a little wiring fun

[07xtreme]

so my car decided to do some sweet modification last night:lol:...

ive been having alternator issues as of late and last night messing around with said alternator i managed to pop my fuse for it in the main fuse block(under hood)...oh and before i jump ahead consider my car a 2002 wrx... so since that popped and i didn't have a spare i snagged the one out of "room light" which controls my dome light, my radio's main power, and some other lighting accessories. so i went to the store got a new fuse and reinstalled my "room light fuse". got in my car this morning and my cd player was humming(wrx 6 disc btw) it was humming like the cd was spinning or the tape deck was, something weird. long story short it must have been running all night cause my car was dead. so i pulled the fuse again. jumped the car, drove to work, shut the car off. said screw it, tossed the fuse back in. listened to the cd player do its little reset thing and then it went silent. i sat there for a minute or two to see if it would do anything, not a peep. went out at lunch guess what, sounds back and cars dead


cliff notes...didn't change anything other than pull the fuse and reinstall it and now my 6 disc is constantly running and kills my battery

anyone have any ideas...i check the fuse block, all the wires going into the fuse block, all the ground around the fuse block, pulled the 6 disc out checked the harness there and there is literally nothing out of the ordinary

could i have messed the radio up internally somehow?

[SubySnacks]

mine started doing that when I was messing with the wiring, accidently touched two wires, radio came on with everything turned off, luckily it didn't stay like that... you could have effed up your radio, cuz wouldn't your other interior lights come on as well if it was to be a interior wiring problem off of the fuse panel?

[07xtreme]

^^^ kinda my thoughts, but at the same time there's a constant power that comes from there cause with the car off and i open my doors or flip on the dome light, the light works. so im not sure if maybe i short circuited the radio and now it doesn't have its own internal on/off relay

its really weird Ive driven the car for 9k since the swap and never had a electrical issue, i touch a fuse and now i do. maybe ill spend another whopping $30 and get another 6 disc and see if that works

[Bu11dogg2]

can you eject the CD's without the keys in?

might be drawing power all the time.

$40-$50 for a used on the forums ;)

[07xtreme]

nope cant eject anything, cant hit any buttons, its just something spinning...fan, cd. cassette...i dunno

and i know where there's one for $30 shipped but ill never tell haha

[SubySnacks]

*send me one, bdays sunday* lmao

[SicRedGt]

Try a capacitive discharge on the car before you buy one.

[-boz]

What's a capacitive discharge?

I'm an Electronics Technician..

I know what a capacitor is and does and have never heard this term.

[SicRedGt]

Disconnect BOTH battery terminals and tape then together for a minute or two. I've been finding that some modules have some memory that is "non-volatile". Meaning a simple batt disconnect won't clean everything up.

[SubySnacks]

Isn't there a step in there called "press the break pedal" so you don't fry your whole system if there is any electricity lingering in the system?

[SubySnacks]

Hey Nick, did you fix that thing yet?

[-boz]

Disconnect BOTH battery terminals and tape then together for a minute or two. I've been finding that some modules have some memory that is "non-volatile". Meaning a simple batt disconnect won't clean everything up.

This will accomplish nothing.

If you are that worried about residual voltage you would let the car sit for a few hours to drain. There should not be a capacitor large enough in any of the circuits to keep them charged.

You could also harm the electrical system as if there is residual voltage you just now shorted your positive and negative battery cables.

If the modules are using NVRAM or Flash Ram shorting those cables together won't do much either. To clear NVRAM you need to tell the IC that you want to clear the registers inside the IC, usually by shorting a pin to ground while the circuit is live.

His best bet is to check his ACC and Constant with a multimeter to get a reading on the voltages. Then when it's been determined that the radio circuit is functional, swap a known good unit into the car.

[07xtreme]

i pulled the radio for like 4 days(i learned that with no radio you will end up talking to yourself, a lot) and then yesterday i put the radio back in....no issue now...i love electronics, no, no i dont

[SicRedGt]

This will accomplish nothing.

If you are that worried about residual voltage you would let the car sit for a few hours to drain. There should not be a capacitor large enough in any of the circuits to keep them charged.

You could also harm the electrical system as if there is residual voltage you just now shorted your positive and negative battery cables.

If the modules are using NVRAM or Flash Ram shorting those cables together won't do much either. To clear NVRAM you need to tell the IC that you want to clear the registers inside the IC, usually by shorting a pin to ground while the circuit is live.

His best bet is to check his ACC and Constant with a multimeter to get a reading on the voltages. Then when it's been determined that the radio circuit is function, to go swap a known good unit into the car.


Never say never.:) We have gotten TSB's about this on certain vehicles when making a repair and clearing codes.

Not saying this is gospel on a Subaru, just a suggestion to try. To make a proper EGR repair on a late model Jeep/Chrysler/Dodge you must do this. The adaptive memory cells do not all clear with a scan tool or a quick batt disconnect. Volkswagon is also taking this precaution. Some of the non- volitale memory in current controllers is difficult to clear. Something to keep in the back of your head working on late model stuff.

[SubySnacks]

Probably when you put the radio in the wires behind it got bunched up and crossed but you probably fixed it pulling it out (that's what she said)

[-boz]

Never say never.:) We have gotten TSB's about this on certain vehicles when making a repair and clearing codes.

Not saying this is gospel on a Subaru, just a suggestion to try. To make a proper EGR repair on a late model Jeep/Chrysler/Dodge you must do this. The adaptive memory cells do not all clear with a scan tool or a quick batt disconnect. Volkswagon is also taking this precaution. Some of the non- volitale memory in current controllers is difficult to clear. Something to keep in the back of your head working on late model stuff.

Weird.. There are some instances where you do short pos/neg in a circuit but that is usually older TTL logic or CMOS devices that require a short to clear their state.

Well if you think that's bad now wait till the next gen of OBD comes around and everything uses real time updating over a single bus.

[javasti2004]

This will accomplish nothing.

If you are that worried about residual voltage you would let the car sit for a few hours to drain. There should not be a capacitor large enough in any of the circuits to keep them charged.

You could also harm the electrical system as if there is residual voltage you just now shorted your positive and negative battery cables.

If the modules are using NVRAM or Flash Ram shorting those cables together won't do much either. To clear NVRAM you need to tell the IC that you want to clear the registers inside the IC, usually by shorting a pin to ground while the circuit is live.

His best bet is to check his ACC and Constant with a multimeter to get a reading on the voltages. Then when it's been determined that the radio circuit is function, to go swap a known good unit into the car.


i disagree 100% with this honda puts tsbs out for a resone and this is one of them to remove both cables and connect together to restart the system. it drains any power that may be in the componets and lets everything restart and beosdes its worth a shot what is it going to hurt?

[-boz]

i disagree 100% with this honda puts tsbs out for a resone and this is one of them to remove both cables and connect together to restart the system. it drains any power that may be in the componets and lets everything restart and beosdes its worth a shot what is it going to hurt?

I'm having a little trouble understanding what you wrote. Do you have a link to a Honda TSB with this info in it?

When you short anything you always have the chance of damaging electronics.

Well if you had enough residual voltage in the electrical system you would end up blowing a fuse and possibly damaging something.

Without getting to deep, car electrical systems are designed to be operated at 13.8vdc with a deviation of +-10%. The ECU will usually shut down around 10 volts and stop working. The average residual voltage board level is probably somewhere around 1.5 volts, for a short time period. That small amount of voltage is not enough to cause any module to function.

If you want to test this clamp a set of probes from a high quality sweeping multimeter and see how fast the needle moves (if any) from battery voltage to no voltage when you pop both terminals off.