Sony head unit install - won't power on, HELP, what is wrong?

[tunnelengineer]

Have a Tahoe Q4. I want to replace the crappy audiotronics head unit with a new Sony unit. Here's the deal:

The standard wiring in the boat is 2 speakers, a black ground, and a yellow/red wire (single wire) running to a translucent harness plug. The audiotronics head unit then used a harness to connect factory wiring to the head unit. To install the new Sony unit I spliced the sony harness to the audiotronics harness wires. Ran the red power lead to the red wire on the old wiring harness. The sony head unit did not power on. Noticed it also had a yellow wire to run a non-switched power lead from the battery, so ran another wire from the battery and tied into the yellow wire on the sony harness. Still no power. I'm lost as to what else I need to do to get this unit powering on. Confused as the factory wire is a red/yellow mix wire.

Do you think splicing into the wires of the last harness is the problem? I plug the old harness into the old head unit and it still powers up fine, so I know the red cable is getting juice.

Also confused as the new head unit has an "illumination" orange wire. After the unit not powering up I tried also splicing that orange wire onto the old harness red wire.

The head unit is a Sony CDX-M60ui if it helps.

 

[seabob4]

Re: Sony head unit install - won't power on, HELP, what is wrong?

The "typical" power leads off a marine stereo pigtail are red (switched 12V+), yellow (memory, unswitched 12V+), and black (12V-). As long as you have these hooked up correctly, the unit should work. Yellow HAS to be hooked up, even to switched (but you would lose your pre-sets), in order for the unit to work...

 

[tunnelengineer]

Re: Sony head unit install - won't power on, HELP, what is wrong?

Finally figured it out with the help of my voltmeter. Turns out I ran the yellow power lead from the trolling battery, while all my auxiliary power stuff was coming from my cranking battery. So the ground was all messed up. When I switched the yellow lead to the cranking battery the unit fired right up.

Kind of has me wondering why all the small power stuff is connected to the cranking battery though. I think I prefer to run all that stuff off the trolling battery, that was the motor will still fire up if I run down the trolling battery.

Any advice?

 

[RickJ6956]

Re: Sony head unit install - won't power on, HELP, what is wrong?

The stereo will drag the trolling motor battery down. I would reserve the trolling motor battery for just that purpose and add a deep cycle for the house systems.