The other day as I drove over a 'sleeping policeman' (sped bump) there was a pop from inside the dash and the music stopped...
OK... multimeter on the pins of the sled connector - no constant +12V, switched is still present.

Checked the fusebox and the fuses responsible for the stereo were OK.

Took the player in and checked the wires from the connector where they get close to the edge of the disk tray. Saw nothing obvious, but added a couple of layers of electrical tape over the edge anyway. Player booted on AC adapter

So today went in to the dash and checked the fuse in the filter box - as I expected it was blown. Looked over the wiring in general but again failed to spot anything obvious.

Replaced fuse in the filter and verified constant and switched +12V both present on the sled's connector.
Reassembled the dash and again verified the voltages.

Inserted player (multiple times) and only get the LED heartbeat.
Tried another player (w/ drive issues) and get the LED heartbeat plus a whir.... whir... as it tries to read the drive, nothing more.) The first drive has an SSD.

Tried both players on AC adapter and the first one boots correctly while the second gets to the No drive found, contact support message (which it doesn't in the car).

It's been a while (looong) since I messed with the players other than enjoying the music, so feel rather like a noob again...

Looking t the connector from the front of the sled, the pins I probed were C, s and G for constant, switched and ground respectively. Capital letters for the 2 bigger contacts on the plug. '.' are the other small contacts.

...........C
..........sG


anyone with any ideas as to what might be up?

If the player is working OK on the AC adapter, then I would start looking for wiring issues behind the sled.

Your description of how there was a pop from inside the dash indicates to me that there was a loose, frayed, or unexpectedly grounded or crossed wire back there somewhere, and the bump caused some kind of a connection to be lost or made.

I would in particular look at the wiring that runs to the amplifier, including the amplifier remote turn on wire. Perhaps that got grounded or perhaps it is pulled out and is touching a power wire.

You're definitely going to have to pull the thing out of the dash and examine all wires to it and to the amp carefully. Also, if you have any long wire runs from your dash to your trunk, consider the possibility that something is frayed or grounded along the length of that run.

If you have one of my home docks, then check if the player works in that. The home dock uses the in-car wiring connector internally.

More proof that it's been too long - I knew that... Yep, players boot (or get to No disc found) just fine in the dock.

Guess I'll start by opening the dash and backprobe the harness connectors in the sled plug, with the player inserted, to check that they're still 12V and not drooping over some high resistance somewhere.
All the contacts in the connector blocks looked properly seated on a quick inspection, but I'll go over them more carefully.

And, per Tony's suggestions, check remote line , eliminate the amp by disconnecting the RCAs and also check RCAs etc for shorts.
But would any of those keep the player from booting rather than just popping the fuse again?

There is normally also an inline fuse as part of the wiring harness for the in-car empeg sled. Perhaps it has blown?

Other than the one in the black filter box (which was the one that had popped)? Not on either of 2 spare sleds I just checked.

Wouldn't/shouldn't have +12 at both the switched and constant pins on the connector if any fuse was properly blown, but I'll probe them under load in case it's something like a partial melted fuse connection that only makes a high resistance connection (shows +12V on a high impedance meter but collapses under load) Fairly common for the large (as in main amp power line from battery) size glass tube fuses.

I think the only other pin that could affect anything here is the one directly above the "s" pin: "amp remote". One possibility here is that the power amp is shorting out something when enabled --> the "amp remote" line (+12V from the empeg to the amp) enables it.

EDIT:
Best way to test this, is to disconnect power from the amp. Otherwise, perhaps just cut the blue "amp remote" wire and see what happens with that, and then solder/tape it back together again later on.

Ding ding ding!

It would appear that the remote turn on relay is the culprit. Looked and measured behind the sled - all power OK, including with the player in the sled. So measured the amp remote line and got continuity to ground...
Disconnected it from the amp - and player boots...

And I just realised I forgot to check that the remote out on the player has survived, something for tomorrow...

So, good thing is it pushes me to finally get the thumb out and do the upgrade to the DLS A7 that's been gathering dust on the shelf for way too long.
Bad thing - just this little digging around in the car ground me down quick... looks like I'll be looking for a shop to do the replacement. Hopefully someone is willing to install something they didn't sell.

Yeah, makes sense. I suggested it because I seemed to remember seeing, at some point, a situation where a problem with the amp remote wire made the player's display stay fully "off" all the time. There's some hard-wired circuitry in the player which ties the behavior of the amp remote wire directly with the display on/off state: Display on, amp is on, display off, amp is off. So when you said your display wouldn't come on, it was the first thing I thought of. If the FAQ were still up, I think there might even be a FAQ entry mentioning it somewhere.




You're telling me! I've done so much work and fiddling and tweaking of my 2000 Honda Accord that I can get into and out of the dash, door interiors, center console, etc, blindfolded. And yet still it's very physically intense work that leaves me completely destroyed. And usually with new sets of cuts and scrapes. Since that car got rear-ended last week and I'm predicting it will get totaled, I spent Sunday pulling out all the custom stereo gear and putting the factory gear back into place for whoever buys the salvage title on it. I know this car so well, and this was the "easy" version of the job where I'm extracting the custom stuff and snapping in the snap-in factor stuff, but the job still took me several hours and left me completely fried.