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APX7500 Rebooting

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Dmirate

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Hello,

I have an odd issue that we have run into recently with one of our customers. I installed a brand new APX 7500 radio into a brand new 2016 Dodge Durango. The procedure in how the radio were installed is as follows:

1. All connections are crimped, soldered, and heat shrinked.
2. The radio transceiver power is fused at the battery and runs through a shutdown timer (I bypassed the shutdown timer, same problem).
3. Ground is within 3 feet of the radio, at a factory ground point.
4. We have installed a StiCo antenna (800, UHF, and a motorola GPS)
5. The accessory cable has one wire that needs to be constant hot for trickle power for memory.

Almost every time the vehicle is started, the radio reboots. This vehicle also has an auto shutdown feature, similar to a hybrid (but it is not a hybrid). When you come to idle at an intersection, it will turn the engine off. When you push the gas, the engine turns back on causing the radio to reboot.

We tried another radio/head to see if it was an anomaly; same exact results. At this point, I am thinking an inline capacitor to keep voltage steady at the radio..

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Damon
 

N4DES

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Even though you are dealing with a new vehicle, when my XTL1500 begins to do this it is time for a new vehicle battery. I can pretty much put a date on may calendar from when the radio starts to this to when I have to change it out.

Sounds like the CCA of the battery is the bare minimum and the radio doesn't like the severe voltage drop.
 

12dbsinad

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Even though the vehicle is new, it's possible the battery is no good. Try having the battery load tested. It may fail and if that's the case the radio wont like the extreme low voltage.

Also, measure the voltage when the radio reboots. (it's possible a digital multi-meter won't be fast enough to read it, an analog meter would work better in that scenario if you have one)
 

PACNWDude

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This is also why many people use a second battery or a delay timer. I have had this happen to me with many Motorola mobiles. Often it was on vessels where the batteries did not get charged up often, or a battery was low on cranking amps like many have mentioned.

It amazed some of my co-workers that many of the smaller vessels may actually need the vessels engines running a bit above idle to handle the amperage of a commercial Motorola radio on board.

Some Vertex Standard mobiles needed a bit of amperage to work properly as well.

Batteries that come with many new vehicles are only rated for the vehicle, no accessories taken into account. Even some PPV vehicles need a new battery to work with the radios once installed. I think the vehicle manufacturers are getting cheaper every year, knowing that a good installer will swap them out at their cost instead of the factory providing an adequate CCA battery.
 

N1GTL

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I rented a car that had that annoying shut down feature at red lights. I read up a little and found that the car has a second battery that is used to power things when the engine is actually off.

Is your ignition control line run to something that might be being powered by that second battery and when the car restarts, it switches back to the main battery or the draw causes a voltage drop?
 

Dmirate

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Albuquerque, NM
Even though the vehicle is new, it's possible the battery is no good. Try having the battery load tested. It may fail and if that's the case the radio wont like the extreme low voltage.

Also, measure the voltage when the radio reboots. (it's possible a digital multi-meter won't be fast enough to read it, an analog meter would work better in that scenario if you have one)

I failed to mention that I had done this already. I used my Fluke DMM and captured minimum voltage during cranking. It seems that as soon as it drops below 10.8 volts the system shuts down, and then turns back on after cranking.
 

Dmirate

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This is also why many people use a second battery or a delay timer. I have had this happen to me with many Motorola mobiles. Often it was on vessels where the batteries did not get charged up often, or a battery was low on cranking amps like many have mentioned.

It amazed some of my co-workers that many of the smaller vessels may actually need the vessels engines running a bit above idle to handle the amperage of a commercial Motorola radio on board.

Some Vertex Standard mobiles needed a bit of amperage to work properly as well.

Batteries that come with many new vehicles are only rated for the vehicle, no accessories taken into account. Even some PPV vehicles need a new battery to work with the radios once installed. I think the vehicle manufacturers are getting cheaper every year, knowing that a good installer will swap them out at their cost instead of the factory providing an adequate CCA battery.

I actually went out today to one of our vendors and borrowed a battery to try this. This particular vehicle is not a PPV, honestly it is more of a POS :)

That is good info though.

I was talking to a buddy at a stereo shop, and he deals with severe voltage drops on a day to day basis. He said that is what they do for stereo amplifiers.
 

Dmirate

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Location
Albuquerque, NM
I rented a car that had that annoying shut down feature at red lights. I read up a little and found that the car has a second battery that is used to power things when the engine is actually off.

Is your ignition control line run to something that might be being powered by that second battery and when the car restarts, it switches back to the main battery or the draw causes a voltage drop?

This is true, this vehicle has a secondary battery for that reason. It looks like a motorcycle battery. I did voltage drop tests on both, and they are equalized at any given time. I think this is more of a sensitivity issue with the motorola radio. I believe it is shutting down at 10.9v to prevent dead batteries, and turning on again once voltage comes back up.

This radio specifically does NOT use an ignition tickle wire. They specifically wanted it wired with one constant hot to keep the encryption code current at the accessory cable, and the main power at the transceiver is run through a ChargeGuard timer. That timer is ignition controlled, but I did verify that it never drops out.
 
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