Challenger 210 SE Sound system/Amplifier causing issues with ECMs

Note: This site contains eBay affiliate links for which SeaDooForum.com may be compensated
Status
Not open for further replies.

anthonymsaad

Active Member
For those that recall many months ago, I had the boat with an ECM that wouldn't power down and kept resetting the odometer to the last saved value. This post is long, I'm sorry. Just really confused as to what is going on. Apparently no one at BRP, among their experts, ever saw an ECM unable to track hours, even after replacing the ECM like 5 times.

So long story short, boat has been worked for about 11 months now. BRP finally flew in some technical expert from Canada. In the like 10hrs he worked on my boat, he supposedly solved the issue that has plagued the dealer mechanics, and the BRP experts they called, that after over 11 MONTHS, with no progress to the cause or how to solve it, this guy solved it in under ~10 HOURS. Can't argue with that, but he said that my aftermarket Wet Sounds amplifier was the cause.

Background info, I have 2 batteries installed to handle the sound system and the radio head unit and remote were acting weird in that, at times, it wouldn't recognize button inputs. It'd turn on with power, play music, maybe allow you to change stations or volume, but most often, you couldn't change any of that. At one point, when powering up, it wouldn't get past the Jensen Logo for 30min, but playing the radio station fine. I figured that was an indication of it getting Low Voltage, especially since the Volt gauge would read ~12.5V, not the 14V it's supposed to be. In my head, was thinking that whatever was keeping the ECM power was causing that drop in voltage and diverting voltage from the radio unit. Not sure where the Volt gauge is wired in and what it's reading.

From what he told me, he spent the first day on my boat putting everything to stock, not sure what else besides the Amp and dual batteries and getting started diagnostics. Next morning, within the 30min the dealer opened, i get the call that he fixed my boat. He said that the Amp was tied to the ignition switch and was keeping my port ECM on (not the starboard ECM which was fine and tracking hours properly when i dropped it off). And now, my radio is fried, and somehow both my ECMs were fried and needed to be replaced, because of the amplifier. For anyone who can help, the boat was under warranty when it was dropped off and presumed warranty would cover this and don't want to be screwed with 11 months of labor, a bunch of parts, 2 new ECMs, and what not. If it was something aftermarket, i can suck it up. But when i asked for more reasons why he thought it was the amp of all things, kept telling me random things, like my starboard ECM is now suddenly fried even though I dropped it off with it fine, or explain how the amp could bypass a bunch of security protocols to prevent the port ECM to stop updating but not effect the starboard ECM. More oddly and confusing to me is that he said, with both ECMs fried, he could fire both engines up without the key.

With that said, if anyone reading this if familiar with installing sound systems and or amps, would REALLY really appreciate some help, either helping me understand how it caused such major issues or prove to BRP that it's BS an amp could do that. I have a few questions so if anyone could answer them, THANK YOU!

1) How should an amp be wired in to power on with the key position?
-The previous owner had the sound system installed (told professionally by an authorized Wet Sounds dealer and wired by them), but couldn't verify for myself.

2) If an amp was wired improperly with the ignition switch, guess with it turning on with the key in the off position and before the actual radio head unit turned on with the key in accessory mode, would that really cause a back feed or somehow interfere with the ECMs??

3) If the ignition switch is just the switch providing power to the amp, off a DC circuit, it would pull voltage away from the circuit, not direct it elsewhere? Essentially, looking at the ignition switch, powering the Amp would be able to direct or create a feedback into the system.
-If it did, aren't there fuses or something between the ignition switch and ECM alerting that or fuses and diodes preventing that?

4) Back to powering the Amp, the only voltage output I'm aware of is to the speakers, not anywhere else really. And if somehow it was, and somehow directly connected to powering the ECM, that Voltage would either fry the ECM or, with the fluctuating analog signal, ECM issue would be intermittent and not occur if no music was playing.

5) If the ECM is being powered on by the amp, why would it effect the odometer and prevent it from saving new hours from temp memory to permanent memory??
- if its hold it on, it will keep the ECM on, really both ECMs, but that is it. Not interrupt power down signals to convert memory. Issue really seems to be impacting whatever the ECM gets it's signal from to count hours.

Over the past 11 months, they've replaced everything from the gauge cluster, to the ECM, and everything in between. Besides finding out a new replacement engine harness doesn't exist even after a dealer orders it, and waiting 3 months and making calls to realize it, they've even cut up my engine harness to replace diodes in it. A lot more stuff occurred that I kinda gave up calling to find out. But the more peculiar issue was that when they swapped ECMs between each other, the issue followed with the ECM and the starboard ECM on the port engine works perfectly, while the port ECM on the starboard engine doesn't. BUT, when they got 2 brand new ECMs, didn't transfer data and set up the engines as brand new, the port ECM displayed issues but not the starboard. After having the ECM software looked at, thinking it was corrupted, and physically examined by somewhere and informed they're working fine and not damaged, non of this makes sense to say that an amp caused this.

So my biggest fear right now is that BRP is just trying to blame the issue on something rather irrelevant, thinking the owner wouldn't know any better to question it. And to somehow diagnose and fix the issue that fast seems too good to be true. Since the issue moves with the port ECM, and moving the starboard ECM is fine, I STRONGLY believe that they cloned the data from the starboard ECM onto another ECM, which they replaced the port ECM with. That way, the data is fine, hours are now matching, not more problems, or at least mask the issue.
 
I guess I would question how the amp was wired to the ignition? is it the key power signal from the amp that was wired to the switch? usually that is wired to the radio it self so when you turn the radio off the amp shuts off, if its wired to the key switch it would always be on when the key switch is on. I would assume we aren't talking about the main power to the amp that is wired to the key switch...no professional audio installer would ever install an amp that way (that being said there are people out there that shouldn't call themselves professionals). If the main power was wried to the ignition switch then I could see how you would have issues with that but I would also say it should blow a fuse since that circuit won't be designed to handle that kind of load. Brp ecm's are sensitive to electrical noise, so if the amp was sending electrical noise back up the ignition wire that could make the ecm do some strange things and it could cause an issue in one computer and not affect the other, it could be that the amp is producing more electrical noise than it should but since the amp works the manufacturer of the amp may say there is nothing wrong with it. it is also important to note that where the amp is grounded is important also, if the amp isn't grounded back to the battery very well you could end up with ground loop issues, that could also cause the kind of problems you are having. I am not an electrical engineer but someone that was might be able to explain it better.
 
Wow Anthony, What a mess ! Hate you are going through all of that but hope it all works out. With that said, I will offer advice as to how I installed and wired both mu new Audio System and 2nd battery. In an effort to avoid things like you are dealing with I decided that the audio system would be wired directly to the 2nd deep cell battery via a new Blue Seas Systems Mini Add A Battery System Plus. It replaces the existing battery switch in the boat with a new one that allowed me to tie all factory systems back to the start battery and then add the audio amp wiring to the new deep cell battery only. The switch also allows the batteries to be combined, but only for emergency starting. I chose to do this to avoid any chance of screwing something up with the factory set up. Since I mounted the amp under the helm, I also wired the radio up to the same power as the amp thus taking it off the start battery. With this set up I just have to remember the turn the battery switch off when not using the boat, which we should do anyhow, otherwise the radio/amp will run regardless of where the ignition switch is set. But this also allows me to run the radio without the ignition switch being on and potentially draining the start battery with other devices on the factory side of the circuit. The Blue Seas System also manages the charging of both batteries when running the boat and allows me to connect AC to it when home to ensure the batteries are fully charged before going out again. Hope this helps !

Brad
 
@wrench2ride, Thank you so much for your reply!! I really appreciate your questions and thoughts!!

I would love to tell you how it wired, or how to tell. I haven't seen my boat in almost a year. Just found out Friday that my amp is suddenly the issue and just really hard to wrap my head around it. From what I was told earlier, months ago, the dealer tech had did a through check of all the voltages behind the gauge cluster, measuring essentially everything, and didn't notice anything odd or out of spec. I presume he would have measured the key/ignition switch and checked the wiring for the Amp at some point. I don't really know if the Amp was powered on before the radio was, since the only audio input to the speakers was the radio. If the radio wasn't on, would be silent and don't recall any background static.

I agree, i don't think the main power was wired, there is another battery that supplies power. But when you say the ECMs are sensitive to noise, wouldn't that indicate that both my ECMs would be effected, not just one, especially to the point to interfere with the odometer? Additionally, the amp and speakers were installed 3yrs prior to this onset of this issue, would it not have occurred soon after install instead of later? Also, is there not a filter on these ECMs to handle stray signals like that? If a single ECM costs $1100, it better have a damn good filter to cancel out noise. I honestly can't imagine that much noise or what type of noise could be coming of an amp wired into the key switch. And if there was noise coming off the amp, i'd imagine it be along the wires in that circuit. So if my ECM was just staying powered on, and that was all, I could see that. But if the ECM is powered on because it thinks it needs to count hours and never gets a signal to save the hours to permanent memory, that doesn't sound right. But I honestly don't know how the hours are counted, or where the signal comes from. Is it the fuel pump, stator, crank shaft, or something like that?? I'm trying to read through the shop manual and can't find any mention of where that signal comes from or which wire/pin deals with it. And again, if there was noise, I can see it make the ECM do funny things, but when you migrate that ECM data over to 4-5 different brand new ECMs, with all of them exhibiting the same issue. And at the same time, if you migrating the good ECM data to those new ECMs, it works fine, that appears to rule out noise issues, at least to me and ECM sensitivity issues. I honestly think its the data on the ECM that got written over with an issue with the charging system off of the stator, or something responsible for gathering hours. If the data, the issue would move with it, and onto any new ECM with that data, while any good ECM data could connect to either engine and run fine.

I need to confirm with the tech when they set up the brand new ECMs, if the port ECM was exhibiting issues, even without data migrated.

I will be calling the dealer Tuesday and try to directly talk to the tech and see if he can tell me what the other guy was doing and what was happening. Will definitely be asking him your questions. If I do end up having to drive out there so I can talk with the tech directly, I will definitely bring my multimeter and hopefully my portable oscilloscope will be enough to detect any signals. Would you recommend I hook up anywhere else, in addition to the ignition switch, to monitor for noise?
 
Wow Anthony, What a mess ! Hate you are going through all of that but hope it all works out. With that said, I will offer advice as to how I installed and wired both mu new Audio System and 2nd battery. In an effort to avoid things like you are dealing with I decided that the audio system would be wired directly to the 2nd deep cell battery via a new Blue Seas Systems Mini Add A Battery System Plus. It replaces the existing battery switch in the boat with a new one that allowed me to tie all factory systems back to the start battery and then add the audio amp wiring to the new deep cell battery only. The switch also allows the batteries to be combined, but only for emergency starting. I chose to do this to avoid any chance of screwing something up with the factory set up. Since I mounted the amp under the helm, I also wired the radio up to the same power as the amp thus taking it off the start battery. With this set up I just have to remember the turn the battery switch off when not using the boat, which we should do anyhow, otherwise the radio/amp will run regardless of where the ignition switch is set. But this also allows me to run the radio without the ignition switch being on and potentially draining the start battery with other devices on the factory side of the circuit. The Blue Seas System also manages the charging of both batteries when running the boat and allows me to connect AC to it when home to ensure the batteries are fully charged before going out again. Hope this helps !

Brad


@studiocat13 , Thanks for that information!!! Really appreciated that!! I definitely like your setup!!

So I just got off the phone with them and the tech. The amp was wired into the key ignition switch. Although the amp wouldn't create a feedback signal, it looks like something, probably a voltage spike, damaged it and caused it to create a feedback. At the key switch, with the key out, it should be reading 0V, but was reading 9V. This was somehow able to mess with one of the ECMs and also allow them to fire up both engines, using the start buttons, while the actual key were in their hand and not in the ignition. They also said the batteries were wired wrong, which another certified dealership wired up.

That kinda makes sense to me, but wanted to see what you guys thought and if that makes sense. Just stay on the good side of the service manager, they are willing to trailer my boat to a nearby stereo shop, which they vouch for, that they work closely and do a lot of boat sound system installations. Apparently the whole wiring was just a mess with one cable connected to battery and ran to behind the helm, but connected to nothing. Was told that the stereo shop can clean all of that up for me and also install that new battery switch for me.

And if the 9V reading at the key switch was alarming, not sure why they didn't disconnect the leads to it and see where it was coming from. That would have taken me 5min to do, not 11 months.
 
@studiocat13 , Thanks for that information!!! Really appreciated that!! I definitely like your setup!!

So I just got off the phone with them and the tech. The amp was wired into the key ignition switch. Although the amp wouldn't create a feedback signal, it looks like something, probably a voltage spike, damaged it and caused it to create a feedback. At the key switch, with the key out, it should be reading 0V, but was reading 9V. This was somehow able to mess with one of the ECMs and also allow them to fire up both engines, using the start buttons, while the actual key were in their hand and not in the ignition. They also said the batteries were wired wrong, which another certified dealership wired up.

That kinda makes sense to me, but wanted to see what you guys thought and if that makes sense. Just stay on the good side of the service manager, they are willing to trailer my boat to a nearby stereo shop, which they vouch for, that they work closely and do a lot of boat sound system installations. Apparently the whole wiring was just a mess with one cable connected to battery and ran to behind the helm, but connected to nothing. Was told that the stereo shop can clean all of that up for me and also install that new battery switch for me.

And if the 9V reading at the key switch was alarming, not sure why they didn't disconnect the leads to it and see where it was coming from. That would have taken me 5min to do, not 11 months.

So glad you are finally getting some answers now but sorry you had to go through all of this trouble to get them. Sounds like the guys at the stereo shop didn't know what they were doing which is one reason I ended up doing my self, that and the added cost plus I have learned a lot about my boat in the process. At least now you have an installer that is recommended by the dealer but I would definitely ask for a warranty on the work before having them proceed. I would also strongly consider having them isolate the stereo system from the main system entirely and only connect it to the battery switch and 2nd battery in an effort to avoid this in the future. Either way, keep us posted and good luck !

Brad
 
Sorry I haven't had a chance to go though the last few posts but I did read that your power for the amp is coming from another battery, I would think that could cause an issue with the key power coming from the ignition switch which gets its source from a different battery. I would also wonder about where the amp is grounded and where the second battery is grounded. it is hard to comment about the issues you are having but I can say Ecm failures are pretty uncommon, I am not saying they don't ever fail but usually there is something that has caused them to fail. electrical noise and magnetic fields can do really crazy things to electronics and you would be able to see that if you have a scope, you can check for noise on any wire that is connected to the ecm. basically installing filters will not remove the noise it will only suppress it, it may be true that you could suppress it enough so it isn't a problem but your better off if you can avoid it in the first place. I think you are on the way to getting your problems solved. Hopefully the dealer will treat you fairly, one thing that you can remind them of is the fact that you lost a season of use because it took so long to diagnose. best of luck!
 
@studiocat13 Thank you! But thinking over all the answers I got, I now have more questions that are making me doubt the amp. In the shop manual, I was looking at the ignition switch system, thinking as to why it had 4 pins, instead of 3 with a common ground. Remembered the boat isn't wired as nicely and, for the sake of minimizing noise, has 2 separate ground pins for that sole intent of isolating noise at all, as @wrench2ride mentioned could act up and better to be isolated.

That said, and knowing that the factory radio head unit worked and wired into the amp, the radio did work with the key in the accessory position, with the key half turned. If it was wired improperly, there are only a few ways to do it.

1) Wire from the positive lead of the accessory lead to the ground of the ignition lead
2) Wire from the positive lead of the ignition system to the ground of the accessory lead
3) Wire from the positive lead of the ignition system to the ground of the ignition system
4) Wire from the positive lead of the accessory lead to the positive of the ignition system (Not sure if that would even work to power the amp)

But with all of the ways to be wired, with the key out of the ignition switch, and circuits opened, only (4) could possibly work? Not sure how and same with ground to ground. But if the key is in the accessory position when the radio is on and it plays audio fine through the amp, that minimizes the wiring options.

And if it was a backwards voltage somehow, I would imagine a diode could be easily supplemented to mitigate such an issue, especially since they cut out the diodes on my wiring harness for inspection and replacement (Didn't change anything).

But some questions I do have now are
1) How the amp switch works and how the remote switch is wired. I'm trying to look up now for a Wet Sound Syn4
( https://wetsounds.com/downloads/Wet-Sounds-SYN2-4-User-Manual.pdf )

2) Looking at the PDF, i don't see why 9V would be outputted or how or why you'd even wire the amp to the key ignition switch. And if it did, would think it would should 12V, not 9V. I do know when they disconnected the amp, they also disconnected the radio head unit so possibly they just disconnected the radio saying they disconnected the Amp.

Looking through the Shop Manual, I found a section, in the battery subsection, discussing Parasitic "Key Off" Current loads. It goes on to talk about how this could be caused by an installed accessory OR by water getting into connections, or partial short circuits that can slowly drain a battery without causing a fuse to burn (Which is exactly what is happening to my boat, battery drain with no blown fuse).

Reading that, I don't think the Amp is capable of drawing that much current (drain a single battery in about 1 day) while not powered on at all with the radio off. Even then, I still find it super odd that only 1 ECM can't power down, not both, regardless of being swapped between engines. Additionally, with the one ECM stuck powered on, Im guessing there is a short in the wiring to whatever generates the odometer signal telling the engine to count hours. That short is capable of powering the ECM on, even when it shouldn't, also could reset the odometer under power loss, since it can't close the circuit to stop counting. And if tied into the stator/magneto system (Im guessing this is what the ECM determines when it's on and to count), that short would be directly tied to the battery, causing a system wide voltage drop and capable of bulling a large current draw, seen at the voltage gauge.

And with how the techs are trying to explain why the radio is it, they're only reasoning is that they removed it and it worked, which is more of correlation than causation. Doesn't explain why it failed to begin with. And, if it was the amp, there would be no need to order 2 new custom ECMs, specially programmed from some engineers in Florida. For one, one ECM went bad, not 2. Second, the traditional replacement ECM would have worked fine, didn't need a special programed one, unless programed to get around the short. Third, they were somehow unable to transfer any of my data off the previous ECMs, so now both my hours are now reset back to 0hrs.

I will try to get more information from the tech tomorrow, but thank you all again! Really appreciate the help brainstorming this with me and information!!
 
@studiocat13 Thank you! But thinking over all the answers I got, I now have more questions that are making me doubt the amp. In the shop manual, I was looking at the ignition switch system, thinking as to why it had 4 pins, instead of 3 with a common ground. Remembered the boat isn't wired as nicely and, for the sake of minimizing noise, has 2 separate ground pins for that sole intent of isolating noise at all, as @wrench2ride mentioned could act up and better to be isolated.

I will try to get more information from the tech tomorrow, but thank you all again! Really appreciate the help brainstorming this with me and information!!

You are correct Anthony, The amp should be receiving 12 volts straight from the battery with only a large fuse connected at the battery end and should not be wired to the ignition switch at all. This should also be large gauge wire, 4-6 gauge depending on length. The stereo has a blue remote turn on wire that should have been connected to the amp so that when the stereo is on it sends signal to the amp to power it on, so no wiring through ignition should be needed for the amp, period.
 
@studiocat13 Hey, thanks so much for that!! So it turns out there was a wire that was wired into the ignition system. Apparently the shop the original owner took to get the stereo done also installed a second battery setup system. And instead of a dual battery switch, he left the original one and put in a relay/solenoid switch. Essentially, as the boat was moving, and the engines were fired up and charging the system, it would activate and connect both batteries, so both could be charged. But, once the engines were off, it would sense that and disconnect, running the radio and amp off a single battery. Something messed up with that relay and was somehow charging the system. It was putting 9.3V through, but I don't see how that could fry the drivers of the ECM, if it isn't 12V, or how diodes are fine but still damaged.

But that was the issue so do not install a battery isolator system. Also, get a shop manual and a wiring diagram for the boat, you will save yourself a bunch of time and money working on your boat yourself and asking for help here than at the dealership. Found the instructions to fix my boat in the shop manual, clear as day. But Thank you all so much for all your help!! Really appreciated everything!!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top