Audio

[94mx3precidia]

hey, im having a little trouble wiring my car for a new deck. Ive checked all the fuses and they are all good and working. ive gotton as far as finding the ground, intenna, and the main power that turns on when the ignition switch is turned on and off(12 volts). My problem is that when i connect it to any deck(ive tried 3) i would connect the intenna, ground and main power. I would suspect that my deck would light up and turn on but obviously no sound would be produced. But when i do this, nothing happens and im starting to get annoyed at the fact that it wont even turn on. Ive looked at the online manual thats here but it only shows the connections for the 12 or 13 pin connectors.

If someone could guide me into the direction for maybe starting to do wiring and whatnot, that would be useful. Thanks.

[PATDIESEL]

You have a 94 so the colors miht not match what I post, but the place in the connector will be the same. Give me some time to find it and I'll post up the wiring for the radio. As for being able to turn it on with only the ground and power, that might not be true. The radio also has a wire for the accesories switch which if not hooked up it might not work. I think that the power, ground, ACC, and maybe one other wire are all that are needed for any radio to turn on.

[94mx3precidia]

[quote="PATDIESEL"]You have a 94 so the colors miht not match what I post, but the place in the connector will be the same. Give me some time to find it and I'll post up the wiring for the radio. As for being able to turn it on with only the ground and power, that might not be true. The radio also has a wire for the accesories switch which if not hooked up it might not work. I think that the power, ground, ACC, and maybe one other wire are all that are needed for any radio to turn on.[/quote]

thats so true, i never thaught of the Acc switch. thanks buddy. ya if i can get that wiring for the radio that would be great. btw, that picture you had posted under your responses didnt show up for me. dont know why but could you send it to me by email or something? daniel_thomas11@hotmail.com is my addy.

thanks for the help.

[94mx3precidia]

hey, so i tacked the electrical a few seconds ago. ive got all the speaks configured and know where they connect into the deck. my only last problem is that i have 4 wires left over that i dont know where they go.

1st wire. Solid blue, measured with volt meter, it has a continuious power through all setting that the ignion key goes through.

2nd wire. Solid red, measured with voltmeter and only has power through the ignition settings of Acc and on.

3rd and 4th wire. Both red and black. measured with volt meter no power to either one through the ignition settings.


What im thinking is that the first wire(solid blue) is maybe for the alarm system, im not that sure. And for the Solid red wire, it could be for the ACC setting when you turn the ignition. And for the other 2 wires i ahve no clue.

Does anyone know what these other 2 wires are for? ie, the red and black wires.?!?

[PATDIESEL]

Ok, here is the diagram from the online manual- it is on the main page on the left side if you ever need anything from it.
This one shows what the wires are for- There is another one, but since I doubt your wire colors match I didn't post it.



As for the red-black wires- are they from the stock harness or the radio adapter harness?

[Nd4SpdSe]

I think that the power, ground, ACC, and maybe one other wire are all that are needed for any radio to turn on.

It was just those 3. I just wired up the old Pioneer deck from the 626 as an external unit with a 12v power supply i stripped out of an old external SCSI tape drive case. It's back at my parents place in Canada (making it as a radio for my dad's garage) but I'm pretty sure it was power, acc and ground.

I dont know what your trying to do, but the easiest way would be to get an adaptor harness and just solder the matching wire colors to that harness of the new deck...i got the feeling your splicing into the car's harness directly, that's one of my pet peves.

[Mnemonic]

WRONG SECTION this section is for V6 information and questions, You should of posted this in the Car Audio/Alarm section...

http://forums.mx-3.com/viewforum.php?f= ... d34672c421

[94mx3precidia]

[quote="PATDIESEL"]

As for the red-black wires- are they from the stock harness or the radio adapter harness?[/quote]

ive loked at that diagram alot and it doesnt really help me. post the other diagram, it might be better.

and when you say if the wires are from the stock or adapter harness what do you mean? the wires come directly out of the deck and out of where the deck goes. Ill take some pictures tonight.

[PATDIESEL]

If you cannot read those diagrams you need some help installing it in the first place. Not to be mean, but you must be pretty newb. if you cannot follow those diagrams. Installing a headunit without being able to read the above is dangerous to your car and headunit. If you wire something incorrectly you chance blowing up the radio or worse something in the car.
What you do is read the headunit's wiring diagram and match it to the above diagram for the MX-3. You might need an adapter harness that will plug into the stock harness and then have the colors matched for the headunit. This will make it super simple as you will just match color to color. Make sure to use good crimps and use a crimping tool to stamp them closed. You might do well to go to a radio shop or the place you bought the radio and pay the installer 10 or 20 bucks to show you how to install it if you just want to do it yourself. This way you know it is right and the education was cheaper than paying them to install it.

[94mx3precidia]

i am a newb, at electronics that is. this is my first car and ive only had it for about 3 weeks now and im trying to lean things about it as i go along. i got the car with the deck taken out cuz the guy that had it in beofre the guy i baught it off used hockey tape to insulate the wires. id rather sodder the wires than crimp them.

ill look at the diagram a little more to try to understand. im a little busy right now whith school and exams right now so wiring in my deck hasnt really been my priority. Thanks for the help though, and ill still post some pictures maybe its not that bad.

[PATDIESEL]

Ask someone who has installed one. I remember when I was first learning electronics. It seems like reading Greek at first, but once you get the basics of reading a wiring diagram they are all pretty easy to understand. Talk to one of your male teachers, I bet one of them wouldn't mind talking to you about how to read one if they know how.

[Nd4SpdSe]

and when you say if the wires are from the stock or adapter harness what do you mean? the wires come directly out of the deck and out of where the deck goes. Ill take some pictures tonight.

There's an adaptor harness you get for aftermarket decks. It's very straight forward, I'll explain it later. What I'm guessing that was done is that connector on the back of the stock deck was cut off and are trying to splice in the wires directly from the car's harness to your new deck? If that's so, that's the most complicated, difficult and anti-future proofing your deck-upgrading re returning-to-stock capabilities. Honestly, especially if your starting out, what I would recommend, although it's more work (in a sence, it'll save the head on your hair) is to put the connector for the stock radio back on. What you should do then is go to a wreckers and cut out a stock radio harness, and get as much as you can and fix it. You can continue to work with as-is, but for learning sake, it would be best to rebuild it and start from scratch. I had to do this to Fieromx3's old Talon, his stock deck was wired in like that, but he sold the deck and had nothing but wires and couldn't even connect a stock deck to it, which sucked cause he was selling the car. Plus, those loose bare wires as a hazard.

An adaptor harness will look something like this:

That's just a Google image search pic, and I doubt it's for an Mx-3, but you'll get the idea. It may look like the adaptor that you got with your deck, which it would actually be similar. While the one you got plugs into your deck, this one plugs into the original stock radio connector. Both harnesses actually use the same wire colors and is setup that way so you solder the matching colors, and there may be some unused one, like so

(note, this is for a Jeep, but the concept is the same)



Than just plug in one end to the deck, the other end into the stock harness, easy to change to a differernt deck later, or put the stock one back in.

This is your first car and you just got it, start off on the right foot to take care of her and fix the stock harness, that's what I would do/have done. Lol, Fieromx3 didn't want it fixed. We went to the junker that day and I grabbed a harness out of Talon that was there, and I resoldered the 2 dozen wires for his stereo...looked good, and no live bare wires handling around.

id rather sodder the wires than crimp them.

Absolutely! I've seen too many crimp connectors come loose with just a light tug, kinda makes ya wonder when your working on cop cars and the shitty company that installed the old system...we're dealing with a system that needs to be reliable. Mind you, we crimp connect, solder and shrink wrap our connections, but my personal stuff; twist, solder and shrink-wrap is it

[94mx3precidia]

i for sure dont have the adapter harness, and i dont have it with me. The car came without a harness but ill head to a junk yard and get it. But is there a way to connect the radio without getting a wiring harness? Because i was thinking of sending it to futureshop or some other place and pay them just to install the deck.

If i choose the path of goin to a junk yard and getting the old stock harness (which i most likely will end up doing) With the color of the wires match the same colours of the stock wire harness? that is if i get the same year and make right?

thakns for all the help gues, i was gunna post some pictures on here but as i was putting the pictures on my computer the card had some sort of error and now ive lost the pictures i need to show you plug the ones of my prom.

[Typhoonk]

1st wire. Solid blue, measured with volt meter, it has a continuious power through all setting that the ignion key goes through.

2nd wire. Solid red, measured with voltmeter and only has power through the ignition settings of Acc and on.

3rd and 4th wire. Both red and black. measured with volt meter no power to either one through the ignition settings.


1st wire = Solid blue = Sounds the constant +12
2nd wire = Solid RED = Sounds like your Accessory wire or turn-on wire for the cd player
3rd and 4th = Are the dimmer wires for the factory cd player (if you don't know how they work, tape em up and don't connect them)


and someone should post ACTUAL colours for the mx-3 and not copied ones from sites that just say "oh, the mx-3 is the same as the other mazda's" which are wrong.............two cents

[94mx3precidia]

i knew what all the colors were for but thanks for the tip on the dimmer wires. its just that when i connect all the wires but the dimmer wires according to the diagram on the back of the deck the deck doesnt want to turn on. I dont know what it is about it.