ZEN Nav TV issues

Disclaimer: Links on this page pointing to Amazon, eBay and other sites may include affiliate code. If you click them and make a purchase, we may earn a small commission.

goblues38

FRF Addict
Joined
Oct 27, 2018
Posts
2,660
Reaction score
3,823
Location
STL
Great question. It's an "organized rat's nest" so a little difficult to follow the wiring schema. May need to pull some of the cable organization wrap off to fully understand. It appears its spliced into factory wiring, which would be worst case, I'd imagine
742mU0i.jpg
AzuVYXg.jpg
7BfkVLv.jpg

assuming they did it right, thats not a bad looking install at all...definitely not a "rats nest". They could have it tuned to a very front stage (which i like) and the rear fill can be very low.
 

dhmcfadin

Full Access Member
Joined
Mar 27, 2018
Posts
553
Reaction score
240
assuming they did it right, thats not a bad looking install at all...definitely not a "rats nest". They could have it tuned to a very front stage (which i like) and the rear fill can be very low.

Tesa tape can easily hide what’s really there. And they used ALOT of it. Although, I’d give them the benefit of a doubt that they did things right. Hopefully they used the pac A2B harness making the entire assembly plug and play without touching the factory harness. That being said, the immediate change that needs to be made is grounding the zen directly to the battery.
 

DjMuzz

Member
Joined
Jan 8, 2021
Posts
23
Reaction score
19
Location
Sturbridge, MA
You need to get power and ground directly from battery with the zen. I assure you. It even says it in the manual and NavTV will tell you the same thing. As far as not providing enough signal to amps? That’s not a remotely possible consequence of utilizing a direct power and ground connection from the battery. It’s not even possible. The zen is very sensitive. You need the lowest resistance possible for it to work properly and quietly.

You should also be grounding your amplifiers directly to the battery for the same exact reasons.

Understood. Will certainly be addressing the grounding requirements first for both units.

Thanks for the confirmation. As stated, I wasn't sure if the grounding or power input could possibly be related as I'm much less versed on audio components. After digging through all sort of threads, this seemed like a good opportunity to verify with some of the gurus on here.

assuming they did it right, thats not a bad looking install at all...definitely not a "rats nest". They could have it tuned to a very front stage (which i like) and the rear fill can be very low.

Very true - was a bit of an exaggeration. Was speaking more so to the unknown underneath the excessive wrapping. It seems to have been done by a shop, so I also defer to it being right, however the current state would indicate something's changed.

Unfortunately it doesn't appear to be an intentional staging configuration as, when it does work, the sound is symmetrically distributed. I don't receive sound out of the driver side set or rears other than occasional crackling. I had thought this was poor wire connections, but pulled everything apart and found secure soldered joints.

Tesa tape can easily hide what’s really there. And they used ALOT of it. Although, I’d give them the benefit of a doubt that they did things right. Hopefully they used the pac A2B harness making the entire assembly plug and play without touching the factory harness. That being said, the immediate change that needs to be made is grounding the zen directly to the battery.

Great - I'll do a bit more digging to see if I can un-hide the proper harness to verify. Start by changing one variable at a time and get that ground straitened out.

agreed. thats why i ran 4 gauge power and 4 gauge ground to the battery

I had actually saved your thread as reference for exactly this reason. Going to feed a 4 gauge right alongside the existing positive as you appeared to.

I assume I should put a fuse in line for the ground as well, right?

_____________

Thanks all for the info. I'm going to see where that takes me.
 

goblues38

FRF Addict
Joined
Oct 27, 2018
Posts
2,660
Reaction score
3,823
Location
STL
I assume I should put a fuse in line for the ground as well, right?

_.

No. No fuse needed, in fact it would be bad, as it would add tiny tiny amounts of resistance thus defeating the reason you ran to the battery in the 1st place.

No fuse is needed. If a ground "shorts" no harm done because it is after the load and that is where the power wants to go. Not like a +12v power wire where if it "shorts" before the load, you are sending direct current to ground.
 

dhmcfadin

Full Access Member
Joined
Mar 27, 2018
Posts
553
Reaction score
240
Understood. Will certainly be addressing the grounding requirements first for both units.

Thanks for the confirmation. As stated, I wasn't sure if the grounding or power input could possibly be related as I'm much less versed on audio components. After digging through all sort of threads, this seemed like a good opportunity to verify with some of the gurus on here.



Very true - was a bit of an exaggeration. Was speaking more so to the unknown underneath the excessive wrapping. It seems to have been done by a shop, so I also defer to it being right, however the current state would indicate something's changed.

Unfortunately it doesn't appear to be an intentional staging configuration as, when it does work, the sound is symmetrically distributed. I don't receive sound out of the driver side set or rears other than occasional crackling. I had thought this was poor wire connections, but pulled everything apart and found secure soldered joints.



Great - I'll do a bit more digging to see if I can un-hide the proper harness to verify. Start by changing one variable at a time and get that ground straitened out.



I had actually saved your thread as reference for exactly this reason. Going to feed a 4 gauge right alongside the existing positive as you appeared to.

I assume I should put a fuse in line for the ground as well, right?

_____________

Thanks all for the info. I'm going to see where that takes me.
I am sure you know this but make sure the ground wire you run is the same size as your power wire.
 
Top