Stereo Install Help

[MrTasty17]

I installed the alpine ida-x100 in my 2006 f150 supercab. I bought the wiring harness and hooked everything up. It seems to work except one very weird thing...it only powers on when the headlights are on. Does anyone know why it would do this?

Thanks

Troy

[mattdrye]

Yeah if i am not mistaken that headunit has a dimming feature that when the headlights are on the unit will dim so it is not so bright. It sounds to me like you have the wires crossed. If all the wiring is good then the wire harness itself may be have fault wiring. It sound to me like your remote power wire is hooked into the headlight dimming feature wire. Just my opinion.

[MrTasty17]

Thanks for the input,

on the harness theres a wire that says dimmer and on the head unit harness theres one that says illumination. Do these go together? because i tried that and it still does the same thing. im guessing maybe it is just a faulty wiring harness.

[01TruBluGT]

you have the turn on wire coming from the head unit crossed with the illumination wire from the harness.

The turn on wire for the radio will be red, double check to see if you have it hooked to an ornage wire with a silver tracer. If you bought a Metra harness or something similar, last I checked it had the name of each wire written on the wire itself. I would be willing to bet you hooked the radio turn on to the illumination lead.

You can hook the dimmer up but there really is no need to your radio will just stay bright all the time as opposed to dimming when you turn on the headlights.

To double check try hooking the power wire from the radio to the same wire you have the memory wire hooked to. This should make the radio stay on no matter what. If that works you know the radio itself is fine.

From there use a test light to probe the harness for a keyed power source and hook the turn on for the radio to that.

[MrTasty17]

ok... i checked the wires. the red on the harness is on the red on the head unit and they both say 12v+ ignition. you were right the labels are on the wires on the harness. and i checked the manual for the headunit and everything seems to be right. on the harness the orange/white wire is right next to the red wire. im guessing those 2 on the harness are backwards from the factory. im gonna try hooking them the other way and see what happens.

I really appreciate everyone's help.