No Radio Power?

[Mike6158]

I've been installing a new Pioneer AVIC-5200NEX... I bought the plug and play wiring harness from Crutchfield. It's not plug and play by the way. Full disclosure- I despise installing stereos. I can work on the electronics and I enjoy that... but I'm often tempted to use a 2# hammer to install stereos (I don't but man that would be fun)... not a fan... in the least...

I finally got the harness temporarily routed and plugged into the amp jack and the radio installed. I attempted to power it up. Nothing. great.

Initially I thought I was going to have to deal with Crutchfield Tech support and I was not really looking forward to it. They've gone down hill imho. I decided that I should check the power coming to the connector. 17 and 7 don't have power. The ECU has power (28) and the "cigar" jack has power (22). The fuses are good otherwise the ECU and "Cigar" wouldn't have power. Besides that I checked them and they are good. The auto antenna doesn't do anything either (in manual).

The only "radio" fuses I could find are in the fuse holder on the drivers side kick panel and the one in the big fuse box under the hood

More pics related to the post

The following are of the Toyota and Crutchfield harness connectors

Factory on the left. Crutchfield on the right

Crutchfield connector rear

Factory Connector Obviously the wiring is reversed from what it looks like plugged in. The connectors aren't the problem. The problem is the lack of power on Blue/Yellow and Gray wire.

 

[jerryb]

It's confusing if you name the connector numbers with respect to pin numbers. I would start with R1 radio plug and check power on pin #3 and 4, that's just how I would go about it. Don't know what add on harness your using, metra 71xx something?

 

[Mike6158]

I think it's a Metra harness. It's one that they charge for. I checked for voltage and it's not there. But the fuses are good, unless I'm missing a fuse location.

 

[jerryb]

I assumed it was, I have the same one it looks like. I'm taking the acc and B+ only off that plug. Yours is a different year. But I didn't have a power problem. I can only suggest working from the vehicle side of the R1 plug backwards to the battery to see why there isn't power. The antenna relay unplugged and the amp S6&7 plugs don't make a difference as far as power goes.
My year differs in the power config. I'd check pin 7 &16 on the S6A plug for bat+ power and the S7B pin 2 for ACC, which looks like you have. Is there no amp fuse? 30 amp? Was your radio working before you took the stock on out?
Looks like acc and b+ come from the amp on your year.
Toyota's wiring is so ghetto in this instance. Are you using the stock amp or or what? what year is your LC?

 

[LBridges]

I'm not clearly following the problem, but suggest you look at the three wires coming from the amp in the first wiring page you posted. The amp sends power to the headunit. If you also put in an amp you will have to jump the amp's power back to the headunit or wire in an independent fashion.

 

[Mike6158]

I assumed it was, I have the same one it looks like. I'm taking the acc and B+ only off that plug. Yours is a different year. But I didn't have a power problem. I can only suggest working from the vehicle side of the R1 plug backwards to the battery to see why there isn't power. The antenna relay unplugged and the amp S6&7 plugs don't make a difference as far as power goes.
My year differs in the power config. I'd check pin 7 &16 on the S6A plug for bat+ power and the S7B pin 2 for ACC, which looks like you have. Is there no amp fuse? 30 amp? Was your radio working before you took the stock on out?
Looks like acc and b+ come from the amp on your year.
Toyota's wiring is so ghetto in this instance. Are you using the stock amp or or what? what year is your LC?

2000... I pulled the stock amp a good while back. Like a year. That's why I bought the Crutchfield amp bypass cable. Except it doesn't bypass the amp does it...

I'm not clearly following the problem, but suggest you look at the three wires coming from the amp in the first wiring page you posted. The amp sends power to the headunit. If you also put in an amp you will have to jump the amp's power back to the headunit or wire in an independent fashion.

As I was driving home from having the front end aligned I had the exact thought that you just posted. However... Crutchfield and I are going to part ways after this. I've been using them since before there was an internet... They used to be reputable. Those days appear to be gone. I can get crap service anywhere

 

[TXSunDevil]

Did you use the amp bypass harness? I think you will need to ground your head unit in the dash. The amp sends the head unit a ground and the harness may prevent that.

 

[Mike6158]

Did you use the amp bypass harness? I think you will need to ground your head unit in the dash. The amp sends the head unit a ground and the harness may prevent that.

When I check power at the terminal that is supposed to be hot all the time and the terminal that is hot when the key is on (with the key on) the ground reference that I use for my meter is the the chassis ground. There is no supply voltage where it's supposed to be when it's supposed to be there. I extended and used the ground wire from the head unit. It doesn't matter though. Ground comes back from the amp... except in my case I pulled the amp a long time ago and I've got nothing that has to do with power at the head. Hopefully I'll find the amp.

I used the amp "bypass" harness. The amp supplies power to the head unit (stock and aftermarket in this case). The harness doesn't bypass the amp. It bypasses the amp output and lets the head unit send audio to the speakers. The amp on my LC does a lot of other things. Like power the power the radio, raise and lower the antenna... things that the harness doesn't do. So it's not an amp bypass harness. It's a mile long wad of wires that pisses me off right now...

 

[TXSunDevil]

I did an amp bypass and change out a few months back. You are saying there is no power at the connector in the dash? I would check under the seat and start with A16- A7 and B2 at the amp which show to be S6 and S7.

 

[Mike6158]

I did an amp bypass and change out a few months back. You are saying there is no power at the connector in the dash? I would check under the seat and start with A16- A7 and B2 at the amp which show to be S6 and S7.

I can check the connectors... but without the amp I'd have to kludge something together to back feed power to the head unit. I have the housing... just not the board. I pulled it out last winter (I think) to put it on the bench and test it. If I remember right I got hung up on the connectors. I wanted to build a test "rack" so all I had to do is plug the amp in and power it up. The connectors proved to be a challenge to find. Then something came up, probably fixing someone else's stuff, restoring a tube amp, something... and I didn't get to it. Now it's "somewhere" but not anywhere I can find it.

 

[jerryb]

That's why I bought the Crutchfield amp bypass cable. Except it doesn't bypass the amp does it... nope.
I'll step aside after this. From 05 or 06 the deck power comes straight from the bat/fuse.
If I had an 04 or back I would ignore all the LC wiring completely and make my own from the radio/lighter fuse. Straight bat+ wire from the LC battery. Don't ground your pioneer through that harness, and make your own trigger. Blue and blue/white if the 5200 has that.
If you have any other pioneer wiring Qs I can help out. Mine is currently out to get a new hard drive. So I can look inside easily.

 

[Mike6158]

I've been under an around my LC for 2 weeks. Ie working on it. Lift, rear bumper, air compressor, dual batteries, shocks... Idk what else. I picked this stereo because it was "plug and play' and I thought it might survive my highly irritated frame of mind (I'm tired of working on this thing. I'm ready to go somewhere and if all I have to listen to is wind noise and my glorious singing then so be it. That's all I've had for a year anyway). I hate installing freaking stereos in todays vehicles.

I don't mind your idea about bypassing the kludge that Crutchfield misrepresents, too much, except one small problem, I've still got to run power cable to a fuse panel in the rear, after I install the fuse panel, install two ham rigs, and I want to rewire some of the "cigar" connections to be always on (but with a voltage monitor that auto shuts off if the voltage drops too low) with real wire that can handle more than an amp. In other words, I have a lot of wiring work left to do and I don't want to wire the radio and then turn around and rewire it. If I bypass the kludge then I have to run speaker wire. Did I mention I hate installing stereos? I'd rather swap my steering rack again than jack around with a stereo system...

 

[Mike6158]

Plan B... I just found a used, allegedly working, amp with the same model number. That, of course, means that I'll find my amp in a few minutes. I'm probably sitting on it.

If I'm looking at the block diagram right the amp has something to do with powering the antenna up and down?

 

[Mike6158]

I don't want anyone to think that I'm ungrateful for the advice given here. I'm mulling it over and I've been given some good ideas.

It's probably pretty obvious that I'm pissed at the world right now and that's not a good frame of mind for wiring or any kind of work for that matter. With that in mind I'm going to look over a (ham radio) kit that someone built and see if I can get it to work for them. That'll get my mind off of the head unit...

If it's not raining tomorrow, I'll pull the passenger seats and console. I have to mount the dual battery controller and ARB compressor switches. While all of that is out I'll run two power and a ground wire to the head unit and cut it loose from the amp. That makes the power part of the install clean and simple. Then I won't care if the amp is installed or not. I bought the other amp (so I can find mine). If nothing else I can recondition it and sell it.

I appreciate the help.

 

[TXSunDevil]

Mike,

I completely removed my old factory amp and sold it on Ebay. I used the same Metra amp bypass. I am going through some old photos now to see what I can come up with. The only thing I remember was I had to ground the head or it wouldn't work. I am looking at your FSM. What year is your vehicle? Is the FSM for that year? It looks like what you are showing there will not work with the Metra Bypass. The amp has two harnesses. One is labeled A or S6 in the FSM the other is B or S7 in the FSM. IIRC the "A" harness is the speaker wires mostly but also feeds power. All of those wires on that Metra harness go from the stereo outputs to the harness which clips into the disconnected harness in the amp area that feeds the speakers. This will not work.

All of those wires on the harness in my hand go up to the head unit but only the speaker outputs. If that is the case this harness "A" can never provide the power on A16 and A7 because it is disconnected. So if you pulled your old amp you just have the "B" harness sitting there. Looking at your FSM that will never work. The amp provided a jumper between B2 and B9 for ACC power and A7 and A16 to B3. If you look at the FSM you will see that is where you get your power on the Blue/Yellow and the Gray wire. Pull the seat and grab the "A" plug that goes into the amp. This would have been the plug you attached to the new Metra harness. This is connector S6. The index in the back shows the terminals. Terminals 7 and 16 should both show 12VDC to ground. If you have power there check the "B" plug S7. Check terminal 2 for 12VDC to ground. If you have power at all 3 spots you are good. You will just have to jump some wires and add a ground because the head unit was ground through the amp via terminal B10.
The jumps look to be B2 to B9. Wire colors should match and A7-A16 to B3. Toyota likes a double power loop on these vehicles for some reason.

 

[Mike6158]

Mike,

I completely removed my old factory amp and sold it on Ebay. I used the same Metra amp bypass. I am going through some old photos now to see what I can come up with. The only thing I remember was I had to ground the head or it wouldn't work. I am looking at your FSM. What year is your vehicle? Is the FSM for that year? It looks like what you are showing there will not work with the Metra Bypass. The amp has two harnesses. One is labeled A or S6 in the FSM the other is B or S7 in the FSM. IIRC the "A" harness is the speaker wires mostly but also feeds power. All of those wires on that Metra harness go from the stereo outputs to the harness which clips into the disconnected harness in the amp area that feeds the speakers. This will not work.

All of those wires on the harness in my hand go up to the head unit but only the speaker outputs. If that is the case this harness "A" can never provide the power on A16 and A7 because it is disconnected. So if you pulled your old amp you just have the "B" harness sitting there. Looking at your FSM that will never work. The amp provided a jumper between B2 and B9 for ACC power and A7 and A16 to B3. If you look at the FSM you will see that is where you get your power on the Blue/Yellow and the Gray wire. Pull the seat and grab the "A" plug that goes into the amp. This would have been the plug you attached to the new Metra harness. This is connector S6. The index in the back shows the terminals. Terminals 7 and 16 should both show 12VDC to ground. If you have power there check the "B" plug S7. Check terminal 2 for 12VDC to ground. If you have power at all 3 spots you are good. You will just have to jump some wires and add a ground because the head unit was ground through the amp via terminal B10.
The jumps look to be B2 to B9. Wire colors should match and A7-A16 to B3. Toyota likes a double power loop on these vehicles for some reason.

I removed my factory amp and lost it

2000 LC and 2000 FSM (I actually have two of the electrical FSM's, both 2000)

The harness in your hand is the harness that I plugged into one of the two amp connectors (largest one). What you are describing makes sense. I'll check voltage on the other plug (under the seat) and see what I can find.

 

[TXSunDevil]

Sounds like a plan. And if you look on the schematic you would have unplugged harness "B" from the amp. That is the smaller harness and that would be your power from the cigar fuse and your ground.

 

[Mike6158]

I can't find an ACCY power point in the small or large factory plug under the seat. I can find two wires that are always hot in the small factory plug. One of them is a black wire W... T... F... the other is red. Nothing else shows power with the LC ign on / off when it's off. There are two wires in the plug that connects the Metra harness to the radio that are hot all of the time but the harness didn't use those. The Mongolians are forming a cluster...

Not that it matters at this point but it eventually will. What tells the antenna to go up and down? I see a Blue - Power Antenna wire in the Metra Harness but nothing about what it's supposed to connect to.

No amp = No antenna movement. I know that to be true

 

[TXSunDevil]

the ACC should be on plug B2. It comes from the Cigar which according to my FSM is switched with the key. 12V constant goes to small harness 12V switched goes to big harness.

 

[Mike6158]

I'll check again but I didn't find that. I was able to get the stereo to power up with jumpers but I'm not convinced that I want to start whacking on wiring that looks way too small for what they used it for. And the left channel doesn't work even with no amp so I guess it wasn't the amp.