Hi, today I installed my alpine head unit, unfotunately the cow boy who had the car before snipped of the iso connectors etc, so i had to hard wire it all in, which i did and left it all neat. However my headunit does not work when I switch my lights on whether dipped or full beam, some one please help, cant figure out why?

I have a 99 sti type r

 

sounds like you may have cross wired the illumination wire somehow???

Double check with your user manual and see if all the wires are connected to where they should be.

Sounds obvious i know but double check

 

illumination wire?? hmm which one is that? I wired the speaker wires spot on, and the red wire to the ignition and the yellow to the 12v battery, I have a feeling its related to dimmer wire or something cos my defis are all wired in but they were done professionally!!

 

check your ORANGE cable coming out of your alpine loom - this is for the dimmer output and should be connected to the instrument panel dimmer control (the **** you fiddle with to dim your speedo/tacho lights) Personally I never use this and so I leave it disconnected.

 

I didnt even know my car had a dimmer if so where is the switch on the dash cos I cant remember seeing it lol. well the head unit has thhe dimmer wire in blue, my car is a jap import so need to find where it connects to i think??

 

which alpine is it? the blue wire is normally used to switch on the electric aerial, blue with white trace is remote turn on for amps etc. sounds like you've got an alpine I'm not familiar with

 

I recently fitted an alpine HU to my JDM car... sounds like you've connected the illumination wire incorrectly. If connected properly, when you turn on the car's lights the illumination on the HU dims slightly (but it's hardly noticeable so not really an issue of you don't connect it). The alpine installation guide will tell you which wire is the illumination one coming off the back of the HU loom... it will also be printed on the wire in small black lettering. Check where you've connected this to, then reconnect to your car's illumination cable or leave disconnected. Hope this helps.

 

I think its the blue wire which is illumination as i checked this on the HU, and I left it untouched (not wired in) so does that mean I need to wire it in ?

 

sorry mate, been doing alpines for years and never heard of the blue being the illumination. can't help you until you tell us the model number

 

I am no expert in wiring technology so when you say illumination what do you actually mean? sorry to sound thick. the model is a CDE-9850Ri

am really greatful for your help

 

your head unit is wired like all the alpines and goes as follows:

ALL WIRE COLOURS ARE FROM THE HEAD UNIT - NOT FROM YOUR CAR LOOM:

PINK/BLACK - audio interrupt in (hands free kit)
BLUE/WHITE - REMOTE TURN ON (amps etc)
BLUE - power antenna
ORANGE - dimmer (to instrument cluster illumination lead)
RED - ignition (switched 12v+)
BLACK - ground
YELLOW - battery (unswitched/permanent 12v+)
GREEN - rear left+
GREEN/BLACK - rear left -
WHITE - front left +
WHITE/BLACK - front left -
GREY - front right +
GREY/BLACK - front right -
PURPLE - rear right +
PURPLE/BLACK - rear right -

if you need any other info, go here - it's the manual for your headunit

Manual Database - Alpine - Europe

hope this helps

 

thanks mate really appreciate it, I have connected it correctly except the orange wire which I did not connect to anything. Is this correct ?

when i way the unit doesn't work, what i mean is its all lit up but there is no sound coming when the lights are switched on, if that maked sense

 

alpine headunits don't have a mute button so it's not that. When you say no sound when the lights are on, which lights are you talking about? do you mean you have sound until you switch your lights on, or no sound at all at any time? sounds like your PINK/BLACK wire is earthing out, that means if your PINK/BLACK wire touches anything metal or you have it connected to anything other than a handsfree kit this will cause your unit to mute - if this was the case though your display would say "phone call" so now I'm confused!?!

 

ok when i say lights are on i mean my main car lights dipped or full headlights. So to sum up I can start the car and the stereo works fine. When I turn the car lights on the sound stops but there is power to the HU as I can see the disply. when I turn the car lights of the side lights remain on and my defi's are kind of lit as well which is very weird. does that make sense ?

 

chase your wiring and double check, recheck and then check again!! never come across this problem before but I'll do some asking around. Meantime, I would pull the unit and start again from scratch - how are you connecting your wires? have you used male/female crimps, butt connectors or solder? if crimps then make sure the wire inside is actually crimped down, it may sound obvious but I've done it myself. if you've soldered check for dry joints. also make sure you cover all bare/unused wires with insulation tape - this may sound like overkill but it only takes one tiny strand of copper sticking out the end and this is usually enough for a contact.

 

I used male/female crimps, I doubly checked them and insulated them with black tape, the unused wires i.e. pink/black, blue/white, orange I just taped them together but they may be touching one another so I should sort that first. Do I have to connect the orange(illumination) wire to the the car or can I leave this ?

 

I'd leave it, but that's my own personal opinion

 

fixed my stereo hooorrraaayyy, nothing to do with illumination, its purely to do with the wiring colouring of imoprt JDMs. I checked each speaker and my rear right was not working - it was rigged up to a purple wire which I have no idea what its for but I had to move it to another butt connector which was blank and all was working. Just need to find out what the purple wire is for , have insulated it for now.

thanks to everyone for your advice and spaspeckerthebull I took your advice checked everything and figured it. Anyhow whats the purple for ? I believe there are 2 purples on the car ?

 

Purple is for illumination (12+ volt) when lights are turned on

 

thanks Tricky all makes sense as to why i was having the problem

cheers for all the help guys

 

you may have connected the earth cable for the head unit to the ilumination cable of the car

Adrian

 

No I didnt connect the earth I connected a speaker wire to the illumination - oh well