IrishT

I was on my way home yesterday and lost power to my Sirius plug and play radio. I looked at all of the connections, and finally realized that it was a blown fuse. I was using a 1-to-3 port 12v adapter so I could plug in my iPod, my Sirius, and my cell phone. At the time of the blown fuse, all three plugs were in the adapter, but only the Sirius was connected to its adapter.

I blew the 15v fuse for the "Accessory plug" or whatever they label it, and also blew the fuse in the adapter. Replaced the 15v fuse and all is well (with no adapter in place), but I'm not sure how to calculate the maximum power draw from my system to avoid doing this again.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Todd

Alin10123

The maximum power draw should be in the owners manual of hte sirius satellite kit. If not, the power ratings should be on a sticker on the physical device itself. When you got this installed, did a shop do the job? If a shop did the job, chances are they knew which fuse to put in if they were reputable. Simply replacing a fuse with a bigger one after the previous one blows is somewhat guess work. What if there really was a problem and the $.50 fuse was preventing you from a total meltdown of the entire device?
There might be a short or something somewhere. That might be what's tripping the fuse.

IrishT

I installed it - it's a plug and play kit. It gets its power from the 12v port in the armrest. I'm jus trying to figure out how much of a drain I can place on the TSX via that power port before the fuse blows - I didn't think I had overloaded it, and had been using the same setup for 2 months before the fuse blew.

Dan Martin

That port should be good for 180W. I don't think all the devices you had plugged in would exceed that. Double check all of the power adapters and the splitter to make sure there aren't any frayed wires that could have shorted out.

xizor

The TSX can indeed take a whole from the 12v plugs, I had a 200W coleman inverter connected to some equipment for work and the inverter failed before the fuse

IrishT

The plot thickens...I realize now that the short occurred when I opened the console and dropped my iPod (in it's case ) into the bin. I can say this is the cause, as I did the exact same thing today and blew the fuse again

I picked up a spare set of MANY 15v fuses, just in case, but why would a light tap on the power plug (and/or port) blow a fuse? The Sirius power plug's internal glass fuse remained in tact.

Very O-D-D.

Thanks,
Todd

San-AnT

only because i can speak of long, painful experience - make sure there is not a penny in the socket. so embarassingly painful for me.

IrishT

Blew the fuse again today, and after I was able to calm down (lol), I looked very closely at the Sirius power plug. It felt slightly loose, so I opened it up...and found it was broken inside.

There is a small piece of plastic that keeps the fuse spring in place, and also helps to seperate the two live wires. It was cracked, and if hit hard or moved suddenly, the two wires touched. ZAP! Luckily I had a spare power plug (just had a new unit delivered to replace my busted one under warranty - these things are not made all that well). All is well, but now I'm forced to pry up my center console AGAIN. GAH.

Thanks!
Todd