I bought a clarion 835 head unit and installed it myself using all new wires except for the power and illumination. About 3 weeks ago the unit just stopped playing sound; now it plays very sparodically and other wise the track times for the cd increase like it is playing but no sound is played. When i leave the car off for a period of time and then turn it on it works at first and then dies. Also when i hit bumps of any kind it may go on for a second and then die out again. I have uninstalled and reinstalled the unit many times and checked all of the wiring with no results. Anyone have any idea what the problem could be? Thanks

 

not sure but it sounds like maybe you didn't ground it or maybe bare wire is touching metal and grounding out. this probably isn't whats wrong and doesnt help much but hey i tried

 

Nice try, but that definately wouldnt be the problem. You connect the headunit to the power unit in the back, which is already factory grounded, and if it was shorting out, it wouldnt flare up and then die, it would always stay dead. You may have gotten a fualty headunit, try a different one and if you still have the same problems, I dont know what to tell you. Take it to a car audio shop if the new headunit doesnt work.

 

It definately sounds like it's shorting out - whenever you go over a bump, it jolts the wires, and may either disconnect the power/ground, or let the power touch ground.

Try connecting it to a seperate battery with another connector, and see if it still has the same problems (shake it about) if that still doesn't work properly, its the unit itself that has a faulty connection. Take it back, tell them the problem, and get a replacement unit

but what you say about it playing tracks, also leads me to believe its a dodgy connector in the HU - best test it first though, you may just have a dodgy adaptor

 

i connected the unit to a separate ground and took it out from the dash. The unit works for about a minute and then dies. If i turn the car/ unit off for a few minutes and then try it again the sound plays again. I tried this both when moving and when stationary with the same results. I was thinking it may be a faulty capacitor within the unit? Does that sound right?

 

Nope, if there was a capacitor faulty, it would either stutter all the time (it would sound VERY choppy) or it simply wouldn't power-up.

Does the HU have a timing circuit in it? ie: it turns itself off after a pre-determined amount of time if it doesn't receive an ignition-live signal? If so, this circuit could be faulty, and be turning itself off, even though there's a signal. Best return the unit I'm afraid

 

hmm but if the timing circuit was faulty then how does that explain the sound bites when i hit a bump?

yea i packed it up and shipped it back out to clarion just now

i just hope it was a problem with the unit and not my wiring... it is an '85 and the idiots who owned it before me stripped it out to turn it into a race car before giving up on the project and selling it to me

 

They could be caused by the connectors coming loose on the speaker terminals whenever it gets bumpy. All you can do now, is see if it still happens with the new one

 

yea i guess so... thanks a lot