Remote turn-on wire not putting out enough juice? (2010 WRX w/ Nav)

syphon · 05-09-2013, 12:24 AM

This is a difficult question to Google for, since I don't know which component is causing the failure.

I have a 2010 WRX with the factory navigation. It looks like this. I just bought a Sound Ordnance B-8PT subwoofer to put under the seat. When I got it all wired up, the amp would not turn on.

I busted out my multi-meter. It shows power on the battery wire all the time and power on the remote turn-on wire when the deck is on. Exactly as it should be. I can't figure out why the thing won't turn on. To test it out, I took a bit of wire and bridged the battery wire to the remote turn-on terminal. Sure enough, the amp fired up and the speaker started working. That tells me the problem is with the remote turn-on wire.

The only thing I can think of is that the deck isn't pushing enough amperage through the remote wire. I don't know exactly how to read my multi-meter, but the Battery wire is pushing a lot more current than the remote one.

Does my hypothesis seem reasonable? Does anyone know if this is a common issue? I could try tapping the ACC wire off my stereo, or even pull from the cigarette lighter or something, but I'd really like to understand what's going wrong here before I start hacking something up.

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luan87us · 05-09-2013, 12:32 AM

Are you using the correct wire? Amp-on/REmote on should be pin 23 on your 24pin harness.

Code:

Pins Numbering

             | Latch  |
 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

Code:

Pins Assignments

Pin  Function                        Car's Color 
---  -----------------------------   ------------
 1   NC                              —
 2   NC                              —
 3   Steering Wheel Controls +       Brown
 4   Parking Brake                   Grey
 5   Reverse Gear                    Brown/Yellow
 6   CAN Low (data bus)              Light Green/Red
 7   Forester only **                *
 8   Video Input Ground              Sealed (braided shield)
 9   Aux input enable                Black/Orange
10   Aux Input - Left                Yellow
11   Subwoofer out - Audio Ground *  *
12   Subwoofer out (in phase) *      *

13   Video Output                    —
14   NC                              —
15   Steering Wheel Controls –       Yellow
16   +12V Ignition (Run)             Green/Yellow
17   Vehicle Speed Signal            Pink/Green
18   CAN High (data bus)             Pink
19   Video Output Ground             —
20   Video Input                     Red
21   Aux Input - Audio Ground        Sealed (braided shield)
22   Aux Input - Right               Blue
23   Subwoofer out - Amp On *        *
24   Subwoofer out (inverted) *      *

syphon · 05-09-2013, 12:40 AM

I will double check that. I'm using a harness made by someone here on the forums, and I'm simply using the label he wired as 'Remote turn-on'. However, that wire is Blue, which according to your chart is not the right wire (unless the colors don't match up, I'm not sure).

syphon · 05-09-2013, 12:52 AM

Damn, I just double checked and yes, that's the wire I'm using.

Dutch Scooby lover · 05-09-2013, 01:23 AM

Maybe the wire puts out enough amps/volts to trigger a standard or solid state automotive relay.That way the amp will turn on/off together with the radio.
It's quite a crude fix, but is may be the best option.

Mulder · 05-09-2013, 05:49 AM

A turn-on wire isn't supposed to supply a large amount of current. It only supplies the voltage as a signal to turn the device (amp etc) on when needed.
Are you sure that is actually a turn-on? Typically the OEM systems don't have one, I know for sure the older ones don't and you have to use the ACC circuit.

luan87us · 05-09-2013, 08:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by syphon

Damn, I just double checked and yes, that's the wire I'm using.

Lets me confirm a few things with you.

Are you talking about the Kenwood OEM Navigation HU?

http://img683.imageshack.us/img683/729/subarunavihu.jpg

And who harness did you get from? I would just check from the connector coming from your car. Look at the pin numbering and find pin 23. Make sure it is matching that blue wire on the harness you bought.

Also this might sound dumb but do you actually have a power source coming to the sub? Powered sub doesn't mean it'll power itself. You still need to run power source to it. The Remote on is just to let the amp in the sub know that the radio is on so it should turn on too.

Beau M · 05-09-2013, 08:58 AM

He said in the first post that he has power on both the battery and remote lines. The interesting part is getting it to fire up with the jumper wire, even though you have 12v on the remote line.

Does the sub have signal sensing turn on? Some amps will turn on when they receive an audio signal, which makes it easier to integrate into stock systems. I wonder if you need to turn that off somehow?

Other than that I'm with Dutch. Get a small 12v relay and see if the remote line has the juice to trigger it.

LIChuck · 05-09-2013, 09:06 AM

Measure the current it takes to turn on the amp. The amp might have a bad signal input.

luan87us · 05-09-2013, 09:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Beau M

He said in the first post that he has power on both the battery and remote lines. The interesting part is getting it to fire up with the jumper wire, even though you have 12v on the remote line.

Does the sub have signal sensing turn on? Some amps will turn on when they receive an audio signal, which makes it easier to integrate into stock systems. I wonder if you need to turn that off somehow?

Other than that I'm with Dutch. Get a small 12v relay and see if the remote line has the juice to trigger it.

Just want to make sure he is actually powering it lol.

syphon · 05-09-2013, 01:56 PM

Sorry for the multi-quote response here...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mulder

Are you sure that is actually a turn-on? Typically the OEM systems don't have one, I know for sure the older ones don't and you have to use the ACC circuit.

Yes. Not only did the guy who made the harness label it as such, it also matches the pin diagram posted above. Most tellingly, it sees 12v current when the stereo is on.

Quote:

Originally Posted by luan87us

Are you talking about the Kenwood OEM Navigation HU?

http://img683.imageshack.us/img683/729/subarunavihu.jpg

Yes. You even linked to the exact same picture I did in the OP.

Quote:

Originally Posted by luan87us

And who harness did you get from? I would just check from the connector coming from your car. Look at the pin numbering and find pin 23. Make sure it is matching that blue wire on the harness you bought.

Already verified. Also, as I mentioned in the OP, the wire sees SOME current when the ignition is on, so I'm positive the wire is at least behaving partially as intended!

Quote:

Originally Posted by luan87us

Also this might sound dumb but do you actually have a power source coming to the sub? Powered sub doesn't mean it'll power itself. You still need to run power source to it. The Remote on is just to let the amp in the sub know that the radio is on so it should turn on too.

Yes. As I mentioned in the OP, when I bridge the Power and Turn-On wire (thus giving the amp a known 'hot' wire on the remote turn-on lead), the amp fires up and the speaker works great.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Beau M

Does the sub have signal sensing turn on? Some amps will turn on when they receive an audio signal, which makes it easier to integrate into stock systems. I wonder if you need to turn that off somehow?
.

The amp does have a switch for 'high-level signal sensing turn on' or 'remote wire turn on'. I have it set to remote wire. I'd switch it to the signal sensing if I could, but it only works when it's connected to speaker wire, and I have it connected via RCAs.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LIChuck

Measure the current it takes to turn on the amp. The amp might have a bad signal input.

Yeah this is what I was suspecting, but I don't know how to do that. I have two power sources available to me, the wire directly from the battery and the wire from the deck. The first one works and the second one doesn't, but I don't know how to test the delta between the two!

EDIT: I just noticed that the forum software takes random text in people's posts and makes it into a marketing link. That explains why people missed the stuff I linked in the OP. They're probably trained to ignore random links in posts! Sorry for the confusion guys.

SVXdc · 05-09-2013, 06:37 PM

syphon- You're using my "Navi transplant" harness, right? (for a car that originally shipped with a non-nav OEM HU). Did it have the RCA jack for the Navi's subwoofer audio output, or just plain wires?

The wire colors in luan87us's post #2 are the factory wire colors for 2008-up Impreza/WRX/STI. Since your car didn't ship with a Navi, you don't have those wires. The colors on my transplant harness are different. My amp remote turn-on should be BLUE/WHITE, with printing on the wire that says that. Is that not the color on pin 23?

Many people have successfully added an B-8PT to the OEM Navi, connecting to the HU's line-level sub out and remote turn-on.

Two things you can check:

With the Navi's remote turn-on connected to the sub's remote input, verify the voltage maintains 12V. If it drops much below that, there is a problem (either Navi has a bad transistor, or the sub is trying to draw too much current on its input).
.
Disconnect the Navi's remote turn-on lead from sub. Set your meter for DC amps. Set scale to 1 Amp (or nearest scale that is 1 Amp or higher). Connect meter's red lead to Navi's remote turn-on lead. Connect meter's black lead to sub's remote input terminal. Measure current.

Remove meter's red lead from Navi's wire and connect meter's red lead to your +12V Battery supply to sub. Again, measure current.

In both cases, if the reading is very low you can disconnect the meter's red lead, change the meter to the next lower DC amps scale, and measure again. Repeat until you are in the lowest scale that doesn't overflow.

Typically, an amp's remote turn-on should draw less than 200 mA (0.2 Amps). The Navi should not have any problem supplying that (assuming it's not defective).

The +12V Battery lead will show you how much current the sub draws on its remote input. The sub should draw the same amount from the Navi's remote turn-on. If that reads lower, there is a problem (again, sub drawing too much, or Navi's output circuit has a fault).

If your Navi's remote turn-on output is bad, you can instead use the HU's power antenna remote turn-on (pin 14 into the Navi's 14-pin power/speaker socket). That wire should be BLUE (with printing that says "power antenna").

ADDED: On the Subaru OEM Kenwood Navi HUs (unlike all other Subaru HUs that I know of), the power antenna lead is left 'on' the entire time the HU is on. On all other models, the HU shuts off the power antenna lead when you switch to CD, aux, USB, sat radio, etc.

syphon · 05-09-2013, 08:32 PM

Yep, I'm using your wiring harness. The wire I'm connected to is labeled by you as 'amp turn on' and matches to pin 23 on the wiring diagram above. I'm pretty certain it's the correct wire. I'll fiddle around with the multi-meter to see what I can find, and will consider using the antenna wire if that fails.

luan87us · 05-10-2013, 08:21 AM

Oooh you never said you used the transplant cable lol. That's why I thought it was weird you're using a blue cable. But yeah good luck finding the problem. Hopefully you'll get your sub working soon. SVXDc is a great guy and I think with his help you will be able to figure this out.

LIChuck · 05-10-2013, 09:12 AM

1. Switch the meter to the current measuring function.
2. Connect the meter leads to the current inputs (The common usually doesn't change but the plus input does).
3. Connect the meter in series with the wire you want to measure the current in.
4. Turn on the system and read the current.

syphon · 05-11-2013, 11:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SVXdc

If your Navi's remote turn-on output is bad, you can instead use the HU's power antenna remote turn-on (pin 14 into the Navi's 14-pin power/speaker socket). That wire should be BLUE (with printing that says "power antenna").

This was my ultimate solution. I don't know why the amp turn-on wire wasn't working, but when I tapped this wire, the sub started working great.

Thanks for your help, everyone!

broom_dude · 05-14-2013, 01:59 AM

I have the exact same problem! I just installed a 08 OEM nav into a 08 non-nav sti and was also connecting the sound ordnance subwoofer.

And the most puzzling part is, the sub was working great a day before. After I finished installing the sub, I started to install backup cam and tapping the VSS, reverse signal, grounding the parking brake wire ...etc and everything worked great. However, today, as I was driving home, I noticed that the subwoofer stopped working.

I fiddled with all the connections and make sure things are connected properly. I measured the voltage across the subwoofer's '+' and '-' terminals and got 12v. But when I measure the voltage aross the remote amp turn on terminal and the ground, I only get 3V. I got the same 3V reading at the HU's remote turn on wire out.

I will go and try tapping into that other wire tomorrow. Hopefully, it will fix my problem too.

SVXdc · 05-14-2013, 02:35 AM

I recommend that you measure how much current that sub draws on its remote turn-on input. For your test, connect to the +12V Battery lead (yellow wire on my harness), connecting your meter as I describe above.

If the B-8PT does draw too much, it could eventually blow the transistor that drives the Navi's power antenna pin too. So it may be better to connect the sub to +12V Accessory (tap into red wire on my harness).

What voltage does the Navi's pin 23 measure with nothing else connected?

elcapitan1110 · 05-14-2013, 06:24 PM

Hi SVXdc,

I don't mean to hijack the thread, but I needed to contact you, and I couldn't find an email address and I couldn't message you over the forum. Can I have your email so I can get some help with buying a harness from you? I need some clarification...

05-09-2013, 12:24 AM	#1
syphon Scooby Newbie Member#: 54099 Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Seattle Vehicle: 2010 WRX 5dr Satin White Pearl	Remote turn-on wire not putting out enough juice? (2010 WRX w/ Nav) This is a difficult question to Google for, since I don't know which component is causing the failure. I have a 2010 WRX with the factory navigation. It looks like this. I just bought a Sound Ordnance B-8PT subwoofer to put under the seat. When I got it all wired up, the amp would not turn on. I busted out my multi-meter. It shows power on the battery wire all the time and power on the remote turn-on wire when the deck is on. Exactly as it should be. I can't figure out why the thing won't turn on. To test it out, I took a bit of wire and bridged the battery wire to the remote turn-on terminal. Sure enough, the amp fired up and the speaker started working. That tells me the problem is with the remote turn-on wire. The only thing I can think of is that the deck isn't pushing enough amperage through the remote wire. I don't know exactly how to read my multi-meter, but the Battery wire is pushing a lot more current than the remote one. Does my hypothesis seem reasonable? Does anyone know if this is a common issue? I could try tapping the ACC wire off my stereo, or even pull from the cigarette lighter or something, but I'd really like to understand what's going wrong here before I start hacking something up. * Registered users of the site do not see these ads.

05-09-2013, 06:37 PM	#12
SVXdc Scooby Specialist Member#: 25837 Join Date: Oct 2002 Chapter/Region: South East Location: Atlanta, GA Vehicle: 1996 SVX L AWD Laguna Blue Pearl	syphon- You're using my "Navi transplant" harness, right? (for a car that originally shipped with a non-nav OEM HU). Did it have the RCA jack for the Navi's subwoofer audio output, or just plain wires? The wire colors in luan87us's post #2 are the factory wire colors for 2008-up Impreza/WRX/STI. Since your car didn't ship with a Navi, you don't have those wires. The colors on my transplant harness are different. My amp remote turn-on should be BLUE/WHITE, with printing on the wire that says that. Is that not the color on pin 23? Many people have successfully added an B-8PT to the OEM Navi, connecting to the HU's line-level sub out and remote turn-on. Two things you can check: With the Navi's remote turn-on connected to the sub's remote input, verify the voltage maintains 12V. If it drops much below that, there is a problem (either Navi has a bad transistor, or the sub is trying to draw too much current on its input). . Disconnect the Navi's remote turn-on lead from sub. Set your meter for DC amps. Set scale to 1 Amp (or nearest scale that is 1 Amp or higher). Connect meter's red lead to Navi's remote turn-on lead. Connect meter's black lead to sub's remote input terminal. Measure current. Remove meter's red lead from Navi's wire and connect meter's red lead to your +12V Battery supply to sub. Again, measure current. In both cases, if the reading is very low you can disconnect the meter's red lead, change the meter to the next lower DC amps scale, and measure again. Repeat until you are in the lowest scale that doesn't overflow. Typically, an amp's remote turn-on should draw less than 200 mA (0.2 Amps). The Navi should not have any problem supplying that (assuming it's not defective). The +12V Battery lead will show you how much current the sub draws on its remote input. The sub should draw the same amount from the Navi's remote turn-on. If that reads lower, there is a problem (again, sub drawing too much, or Navi's output circuit has a fault). If your Navi's remote turn-on output is bad, you can instead use the HU's power antenna remote turn-on (pin 14 into the Navi's 14-pin power/speaker socket). That wire should be BLUE (with printing that says "power antenna"). ADDED: On the Subaru OEM Kenwood Navi HUs (unlike all other Subaru HUs that I know of), the power antenna lead is left 'on' the entire time the HU is on. On all other models, the HU shuts off the power antenna lead when you switch to CD, aux, USB, sat radio, etc. Last edited by SVXdc; 05-13-2013 at 09:36 PM.

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05-09-2013, 12:40 AM	#3
syphon Scooby Newbie Member#: 54099 Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Seattle Vehicle: 2010 WRX 5dr Satin White Pearl	I will double check that. I'm using a harness made by someone here on the forums, and I'm simply using the label he wired as 'Remote turn-on'. However, that wire is Blue, which according to your chart is not the right wire (unless the colors don't match up, I'm not sure).

05-09-2013, 12:52 AM	#4
syphon Scooby Newbie Member#: 54099 Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Seattle Vehicle: 2010 WRX 5dr Satin White Pearl	Damn, I just double checked and yes, that's the wire I'm using.

05-09-2013, 01:23 AM	#5
Dutch Scooby lover Scooby Specialist Member#: 32452 Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: The Netherlands Vehicle: 1998 Impreza Turbo 74F FTW	Maybe the wire puts out enough amps/volts to trigger a standard or solid state automotive relay.That way the amp will turn on/off together with the radio. It's quite a crude fix, but is may be the best option.

05-09-2013, 05:49 AM	#6
Mulder Trust no one Moderator Member#: 11170 Join Date: Oct 2001 Chapter/Region: Tri-State Location: NYC Vehicle: 02 WRX 05 GTO/11 Sonata(!)	A turn-on wire isn't supposed to supply a large amount of current. It only supplies the voltage as a signal to turn the device (amp etc) on when needed. Are you sure that is actually a turn-on? Typically the OEM systems don't have one, I know for sure the older ones don't and you have to use the ACC circuit.

05-09-2013, 08:58 AM	#8
Beau M Scooby Newbie Member#: 345079 Join Date: Jan 2013 Chapter/Region: NWIC Location: Burien WA Vehicle: 13 Wrx sedan PWM	He said in the first post that he has power on both the battery and remote lines. The interesting part is getting it to fire up with the jumper wire, even though you have 12v on the remote line. Does the sub have signal sensing turn on? Some amps will turn on when they receive an audio signal, which makes it easier to integrate into stock systems. I wonder if you need to turn that off somehow? Other than that I'm with Dutch. Get a small 12v relay and see if the remote line has the juice to trigger it.

05-09-2013, 09:06 AM	#9
LIChuck Scooby Newbie Member#: 266122 Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Patchogue, NY Vehicle: 2007 WRX Limited	Measure the current it takes to turn on the amp. The amp might have a bad signal input.

05-09-2013, 08:32 PM	#13
syphon Scooby Newbie Member#: 54099 Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Seattle Vehicle: 2010 WRX 5dr Satin White Pearl	Yep, I'm using your wiring harness. The wire I'm connected to is labeled by you as 'amp turn on' and matches to pin 23 on the wiring diagram above. I'm pretty certain it's the correct wire. I'll fiddle around with the multi-meter to see what I can find, and will consider using the antenna wire if that fails.

05-10-2013, 08:21 AM	#14
luan87us Scooby Specialist Member#: 335013 Join Date: Oct 2012 Chapter/Region: RMIC Location: SL,UT Vehicle: 2013 Premium WRX 5dr WRB	Oooh you never said you used the transplant cable lol. That's why I thought it was weird you're using a blue cable. But yeah good luck finding the problem. Hopefully you'll get your sub working soon. SVXDc is a great guy and I think with his help you will be able to figure this out.

05-10-2013, 09:12 AM	#15
LIChuck Scooby Newbie Member#: 266122 Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Patchogue, NY Vehicle: 2007 WRX Limited	1. Switch the meter to the current measuring function. 2. Connect the meter leads to the current inputs (The common usually doesn't change but the plus input does). 3. Connect the meter in series with the wire you want to measure the current in. 4. Turn on the system and read the current.

05-14-2013, 01:59 AM	#17
broom_dude Scooby Newbie Member#: 66859 Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: Gilroy, ca Vehicle: 2008 STi Hatch Aspen White	I have the exact same problem! I just installed a 08 OEM nav into a 08 non-nav sti and was also connecting the sound ordnance subwoofer. And the most puzzling part is, the sub was working great a day before. After I finished installing the sub, I started to install backup cam and tapping the VSS, reverse signal, grounding the parking brake wire ...etc and everything worked great. However, today, as I was driving home, I noticed that the subwoofer stopped working. I fiddled with all the connections and make sure things are connected properly. I measured the voltage across the subwoofer's '+' and '-' terminals and got 12v. But when I measure the voltage aross the remote amp turn on terminal and the ground, I only get 3V. I got the same 3V reading at the HU's remote turn on wire out. I will go and try tapping into that other wire tomorrow. Hopefully, it will fix my problem too.

05-14-2013, 02:35 AM	#18
SVXdc Scooby Specialist Member#: 25837 Join Date: Oct 2002 Chapter/Region: South East Location: Atlanta, GA Vehicle: 1996 SVX L AWD Laguna Blue Pearl	I recommend that you measure how much current that sub draws on its remote turn-on input. For your test, connect to the +12V Battery lead (yellow wire on my harness), connecting your meter as I describe above. If the B-8PT does draw too much, it could eventually blow the transistor that drives the Navi's power antenna pin too. So it may be better to connect the sub to +12V Accessory (tap into red wire on my harness). What voltage does the Navi's pin 23 measure with nothing else connected?

05-14-2013, 06:24 PM	#19
elcapitan1110 Scooby Newbie Member#: 324618 Join Date: Jun 2012 Location: NJ Vehicle: 2008 STi DGM	Hi SVXdc, I don't mean to hijack the thread, but I needed to contact you, and I couldn't find an email address and I couldn't message you over the forum. Can I have your email so I can get some help with buying a harness from you? I need some clarification...