Battery drain... Possibly amp?

FivepointSlow

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I just replaced my battery under warranty a month ago because it got killed during the winter due to me draining it all the time. Last week I went to put my sub in and my battery was dead... Like so dead my battery charger wouldn't even try to charge it.

So I threw it in my dads car and jumped it and let the car run for 30 minutes or so. Back up to it's normal level. Throw it in my car and left it til yesterday.

Went to roll down my window while I was taking out my center console to paint it and my battery is dead again... Can't even get a LED interior light to turn on.

The only change has been my amp. It's hooked up to the accessory bolt on my fuse box. I have the remote turn on are all hooked up but could I have connected it to the wrong wire? What color wire am I suppose to hook It up to? I know there's like an ignition wire and then a amp trigger wire... What's the difference?

I do remember that the green light saying there's power to the amp was on even when my keys where out... But I didn't think it was on and draining power..


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ttocs

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sounds like your battery is dead now. You can only deep cycle a standard battery so many times before its dead dead.

Now your amp hook up I have a few questions. What do you have hooked up to the accessory bolt in the fuse box, and what is an accessory bolt in the fusebox?

That little green light only draws .7v and very little current but an amp with no signal will still cause a drain for sure.

the power wires from the amp - ground goes to the closest chassis ground be sure to scrape the paint and secure it so that it is not loose. The power wire for the amp needs to go to the battery and have a fuse 12" from the battery. the rca cables go from the deck to the amp and you can run the remote turn on with them as well. It sounds as though the remote turn on is not connected correctly or the amp would turn off with the deck. What is it hooked up too?

Finally the speaker wires go from the amp to your speakers and it should be done.
 
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FivepointSlow

FivepointSlow

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sounds like your battery is dead now. You can only deep cycle a standard battery so many times before its dead dead.

Now your amp hook up I have a few questions. What do you have hooked up to the accessory bolt in the fuse box, and what is an accessory bolt in the fusebox?

That little green light only draws .7v and very little current but an amp with no signal will still cause a drain for sure.

the power wires from the amp - ground goes to the closest chassis ground be sure to scrape the paint and secure it so that it is not loose. The power wire for the amp needs to go to the battery and have a fuse 12" from the battery. the rca cables go from the deck to the amp and you can run the remote turn on with them as well. It sounds as though the remote turn on is not connected correctly or the amp would turn off with the deck. What is it hooked up too?

Finally the speaker wires go from the amp to your speakers and it should be done.

This is the second time the battery was completely drained.. I replaced it under warranty a month ago so it should be fine?

Amp is hooked up to a ground in the trunk which is solid. Amp works fine. I have everything hooked up correctly.

Accessory bolt (thats what I call it.. Idk if it has an official name) is in the under hood fuse box, facing the engine. There is a little door attached to the side of the fuse box with a bolt there to attach things such as amp wiring and such. The only other thing hooked up to that is the harness for my HIDs but those have been installed for awhile, the only thing that has changed is the addition of the amp and sub. Which is why I'd assume thats whats killing my battery.

Remote turn on is hooked up to the amp trigger wires, I also have my 460 amp hooked up to that wire aswell... But that has been hooked up before and didn't cause a drain on the battery.
 

ttocs

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AH ok gotcha on the bolt. That is fine as long as the power wire is fused with in 12" and that will supply power. Light is on so the ground should be ok. That leaves us with the remote turn on wire. Pull out the deck and check to make sure that maybe some copper is showing somewhere that could be shorting out the remote wire. Not sure what deck you have but the remote turn on for most aftermarket decks is blue or blue/white. Check to see that you have 0v with the deck off and +12 with it on. If the wire is bad for one reason or another try swapping it to the ignition wire and it will turn on/off with the key.
 
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FivepointSlow

FivepointSlow

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[MENTION=11896]ttocs[/MENTION]
Okay so I'm a little dumb.
Right now my amp wires and such are hooked to my ignition lead wire which is red.
My remote turn on wire isn't hooked to anything right now and it's blue and white...
So I'm guessing my Mach 460 amp and the sub amp should be connected to the blue and white and not the red?

This is my head unit. Alpine iDA-x200
2r9tQWc.jpg




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ttocs

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If its hooked to the red wire its turning on/off with the key. IF it is connected to the yellow then it is on all the time. If it is connected to the red then swapping it to the blue remote wire will not stop your battery drain.
 

ttocs

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Ok that is what I thought you meant but wanted to make sure. the remote turn on at the deck is normally blue, or blue/white. Check to make sure as the power antenna will be the other wire if the deck has that option as the power antenna wire will only turn your amp on when the radio is on.
 

heffe2001

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If it were me I'd use the amp turn on from the radio, not the switched red wire on the harness to turn everything on. For the Mach460 amp, use a few resistors to bump the voltage down to around 5-6v, otherwise you'll get a pop from those speakers when you turn on the radio. For the regular amp, make sure it's 12v (connected before the resistors you used for the mach amps).

If it were me, I'd dump that mach460 amp setup, and go with either an Alpine KTP-445U Power Pack, or a Clarion XC-1410 (what I have). I wish I'd have gone with the alpine, it uses connectors for the wiring, would have made it a bit easier to mount for me.
 

ttocs

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No need to get rid of any gear till your ready to replace it completely. A good sub crossed over nice and low where the 5 x 7s can't play fills in really nice and then with a simple capacitor you can take the bass out of the stock tweeters and you would be amazed how good it sounds.
 

foreverinPanama

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I fought with some of this when I was messing around with my 460 on my 03. Then I read somewhere, that even if everything is connected right, particularly the blue remote on, you still have to manually turn off the head unit for the amp to power off.

In my case, I have to hold down the power on the head unit and only after that turn the ignition key off. I did this and walked back and forth checking my amp and sure enough that's what is was. Haven't had drain issues since. Prior my car would last 3 days parked.
 

ttocs

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no the mach system is really not that complicated and there is no need for a separate switch. The only thing that is different on the mach system is the remote turn on is a 6v source instead of 12v like every other manf. Its easy to add a resistor or a zanier diode/power source to take the 12v down to 6v. Its not always necessary though just on some systems there will be a turn on pop.

Your problem sounds like you have the decks constant power wire(normally yellow) as well as its ignition wire(normally red) to only the constant power behind the deck. Pull the deck out and see where the red wire goes, take a pic and check for voltage if you have a meter/light and I can get it working
 

Burninriverdiver

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It's early and I had a hard time reading thru all of this but the solution should be simple...

the remote wire should be hooked up to your power wire going to the head unit (mine was blue and said rem on the head unit)

When this wire is hooked up correctly, your amp will shut off when the radio is shut off and keys are out. The amp shouldn't be lit up with the keys out.

good luck man
 
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FivepointSlow

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Thanks [MENTION=11896]ttocs[/MENTION], [MENTION=19212]Burninriverdiver[/MENTION], [MENTION=18280]heffe2001[/MENTION], [MENTION=18769]foreverinPanama[/MENTION] for your guys help! I was outside fixing the wiring for my turn signal and went to throw the radio on to realize I pulled the ground wires out when I was messing with the radio bezel... Perfect time to track down the amp problem.

Okay so I printed up a few diagrams (one for the stock harnesses and one for my head unit) and I sorted it all out.

I had the remote turn on wire for my sub amp, the amp trigger wire for the 460 amp, and the memory wire hooked up to the ignition lead wire. Nothing was hooked up to the remote turn on wire on my head unit.

So now, I have the sub amps remote turn on wire and the 460 amp trigger wire hooked up to the head units remote turn on wire and the memory wire is hooked up to the ignition lead wire.

I no longer have a popping sound from my speakers when the head unit turns on. But instead I get a popping sound from my sub. Just a low boom really. Lol. I guess a resistor would fix that?

What value resistor would I need?


I jumped the battery enough so the battery charger would charge it yesterday and it was fully charged this morning. I left it all connected and we'll see if it still drains but I checked the amp and the power light does turn off when I turn the head unit off so that's good.


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ttocs

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yes a 1.5k resistor should stop the popping noise.

It should have been your drain problem and now the only problem I see is you said you have the ignition and constant on the deck hooked up to the ignition on the car. This means it will not keep the time on the clock and the radio stations, not sure if it will effect a Bluetooth connection if there is one. If you can pull the radio and connect the ignition to the ignition and the constant to the constant.
 
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FivepointSlow

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[MENTION=11896]ttocs[/MENTION] which wires coming from the car are the constant and ignition wires?
bAwzpgG.jpg



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ttocs

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constant = memory - lt grn/yellow according too that, on the end of the hrns but I would test it with a light/meter first
 

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