low voltage to radio?

[Brett Dikeman]

Andy Schor wrote:

>My aftermarket Blaupunkt radio sometimes won't play when turned on.  The
>lights light up and it cycles through all of the functions on the screen
>(without being prompted) while the faceplate is attached and the unit is
>turned off.  When I press the power button, it lights up but there is no
>output (sound).  The CD player shows the track and time displays, still no
>sound.  The red power lead is connected to the relay panel
>up under the dash (behind knee bolster), the yellow lead is connected to
>the yellow in the harness.
>I'm not an electrical engineer, but is it possible that there's enough
>juice to turn the unit on, but not enough to power it?  
>Something else?
>  
>

I have a doorstop for an after market Blaupunkt unit I bought; I had 
months of trouble which I thought was due to the Soundgate speaker -> 
Bose adapter I had.

Turned out several capacitors in back had leaked all over the PCB;  the 
symptom was that it would play OK for maybe 10-20 minutes, and then less 
and less with each try until finally it wouldn't play anything.  Letting 
it sit for several hours would "reset" it, almost like letting it 'cool 
off'.  If your radio does something similar (operating for limited 
periods of time that get longer if the radio is left off for a while), 
this might be your problem.  I'd send the radio in ASAP for repair if 
it's under warranty.

It caused some other weird problems; when it started to fail, the dash 
beeper would go bonkers if it was beeping; the beeps would change pitch 
and speed.

The radio was on clearance from Crutchfield, and neither Blaupunkt nor 
Crutchfield will see another dollar from me.  Not only did the caps 
blow, but the CD mechanism jammed and 'ate' one of my CDs.

HTH,
Brett