Car audio Installers help with HU please.

[overdrive380]

I installed my HeadUnit Saturday. Brand new Sony CDXCA400. Well the problem I am having is that everytime I turn the car off I lose all my presets and clock goes back to 1:00. When we hooked up the Power Ignition wire from the stereo to the Power Ignition wire from the car and the Battery wire from the stereo to the Battery wire from the car the head unit would not come on at all. So I had to plug the Stereo Battery wire and the Stereo Ignition wire to the car’s Power Ignition wire. The head unit comes on but my presets will go away when I shut the car off.
There is one wire from the stereo not plugged into anything and that is the power antenna. But I have a 5th gen dx that doesn’t have a power antenna.

Am I supposed to have that plugged into something?

O.K. if I run a wire from the battery to the battery wire on the headunit this should solve my problem but will that mean my headunit will run without the key in the acc position, in other words I would manually have to turn it off all the time.

Anyone with wiring knowledge please help.

[kicker1_solo]

well you have to have your main power wire go to the battery, and the remote wire go to your ignition like you have it so it will turn on when you turn your key on. But you have them both hooked to the ignition wire, so the whole deck shuts off when you take your keys out. If you hook both of them to your battery, then it will never shut off unless you maually do it. So you have to have the main power go directly to the battery and the other power wire go to the ignition so it will turn off when you take your keys out. That's the only way that it will perform properly like you want it. Since that didn't work, maybe you should run a new power wire from your battery to the deck so you can make sure the wire is wired up right. Hope that helped.

[CXHatchback]

You have 2 power wires, the red one powers the HU, the yellow one keeps the presets and shit. The red one needs to be hooked up to the ignition switch, which it seems like you've done if it's working. The yellow one needs to be hooked to the battery constantly. No this will not keep it on all the time, but it will hold your presets. That's what it's for. Just the yellow one though, not the red.

[CXHatchback]

Originally posted by kicker1_solo
So you have to have the main power go directly to the battery and the other power wire go to the ignition so it will turn off when you take your keys out.

It doesn't work like an amp, it's not a remote wire. The main power wire must be switched.

[overdrive380]

Originally posted by CXHatchback
You have 2 power wires, the red one powers the HU, the yellow one keeps the presets and shit. The red one needs to be hooked up to the ignition switch, which it seems like you've done if it's working. The yellow one needs to be hooked to the battery constantly. No this will not keep it on all the time, but it will hold your presets. That's what it's for. Just the yellow one though, not the red.

That is exactly how I tried it the first time and the head unit would not come on at all. Here was how I wired it the first time: (When the HU would not come on)

Stereo wires----------------------------Car wires
Red Ignition wire-----------------------Ignition wire
Yellow battery wire---------------------Battery Wire
Power Antennna wire (REM ANT)------Nothing (no power ant on 5th gen)
Antenna----------------------------------Antenna
Speaker wires---------------------------To corresponding speaker wires

With this setup the HU would not turn on at all. So I think my cars battery wire is messed up or something. So the way I made it work was;

Red Ignition wire----------------------Ignition wire
Yellow battery wire--------------------Ignition wire
Everything else the same as above.

This way it works but it won't keep my memory since that battery car wire isn't plugged in. My question is if I run a wire from the car battery with a fuse and plug it in to the Yellow battery wire of the stereo will My HU still shut off when I remove the key. I don't want to be able to turn the HU on without the key being in ACC or the car on. I don't want to get out of my car and have the battery drained because the HU stayed on.

Thanks for the help.

[-=BOOMER=-]

Originally posted by overdrive380

Red Ignition wire----------------------Ignition wire
Yellow battery wire--------------------Ignition wire
Everything else the same as above.

Some systems its yellow to the ignition and red to the constant battery.

[overdrive380]

Originally posted by -=BOOMER=-


Some systems its yellow to the ignition and red to the constant battery.

Well the wiring diagram that came with the HU said red was ignition and yellow was battery. Well anything bad happen if I switch them? Such as shorting out or anything.

What I am going to do is saturday when I take it apart again I am going to get a test light and see if there is any power coming out of the cars battery wire if there isn't then I will know I need to run another battery wire.

[CXHatchback]

definitely run your own constant wire. I had to do that with mine because for some reason the constant wire wasn't receiving power. Took me a bit to figure out why the presets weren't being saved.

Also look out for this problem when putting in a dash clock. The time might not hold either and you'll need to splice the wires and make a new constant for the clock. This happened to a couple people I know, including me. Not sure why the hell this happens.

[overdrive380]

Originally posted by CXHatchback
definitely run your own constant wire. I had to do that with mine because for some reason the constant wire wasn't receiving power. Took me a bit to figure out why the presets weren't being saved.

Also look out for this problem when putting in a dash clock. The time might not hold either and you'll need to splice the wires and make a new constant for the clock. This happened to a couple people I know, including me. Not sure why the hell this happens.

Yeah I am going to go ahead and do that. Thanks for everyone's help I will let you all know how it turns out Saturday.

[bigddd]

hey i had just about the same prob. i'd turn my car off and the clock/hu would reset. have you checked all the wires to make sure you've wired everything correctly? if so, then just the fuses, including the ones under the hood. my prob. was a blown fuse under the hood. i was so pissed and annoyed cause i couldnt figure out wtf the problem was, until i realized i forgot to check the fuses! check them out and lemme know if that dont work.

[overdrive380]

Originally posted by bigddd
hey i had just about the same prob. i'd turn my car off and the clock/hu would reset. have you checked all the wires to make sure you've wired everything correctly? if so, then just the fuses, including the ones under the hood. my prob. was a blown fuse under the hood. i was so pissed and annoyed cause i couldnt figure out wtf the problem was, until i realized i forgot to check the fuses! check them out and lemme know if that dont work.

I checked all the one under the steering column. I looked at the ones in the engine. But I didn't pull them. Do you remember which one was blown.

[bigddd]

it was a 7.5 fuse...i think it might have been in the top row under the hood? dont know for sure, but i would check them all anyway. believe me, lol, it took me like 2 days before i realized it was only a fuse, i probably wired my hu like 4 different times before i realized i forgot to check the fuses. check them out and lemme know if thats not the prob.

[overdrive380]

Well I ended up just rewiring a constant wire. I couldn't find any blown fuses. It was easy cause I already had some wires running through the firwall that were not connected to anything from an old alarm I used to have. So I just ran that wire to the battery with a fuse box, then found the other end under my dash and extended it to behind the radio and viola 12V constant power. Memory, clocks and presets good to go. Thanks for all the help.

[CXHatchback]

I knew it was a constant problem, I think it's very common in 5th gens.

[PaulD's_revenge]

I have not had a sony in a long time ... but isn't the yellow wire the one for the lights - or was that the orange one ?