Tell me how you would personally ground a headunit. Way to save settings losing power

[Chromatic]

Hey guys..

1) Is there any trick you have up your sleeves to where I can save the settings on my Kenwood DDX470 when I unhook the harness and wires from it when I remove it for this rewire? It has a feature to SAVE your settings to memory -- Does this memory stay without power by chance where I can reload it when I repower it? Or if not, is there any trick to keep the settings on the headunit when pulling it out? I have it dialed in just right, and it's a ton of settings.. I'd really like to be able to keep my audio settings mainly.

Maybe not,.. doesn't hurt to ask.

2) (Grounding) I have a Kenwood DDX470 -- and I"m about to install a reverse camera, and some other things.. while I have it out I'm going to run a direct ground from the ground wire out of the harness to the car somewhere. As the ground from the factory harness doesn't go anywhere (ironically).

I've heard people say as simple as just run it to the headunit brackets , screw it in.. and that's it.

I've heard as complicated as isolate it and send the ground to a relay.. Wiring in Ignition wire to 86 terminal, 12v ignition to terminal 30 on relay,.. Yellow 12v constant from battery (factory harness) to terminal 87,.. and Wire a NEW run ground to the FLOOR of the car chassis to terminal 85,.. and split off this ground to the headunit ground wire on harness.

Then any variation in between.

I don't have a problem doing any of this.

Just curious how YOU would do it.. Would you just run a ground literally a few inches to the brackets/chassis of the headunit? Would you run a ground the floor of the car somewhere?

Would you go so far as to wiring in a relay to it?

I'm kind of in the middle.. To run a ground down low to a good bolt somewhere on the floor below the headunit, or kickpanel areas (somewhere I can find a good bolt).. and that be that... and not go to the hassle of wiring in a relay.

I'm about to pull the headunit and do it.. so your thoughts would be appreciated.

While I'm at it.. I am doing a few other wiring things here -- I originally just wired in power, ground, and remote to the kenwood.. but it has an Illumination wire,.. and some other wires that I know can be wired into the factory harness --

I'll find a wiring diagram of the factory harness so I can match up wires for these things -- but someone on a 350z forum mentioned that there is a wire that goes to the Antenna amplifier (these cars don't have power antennas.. but apparently there is an antenna amplifier) -- That true, make sense?

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[bubbagumper6 5,000+ posts]

I would probably just ground to the nearest solid looking part of the chassis...lot's of available metal in the dash.

99% of the time you won't have a problem with this method, but if a problem does occur, running a direct line all the way back to the battery is ideal.

 

[robert420 10+ year member]

first if you want to save your settings, i would write them down on a piece of paper incase it fails to save. you shouldn't have a problem just leaving the hu hang from the harness, as long as you have something to brace it on the bottom

 

[Chromatic]

first if you want to save your settings, i would write them down on a piece of paper incase it fails to save. you shouldn't have a problem just leaving the hu hang from the harness, as long as you have something to brace it on the bottom

I will need to pull the headunit due to other work I am doing to the vehicle in that area unfortunately.. and was curious if the Kenwood "settings save" feature might actually save them for me to "re-load" when I plug it back in? Or if it loses all that information when the harness comes out?

I intend on writing it down on paper to be 'sure'.. thanks.

 

[CrossoverOre 10+ year member]

alpine has a tune it app that allows you to tune and save from you phone. Maybe kenwood has something like that but you'd have to look into it.

 

[Chromatic]

alpine has a tune it app that allows you to tune and save from you phone. Maybe kenwood has something like that but you'd have to look into it.

Hrmm.. Well this Kenwood DDX470 has a settings save option that you go into the system menu and select it.. and select "save to memory'.. and you can then later go to the system options and select "recall" and it pulls those saved settings back. Now odds are those "Saved" settings are going to go bye bye when the harness is pulled.. So I'm probably just going to have to redo everything.. but no other way around it. (The headunit also has a Firmware upgrade option that you plug in a USB stick with the firmware and tell it to upgrade,.. but I see no option to download settings to the USB.)

I'd really like to know some things about the Kenwood DDX470 and my Cars (Nissan 350Z) wiring harness.

Right now I have the Yellow power wire hooked into it.. the antenna is acting as ground (so I'll be running a dedicated ground).. and I have the remote wire hooked into it (so my amp powers). All other cables are not wired in.

It has other cables that I know my car can tap into.. to name a few -- the Illum cable (will hook to my lights.. which will dim/brighten unit based on the lights coming on or going off).. My Antenna is not a POWER antenna that moves.. but it does have an amplifier on it. So I need to hook the Power Antenna wire from factory harness to the Antenna wire on the DDX470 harness.. and other things like that. If anyone is familiar with the headunit.. any other cables I should be sure to hook up for maximum functionality?

Also.. I think I've got the KCA 202 cable worked out..

But the unit has another Aux input on the back (that's hooked to the AV1 input) -- Which goes with the Video and RCA inputs for AV1.. This allows me to run a 3.5 male to male cable to plug any device into this , select AV1 on headunit, and the sound comes out. So I might as well run the Video and other RCA inputs from this AV1 section to an area I can access right? Not sure what I'll hook to them, but always good to have everything accessible as you never know what you can use them for down the road.

Here's the back of the headunit labeled a bit by me:



See how it has one USB with the black end? That's the BLuetooth sensor.

Then the other one.. that is the one I'm going to extend up to a compartment above the headunit I can access.. which I'll plug the USB end of the KCA 202 cable into (and the KCA 202 cable also has a 3.5mm jack on it that will plug into the Aux input I marked in Blue on that picture. BUt you see the other "aux input" I have marked in RED,.. that's the one I think I can run a 3.5mm male to male and use it on AV1 source on the headunit to run other devices.. in this area you see the RCA's to the left of it.. Red, White and Yellow RCA (these are inputs) for AV1.. This is the area I think I should run some RCA cables to , to an area I can access .

But, are there any adapters to turn an RCA with Right/Left and Video ports to say HDMI? Or no go? That would make that AV1 input be able to not only use the 3.5mm jack input but also plug into HDMI ports which opens up a world of possibilities.

ANyhow.. just curious about your thoughts on anything I may be missing on wiring up here.. and the way I have things figured out so far to hook up. This will be the LAST time I pull the console and unit out entirely to wire everything properly,.. so trying to get absolutely everything taken care of so I never have to go back in there. I'll also have to take the dremel to open the screw side mounting holes to flush the unit a bit better with the Trim piece. But this time I'm going to treat the headunit like a raw egg.. instead of letting it bang around like my Pioneer that stopped working from "shock?"..

I wired up the Reverse camera (which was a bit of a job to get it wired from the license plate area into the rear hatch of the car.. (had to remove every panel back there.. and figure out a way to get two RCA cables from the ouside of the car through the area behind the tag into the car.. I managed to do it.. so I'm good now. ) -- So tomorrow is yanking the whole headunit and waterfall cage out and doing all this wiring work, KCA cable, RCA's, reverse wire , Reverse camera video RCA input, Grounding the "ground" to the chassis (it is not grounded at the moment.. even though it has a GROUND input lol.. the factory molex has no ground on the other end. Which is why the headunit wouldn't turn on until I plugged in the antenna.. so it's obviously using the antenna as a ground, and that's not preferable. )

So I assume grounding it to any bolt , even the chassis of the headunit will be fine?

I've got most of it figured out.. just seeing if anyone can spot anything I'm missing,.. or can confirm/deny what I think is going to work.

Gracious,

 

[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

just take the ground to the floor/chassis.

Alpine doesn't forget settings saved to presets - so even with TuneIt you don't need to write anything down.

 

[Chromatic]

[quote name='keep_hope_alive']just take the ground to the floor/chassis.

Alpine doesn't forget settings saved to presets - so even with TuneIt you don't need to write anything down.[/QUOTE]

I pulled panels and got the reverse camera mounted and wires run (but not tied off) all the way to the side of the console under the driver side gas pedal, last night. Was just too beat/tired to finish it up. I am about to get back to it.. This should take me 2-3 hours at best to rewire , run ground, clean up reverse cam, wire it in.. Wire in Mute, Illum, Power antenna to antenna amplifier, run KCA ip202 cable, route those cables to accessible spot in car,.. etc.

But I'll probably end up spending 6-7 hours on it.. just the way things turn out for me. What generally takes the longest is getting the beast of a "waterfall" cage back in to place after pulling it out. Would be a snap if it didn't have the two long legs on the bottom that takes a LOT of patience and a little magic to angle and bend and fit back in there (main reason I hate pulling this headunit).. Maybe this time I'll pay attention more closely and can get that thing back in relatively quickly. Then I'll be drilling the holes out yet again as the new headunit doesn't flush as well as I'd like it to.. putting a new trim piece in.. that part alone with no extra hands takes a little while to get "Just right"..

I guess at this point there is one wire that I don't know where the hel.l it goes. The "Mute" wire from the DDX470 harness. Considering I have no clue where it goes, it's probably going to be the one wire that remains left unhooked. Manual just says to wire it into the "ground that mutes audio".. uhh? Don't think that exists on this car.. and the headunit mutes for bluetooth calls already, so what's the point.

I'll be wiring in the Illum wire (even though I don't need it.. headunit has two settings Bright and not so bright).. which you can manually set,.. and frankly I like the "not so bright" setting on all the time. But, for the sake of completeness I'll wire my cars Illum wire into that and see what the headunit screen does when I turn my headlights on.. I imagine it get's darker with the lights turned on (maybe the other way around) (I'd think in the daylight the screen needs more brightness than at night). If it's annoying, I'll just remove it.

The ground I doubt I'm going to run a wire down to the floor that you can't access under the headunit/console area.. I MAY run it out to the passenger side kick panel area under carpet IF there is some sheetmetal in that area. (Then at some point I can easily go to that location and tap into that ground and run it to the battery neg. terminal for the best ground you can have..)

But, A few Z owners have told me there is a nice ground bolt just behind the triple pod gauges that show MPG/current speed/temperature/stop watch, Oil pressure, Voltage, shift points -- So if the wires feed and don't cause an issue with putting the console back together, that's probably the best place to ground this thing, since it's already a factory ground point for those gauges.

I do NOT have any circle connectors unfortunately. I do have some nice "U" connectors that look a bit like this:

I figure a nice tight bolt into them will be sufficient,.. Car is apart enough to where I don't want to drive it to the store, so that will work.

We have to remember right now it has NO ground.. and is by default grounding out of the antenna lead (which is why, I assume, the headunit wouldn't start up until I hooked in the antenna). So any ground.. even just a 6 inch wire to the radio chassis is 10 times better than it using the antenna, imo.

Didn't get a ton of Advice on my questions over the last few days.. but through just looking over every diagram I could find on the car I've gotten everything but the "mute" wire figured out in my head. And again, I think that mute wire just shouldn't be hooked up (coming out of the DDX470 harness).

What's a little frustrating is out of at least half a dozen wiring diagrams I've found on this 350Z.. they are ALL different in color and what goes to what. So it's going to be some serious mix and match to work out some of the wires.

The reverse /rear view camera wires it's power into the reverse lights.. The wires I've dug out to these lights are in a bundle with at least 20 other wires (2 inches thick bundle by Nissan). Though my meter and other tools.. I've worked out that the Light green wire here is the 12v positive that gets juice when the stick shift goes into reverse.

I will say nothing tells me what ground is -- And to me that means, black wire = ground.. Thing is there are 4 black wires in this bundle lol.. I'm just going to assume they are all grounds.. and pray. I will test them with my meter before hooking anything to it. But only thing I know is that ground should read out 0.0,.. not sure of any other way to verify if a wire is actually running to a ground. -- I can always run yet an other separate ground to the chassis back there.. but something tells me intuitively that the more random grounds you run all around the car the more chance you introduce some noise in the vehicle (or other issues). I like the idea of using a factory ground to minimize the number of grounds I'm running.

At the moment I will have the Head unit grounded to a factory ground spot that other electronics are using (so not a new ground).. The amp is grounded straight to a 10mm bolt to chassis,.. my cooling fan I installed to cool the amp box is grounded on this same ground (so not another new ground) -- All speaker grounds are , of course, running back to the Amp neg. terminals,.. So if I ground the reverse camera power to a random black wire in this bundle by the light green power wire,.. I'll only have introduced one "unique" ground to the vehicle with the amp going 3ft to that 10mm bolt.

There WAS whine in the speakers at zero volume,.. when I put in a single ground loop eliminator to the sub RCA's it eliminated the noise. But I'm thinking that since the headunit has no ground and is just taking the ground from the Antenna lead,.. that , perhaps, running this proper ground to the chassis for the headunit tonight will eliminate that noise. I'm going to leave the GL eliminator in line anyways.. so I won't know for sure -- but it only makes sense the noise was due to no ground being on the headunit as everything else is wired as best as anyone could wire it.

I do get shocked occasionally on this car (a static shock) that I do NOT remember happening before running this equipment..

Would no ground going to the headunit possibly be the culprit of this ? I guess I'll find out as time goes on after this work I do.

As for presets, settings -- I really hope the "save settings to memory" feature can hold those settings in a non volatile memory source when power is pulled from the headunit. I'm not going to write down settings as I've set and reset this headunit at least 10 times.. It doesn't take that long to do it, and I'm still in the process of making tweaks to it just about everytime I drive it.. mainly with the mid and high EQ settings, but that's another post for another time. If the settings do recall after I get this done it'l just be a bonus.

Thanks @keep_hope_alive ;

 

[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

you're writing a novel... glad to see you're thinking about things.

just mention me if you want me to see a post in the future (or send a PM).

the purpose of the mute wire is to allow an external component to mute the audio signal by pulling that wire to ground - such as navi or phone.

bummer on the trouble finding wires - you can buy legit shop manuals that will be accurate.

 

[Chromatic]

you're writing a novel... glad to see you're thinking about things.

It's what I do.. I think, (people call it over thinking on forums cause I ask so many questions.. but it's also how I've learned how to do so many things throughout my life. -- As for the novel,.. I'm anything but brief writing online,.. which I why I bold, or give TLDR's on some posts if they are particularly important.

just mention me if you want me to see a post in the future (or send a PM).

the purpose of the mute wire is to allow an external component to mute the audio signal by pulling that wire to ground - such as navi or phone.

Thanks

bummer on the trouble finding wires - you can buy legit shop manuals that will be accurate.

I figured it all out.. and am done.. The post below this one is my "sum up" of what I did the last two days, mostly today though.

Appreciate it.

 

---------- Post added at 05:00 AM ---------- Previous post was at 05:00 AM ----------

 

Done!

Put the Reverse Camera on the Driver side -- It's super "stealth" ... I like it, really no need for brighter tag lights, but I have them on the way anyways.



Then here's the image from the $24 Camera -- (Keep in mind it's at night)



Only thing I really noticed was it doesn't have any numbers.. But it's very accurate and super center from the start. Personally I don't "need" the numbers whether they are in Meters, Feet, etc..

I did test the "zones" Red, Yellow and Green. When I get up the "red" edge.. I got out and looked and I have about 5-6 inches till I am about to hit what is showing on that Red edge,.. I like a little room for error.

Did a TON of wire work,..

I completely and utterly gutted out the Pioneer Sirius XM system in the car.. and it was two boxes one on each side (Driver and Passenger side) -- I pulled all wires, and I even figured out how to get the Magnetic Antenna off without cutting anything. So now I have a Pioneer Sirius XM system that's 100% complete (and I think the original owner never turned off his subscription.. doh) that I can sell for something.

I GROUNDED the headunit,.. man was that needed. I decided to run a slightly larger ground wire down to the floor where some large bolts were,.. and it was a super solid ground (be good enough for any wattage amp).

When I hooked the headunit back up ,.. I left the antenna out,.. and it fired right up,.. so I know the "lack" of a ground was an issue for the car.

Plus no more SHOCKS.. that lack of a ground was causing the shock, I knew it wasn't normal.

I wired in the Illumination wire (although it doesn't do anything with this headunit that I've found out yet,.. maybe a setting I need to adjust.)

I wired in the Power to the Power Antenna Amplifier (FM Radio now is clear, yay.. that wasn't wired in on the old headunit.)

Obviously wired in the Reverse wire, and plugged in the Video In RCA I ran from the Tag.

Pulled out two USB cables I had piggybacked -- And "wired"/plugged in the Kenwood KCA iP-202 cable,.. One into the Ipod/Aux line on back of headunit,.. and run the USB female connector up into the cubby above headunit.

Ran a Male to Male 3.5mm to another 3.5m Jack (I think it might be an output,.. meh.) But it's in the Cubby just in case.

I did an unbelievable amount of "cleanup" wiring. I had it all apart and was looking at previous installs and where every wire actually went, and there was all sorts of wires tapped in going nowhere, wires that were spliced together for whatever reason with like 1-2" pieces of wire, etc. So I cut a ton of wire out and Soldered new single connections in just for peace of mind.

Cleaned up the Reverse Camera wiring from back to front last. Took a little longer than I thought, but not bad. Really took my time Zip tieing and using a little tape where necessary, Runs all along factory wiring that's grommeted.

Took me some hours doing this.. Near the end (the whole time I had the Headunit on listening to music.. ) The Music stopped, then would come back on.. I was like, hrmm CD? Then I started to hear a click off.. click back on.. and eventually it just clicked again and stayed off.

I was like,.. oh no, what now! I better not have to pull that **** headunit out again. Looked at amp and sure enough it was in protect mode (but protect light was sort of flickering).

I was like, maybe it's just a low battery (I had no idea amps went into Protect when Voltage dropped low enough).

Sure enough the Battery was 11.xx volts.. Just to test I tried to start the car, and clickkkkkk.. I actually breathed a sigh of relief lol. -- Hooked up my Battery Charger on 6amps @ 12v DC,.. let it charge for 30 minutes or so, had a meter on it, and it got up to about 13 volts'ish.. and I pulled charged off, and it fired right up.

Turned music back on with car running and everything was fine! Yay, for once I finish up and everything is koscher, lol.

I'm glad to have the reverse Camera,.. but I'm really happier to be honest about the headunit being Grounded now. **** car doesn't shock me anymore, and I know that shock couldn't have been "Good" for the electrical system and equipment in there.

I think I've just about exhausted everything "Electrical/Stereo" wise now..

Sooooo.. Time to shift to Performance mods haha..

Thanks for all you guys help and advice,..

 

[butterMilk 10+ year member]

If the HU doesn't save the settings, couldn't you use wire taps on the pos and neg, quickly wire a direct wire from the battery, ground somewhere convenient, and thats that?

Once thats done you should be able to unplug the HU, as long as you left enough slack in the wires, put it down anywhere you want?

 

[Chromatic]

If the HU doesn't save the settings, couldn't you use wire taps on the pos and neg, quickly wire a direct wire from the battery, ground somewhere convenient, and thats that?
Once thats done you should be able to unplug the HU, as long as you left enough slack in the wires, put it down anywhere you want?

Well I'm done now,. but for the sake of argument, and to help others who search the internet for this issue in the future:

Well, here's the deal. As long as you KEEP power (don't even need ground) to the headunit it'l keep it's "Memory".. aka: settings.

So imho, the easiest thing would be to find another 12v source somewhere in the wiring behind the headunit (have plenty of options.. could be your illumination wire, power antenna wire , just any wire that isn't already giving HU power, cause the whole key is not to break that connection. Then splice that into the power wire of the headunit (but not by cutting the HU's 12v power wire.. (many ways to do this.. with the craptastic splice push connectors,.. doing some de-sheathing of the wire mid-stream carefully with a razor, or some wirestrippers that just pull the sheathing apart.)

And, run it super long.. like oh I dunno.. 2-4ft.. whatever you need to get the headunit out of your way. Then you can cut the short power wire cause the longer one is still in -- You HAVE to keep that harness in the whole time though, so you'll be unhooking everything else. So sort of a hassle.

I personally used the "System - Memory save option" on this Kenwood DDX470 -- and it "sort of" worked.

When I got done (had the headunit unplugged for a good few hours.. ) I of course had all settings back to default when I powered it back on.. went to the system menu and "restored" the settings I hoped were saved (and kept with power out).

wellll.. It restored like 40% of the settings. haha.. Better than nothing, but I had to essentially retune the thing, saved me , oh , maybe 2-3 minutes in pushing buttons I guess.

But really, tuning a headunit to get it "close" to right takes maybe 10 minutes.

Then , if your like me, you are constantly tweaking the parametric EQ from 40hz to 20Khz while you are driving (little dangerous sometimes) to "perfect" the sound.

IE: Some songs come on and feel a little like they have the Super highs, and the super lows, but are missing proper balance of the mid range.. so I'm working on that. I cold really get it right if I could push these MB quarts in the rear more than 15-20% like I am. But when I do it pulls the front stage back to the middle or behind me.. *****. But, they do good for fill.

Sad, these MB Quarts are by FAR the best quality speakers in the car two or three times over, and they are barely getting use. But that's another matter, If I were to use them up front (swap my fronts out to rear) I would have to turn these MBQuart 1998 (German QM-160-KX's) Coaxials into Components (dangerous proposition for speakers you literally can't replace).

But, yeah.. butterMilk,.. A positive wire from the battery to the 12v going into the harness (without cuttng the harness wire) would do just fine. The headunit will keep it's settings even without the ground part,.. while I guess it's technically "safer" to keep a ground going (esp straight off the battery).. it'd work with just the power wire.

 

[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

well done. thanks for sharing and congrats on completing work at a level much higher than any shop would have done.

 

[Chromatic]

well done. thanks for sharing and congrats on completing work at a level much higher than any shop would have done.

Thank you,.. you are quite kind.

Who knows if I'm really done yet,.. I seem to always find something extra to do.. -- I am at the very least going to finish the fabrication of my Cooling intake fan to the Amp,.. Right now it's just drilled with holes.. but all that's coming out and a proper "grill" fabbed in to make it look much cleaner.

Otherwise I think I've done about all I can do with it. My Garmin app still didn't work with all that cabling.. But I figured out you have to buy the Garmin app $59, then buy an "upgrade/option" within the garmin app so it will work with a headunit for another $40-$50 -- Come on.. Garmin! That's the price , more than the price, of a full fledged separate Navigation unit. Makes me want to buy it just due to the work I did,.. but meh.. I'd like to at least "try" it out for a day before forking out the money. Plus it's something I'll use very rarely.

I think I'm going to turn my attention more to performance mods for the 350Z at this point. Though money is tight of course,.. so I'm working on finding a specific Catback exhaust,.. but we are in the wrong forum for that speak.

Maybe someone down the road can benefit from my build who has a 350Z in the future.

Be well,