse the issue, I have seen a "third" wire in the RCAs as a way to ground the HU to the amp, not to carry current. But perhaps the engineers at Knu know what they are doing. If so they do not list it on their website.

 

[JAL232 10+ year member]

Its wierd cause its so small of a wire...The problem now that i remember is from the cd player i had a blue, and a blue/white wire left...From the wiring harness from car I had just a blue left. The blue wire was labled power antenna I think. So i think i wired blue to blue...So i shoudl have went blue to blue/white if what you guys is are saying is correct..

 

[n2audio 5,000+ posts]

To confuse the issue, I have seen a "third" wire in the RCAs as a way to ground the HU to the amp, not to carry current. But perhaps the engineers at Knu know what they are doing. If so they do not list it on their website.

That would be a "drain" wire, fairly popular on some "high-end" cables.

Here's an exchange from carsound that explains their function...

What exactly does this (drain wire) do?

Induce noise, look ugly, be a pain to keep neat...

What are they supposed to do? why is it there? I didn't even hook it up, cause i really didn't know how to...

I don't know, ask the idiots that make them!

for car audio use rob is spot on with his comment about "drain wires"-------some history-------early wires (early in the last century) always used braided shields------eventually someone figured that a simple foil could serve the same purpose------of course that shield was for High frequency use but we'll skip that for now---------a foil could be incorporated into a wire for a frqction of the cost of a braided shield which was extremely expensive to make-----and a extremely high frequencies a foil shield offered 100% shielding where a braid always had a "open area"-----the only problem with a foil is that it was difficult to terminate and all RF shields require termination if they are to work--------the drain wire was an inexpensive fix to allow for easy termination---------why are they in car audio cables???????-------the idiots that make wire saw them and probably felt they would look "cool" or "high tech" so they added them...................RC

 

[JAL232 10+ year member]

So do i take it to the remote terminal or what...Im confused cause all i have coming from hu is the two + - rca's...and the "drain" wire that i connected to the blue wire or blue/white......I have no extra wires from teh kit to run for the remote wire that goes into the amp.....

 

[reneeb7363 10+ year member]

if you are not sure which "blue" wire is the rem turn on... put your dmm or test light on one of the wires, with the cd on, one of the leads should be "dead" as soon as you switch over to fm radio this lead should energize... if it does not turn on/off with the radio then it is proibably your remote line.. if it does, it is your antennae line-- just a little basic troubleshooting is all you need to do here. There are also On-line manuals for almost every radio either at the manf site or just google it.

p.s... the "drain wire" is not really used anymore due to the current ability/sheilding of the rca's -- if you are running one or two amps, use the embedded wire as your remote turn on lead and save yourself the hassle of running another wire...

 

[JAL232 10+ year member]

Okay,,,well i used one end of it at hu...and am goin to use other at remote end..The thing that is confusing is that the wire size is small. But I didnt get a chance to mess with it tonight..I willtomoror though...Thanks for the input...Cause the amp should turn on everytime the radio comes on, should it not? Or is there a way i can turn it on and off from inside the car....This is in the trunk

 

[skadude016 5,000+ posts]

you can use that middle wire in your RCA's as the remote wire. all remote wire is, is wire lol. its jus there to act as (you guessed it) w remote to turn the amp on and off when the car is on or off //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif