Randonneur Posted September 3, 2008 Share Posted September 3, 2008 Is there any way to wire up a car radio (Sony) to work when the ignition is off. At the moment the radio/cd will only work when the ignition is on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnsandywhite Posted September 3, 2008 Share Posted September 3, 2008 B-) Find the LIVE wire to the Ignition switch and re-wire it via a fuse to the fuse box or direct to the battery. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gaz43 Posted September 3, 2008 Share Posted September 3, 2008 i had the same problem and what i was told to do was unplug the red and yellow power leads and swoop them over so the red goes to the yellow and yellow goes to the red if that doesn't work plug the red and yellow to the red feed if it has two plugs on it , which mine did have mine was a sony radio as well Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted September 4, 2008 Share Posted September 4, 2008 A degree of care is needed when fiddling around with car-radio wiring. I recall transferring an expensive Japanese radio/cassette unit removed from one of my cars to my Herald motorhome. Despite having full installation instructions, despite the unit being well fused, despite me being well aware that the unit was polarity sensitive, and despite me having marked all the cables as to their correct purpose, somehow I still managed to reverse the live and earth wires cables when I finally connected up the unit. And that was that - a dead radio (though the cassette part still worked) and no spares available to repair it. Still kicking myself about that, even though it was over 8 years ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cronkle Posted September 4, 2008 Share Posted September 4, 2008 There are two 'live' feeds into a radio. One is permanent so that the units memory is permanently powered and there is the ignition controlled part that turns the radio on and off with the turn of the switch. If you can establish which is the permanent live you can use it to power both inputs and then the radio will work without the keys being in the ignition. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tp002c784tp002c784tp Posted September 4, 2008 Share Posted September 4, 2008 Randonneur - 2008-09-03 3:19 PM Is there any way to wire up a car radio (Sony) to work when the ignition is off. At the moment the radio/cd will only work when the ignition is on. I have read this query a few times on this and many other forums and I can not understand the need for this. The system is designed so that you do not leave your radio on so that there is no chance you will flatten your battery, if you need to listen to a radio when parked why not have a portable radio, you can get some great little stereo radios with both tape or CD on. Terry (lol) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rupert123 Posted September 4, 2008 Share Posted September 4, 2008 I use my cab radio most of the time to save carrying yet another piece of kit, it is wired to leisure battrey Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randonneur Posted September 4, 2008 Author Share Posted September 4, 2008 tp002c784tp002c784tp - 2008-09-04 3:37 PM Randonneur - 2008-09-03 3:19 PM Is there any way to wire up a car radio (Sony) to work when the ignition is off. At the moment the radio/cd will only work when the ignition is on. I have read this query a few times on this and many other forums and I can not understand the need for this. The system is designed so that you do not leave your radio on so that there is no chance you will flatten your battery, if you need to listen to a radio when parked why not have a portable radio, you can get some great little stereo radios with both tape or CD on. Terry (lol) Ah Ah, the problem is Terry, that if you are in the UK there is no problem taking a separate radio with you, but because we live in France (our choice) the only English speaking radio station that we can get in our neck of the woods is Radio 4. We have no problems in the car and now my OH has put an amplified windscreen aeriel in the motorhome we will have no problem there, but we need the facility to be able to listen to Radio 4 (news) when we are unable to get a satellite signal from the dish when we are staying on site somewhere. Many thanks everybody for your suggestions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Tracker Posted September 4, 2008 Share Posted September 4, 2008 I may be wrong here but I seem to recall that the bit that turns the radio off after 20 minutes is in the actual Fiat/Peugeot radio casing itself and simply replacing the existing unit with a fully functioning one (in which some nerd has not decided that you should only listen for 20 minutes at a time!) ought to cure the problem? Just remember to turn it off when you leave the van for any period of time! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randonneur Posted September 4, 2008 Author Share Posted September 4, 2008 Tracker - 2008-09-04 8:25 PM I may be wrong here but I seem to recall that the bit that turns the radio off after 20 minutes is in the actual Fiat/Peugeot radio casing itself and simply replacing the existing unit with a fully functioning one (in which some nerd has not decided that you should only listen for 20 minutes at a time!) ought to cure the problem? Just remember to turn it off when you leave the van for any period of time! No, that's not the problem. When you turn the key in the ignition by one click then normally the radio would come on but in this case you have to turn it the two clicks so all the ignition lights come on and the radio will work. What we want to do is to be able to have the radio on without turning the key at all, this is how the previous van was wired up. This is snothing to do with the Fiat radio as its a brand new Sony radio/cd player installed by the dealer we bought it from. We should have asked him at the time to wire it up the way we wanted it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Tracker Posted September 4, 2008 Share Posted September 4, 2008 Randonneur - 2008-09-04 7:31 PM Tracker - 2008-09-04 8:25 PM I may be wrong here but I seem to recall that the bit that turns the radio off after 20 minutes is in the actual Fiat/Peugeot radio casing itself and simply replacing the existing unit with a fully functioning one (in which some nerd has not decided that you should only listen for 20 minutes at a time!) ought to cure the problem? Just remember to turn it off when you leave the van for any period of time! No, that's not the problem. When you turn the key in the ignition by one click then normally the radio would come on but in this case you have to turn it the two clicks so all the ignition lights come on and the radio will work. What we want to do is to be able to have the radio on without turning the key at all, this is how the previous van was wired up. This is snothing to do with the Fiat radio as its a brand new Sony radio/cd player installed by the dealer we bought it from. We should have asked him at the time to wire it up the way we wanted it. Sorry - senior moment - got the wrong end of a sticky stick again! In which case can you identify from the handbook which circuits become live on position one of the key and pick up a live feed from one of them to replace the live feed to the radio from position two? Pull the radio out and using a mutimeter (or a low wattage 12v bulb on two wires) to check which wire is live and when and then rewire accordingly. A bit fiddly but not difficult - but if you have any doubts don't try it as you could get it wrong and do a lot of expensive damage or even start a fire. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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