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Help with aftermarket Head Unit

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Friend just installed a Pioneer DEH 6800 in his 05 Ram. The deck turns on (has switched power) but there is no sound to the speakers regardless of volume. The factory setup was an RBQ deck with the Infinity package. Is this a situation that will require the CAN-BUS adapter? With a manufacture date of 04/05 we thought we could get away with just a standard wiring harness but perhaps we need a CAN-BUS adapter? Any help is appreciated, thanks in advance.
 
I think that your truck with the infinity system has a seperate factory amp. Did you bypass the amp? And did you use a factory adapter harness like metra. There is a site

www.dodgeforum.com search there.





Richard
 
I did not bypass the factory amp... my understanding from reading some of the posts in here was that that would only be necessary if the stereo was on a CAN-BUS circuit. Either that or buy a CAN-BUS adapter. I actually bought the basic harness you mentioned. Does the factory amp utilize a turn-on signal generated from the head unit like an aftermarket amp would?
 
Hey may have missed a wire. I had the same exact thing happen on my g/f 03 liberty. Turned on fine but no sound, I though I had a bad head unit ,but when I directly connected the speakers to the back of the head unit it worked fine. If you do have an infinity system you are probably just not giving your amp power.



I believe on the pionner stero wiring it is a blue wire. (could be wrong though). That is what it was on my g/f jeep. I don't believe you need a can-bus adapter. I could be wrong though...
 
Thanks Mobius. I double checked his wiring and believe everything is wired right... and then some. There are way more connections on the Pioneer harness and generic wiring harness than on the factory harness. Perhaps this means something? We also experimented with and unused lead and the entire gauge cluster freaked out and gave a "no bus" display on the odometer... is this proof of a CAN-bus???
 
When it said "no bus" that ment that the system just lost contact with the pcm. If you want, you can take a speaker out of a door and connect it right to the back of the stereo itself, bypassing all of the trucks wiring. If you get sound, then you know the head unit is alright.



As far as the can-bus goes I am not too sure about that, but I do not think so. Did the radio have controls on the steering wheel?



I think that the vehicles internal amp is not being powered on and therefore you are not getting any sound.



How many different places did you try that extra wire?
 
any way you could take a picture and post it so we could take a look? is there a solid blue wire and a blue with white wire? make sure you have the correct blue wire hooked up to turn the amp on.
 
The first CAN bus trucks were 06. Prior to that they were PCI bus. Check that you have 12v at the radio connector C1, pin 13, dark green wire. That feeds 12v from the radio to the amp at C1, pin 5. If you do, you are missing the bus signal from the factory radio to tell the amp the radio is on.

Depending on how you adapted the wiring you can fool the amp by wiring the factory radio with B+ and ground, and wire the bus from the factory radio to the bus circuit of the truck. Do you have a wiring adapter that will plug into the factory radio? I saw a Magnum that the customer installed the factory radio under the seat with power, ground and bus to fool the amp. The only other solution is to replace the factory amp with an aftermarket.

To clarify you need three powers, 2 B+ (C1 pins 1 and 12 grey/red) and one switched (start/run) B+ (C1 pin 2 pink/yellow)

2 grounds, C1 pin 11 and 22 Black and black/green

The PCI bus is C1 pin 14 white/violet

For ease of this test, you can run B+ (just use B+ for the switched B+ for the test) and ground direct from the battery for all three powers and the two grounds. Plug the bus circuit into the data link connector under the dash to pin 2, white with violet and you can just leave the aftermarket radio installed (except to check for 12v at C1 pin 13 above)

When you turn on the factory radio power the amp should start working.

I know this sounds confusing, but a roll of wire and a spare factory radio connector will make it a ten minute test.
 
Holy ingenuity batman!

Thanks a ton Sag! I hadn't thought about that... using the factory head unit as a 'dummy' just to get it to issue whatever command the amp wants from the bus. That's the gist of what you've suggested right? Out of curiosity, would it be even simpler to remove the PCB from the head unit and hard wire all the appropriate connections you just mentioned and stuff it somewhere inconspicuous like in your customers Magnum? I can only imagine that's all the aftermarket adapter units do... Thoughts?



For all you EE's a cool project would be something that emulates whatever (digital?) signal the bus wants to see from the head unit, plumb that in parallel with an aftermarket wiring harness and voila! A parallel factory amp trigger that goes inline with an aftermarket deck. May also eliminate the need to wire around the amp for those who can't talk their bosses into the 3-day vacation for that task...
 
Don't know if it's the same, but on an '06, the factory amp is behind the glovebox area. Pull the glovebox out, and look slightly upward. --Eric
 
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