help on testing car stereo at home

Systems

I have recently seen a shop using a 12V adapter to test a 10 disks Kenwood car disk changer. I would like to try the same thing but I have no clue as to which color wire is to be connected to what.

I noticed that the person twisted the red and yellow wire together and then twisted it with the black wire on the adapter. He then twisted another black wire from the adapter to the black wire from the disk changer.

Is this right? Anyone has any idea?

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hey...

99% of the yellow wire of a component is +12v constant... red is switched +12v... black is ground.

so if you had a 12 volt power suply that plugs into the wall, then u run your positive lead to the red and yellow... your ground to black.

unless you've done it a few times, you should check with the manufacturer before u go splicing wires...

i did repair work on a pioneer head unit with a 15 volt 1.6amp AC to DC adaptor from a tape deck boom box thing... cut the endoff it and tied it into the yellow/red and ground. damn thing got hot as hell (the adaptor) as it was not made to have like 3 amps of power drawn from it... word to the wise, be careful, be safe, and if you're going to use a "in house" power supply then be sure its rated 12.5 volts - 14.4 volts and has a current rating which is equal to or greater than that of your equipment --- dont try to test a 500 watt amplifier (to its full power capability) off a 3 amp 12 volt supply that u can get for 10 bucks at radio shack...

if you wana be really cheap, heres a way to do it with somehting u already have probably...

if you have a battery charger -- for your car -- and it has a "trickle charge" setting... you can go with that... the trickle charge is usually like 10 - 15 amps of 13-15 volts.

be sure that you are not drawing more than that (a fuse on the line may be a good idea) and you can just use that charger as a temporary power source for an hour orr two... dont run it all day though. i did that when working on a couple small amps... worked out nicely for doin it on the quick and cheap.