No power to Nav, climate, and audio

I was installing a boost gauge but when I went to put the ground wire near the bolt near the interior fuses I saw a spark. Then when I turned on the car after hooking up the gauge I noticed my nav and radio isn't on. I checked that fuse and it isn't blown. Any ideas?

Bump!

Does the gauge work? Where did you tap in for power for the gauge? Is that fuse blown? Have you checked all fuses in the vehicle? There can be multiple fuses inline with each other in some circuits. Sounds like when you hooked up the ground, it shorted out that circuit.

Does the gauge work? Where did you tap in for power for the gauge? Is that fuse blown? Have you checked all fused in the vehicle? There can be multiple fuses inline with each other in some circuits. Sounds like when you hooked up the ground, it shorted out that circuit.

 

For power I believe I tapped into the 12V socket and then I attached the gauge lights to the illumination.

 

However, in my electrical noobness I added additional fuses because the fuse tap allowed for two spots. So for the 12v socket I had the original 20amp and then added a 15amp totaling 35amp. Then for the illumination I added a 20amp to the original 15amp totaling 35amp, again. My guess is that the spark happened after I did this and touched it to ground - but i can't recall.

 

Regardless, i have put everything back to the original way but the radio/nav doesn't turn on. I checked the radio/nav fuse and it was fine. I even moved it to a different 15amp spot and confirmed the fuse itself works. I was just reading on a different forum that, like you mentioned, there could be a different fuse that also has control over this. I'm just not quite sure which fuse it would be since the only one I checked was from the interior fuse box. I checked the under the hood fuse box but couldn't identify at first glance which fuse it would correlate to.

 

I think my next step is to find the other fuses that relate to that one.

If you added a fuse in parallel then it would add more amperage capability. If it was in series then all it would be is extra protection inline. 35 amps is too much for most of the factory wiring. If parallel is what you did, then you probably took out the other fuse inline as it would be less than a 35amp fuse. If you have a meter. Start checking EVERY fuse if you're not sure which one. Start under the hood at that fuse box. If you need guidance on how to do that, then I'll instruct you further.

Will check fuses with meter tomorrow.

Can you elaborate on the adding a fuse in parallel vs in series?

 

Essentially what I did was took the power and illumination of the boost gauge, got two fuse taps, soldered the wire to the fuse tap wire, took the original 20amp 12v fuse and put it in slot #1 of fuse tap, added an additional 15amp fuse to slot #2, repeated those steps essentially with the 15amp illumination but added a 20amp instead of a 15amp fuse.

Well if the fuse tap has two slots, then one probably retains the original fused circuit while adding (tapping) into the main power before the fuse for the additional circuit. THIS is a parallel circuit in series off of the main circuit. So if you have 35amps total worth of fuses in those slots, then the potential for 35 amps worth of draw through that main feed is there, except the main fuse protecting that feed is going to be less than that to protect the wiring. But if you shorted one of those circuits, then one of the fuses you put in would blow unless it is larger than the main fuse under the hood. What you first explained sounded a little different as in possibly input and output of both fuses were tied together (also parallel circuit) which would still allow for 35 amp draw but, the output would fused at 35 amps instead of 20 or 15. THIS would for sure cause the main fuse to blow first since it is of lesser value than the combined value of the two.

 

Anyways, without a picture of series or parallel fuses to show you. I will do my best to explain.

 

Series fuse circuit: This is what your car would have normally. Big wire coming from battery to the fuse block where there are multiple main fuses. So these are the first fuses inline for multiple circuits in the car. We will concentrate on just one to vet the picture. We'll say there is an ACC (Accesory) fuse that is 30amps. So the wire coming off the output side of that fuse will never get more than 30 amps because the fuse limits that and the wire can be downsized to smaller size and protected. That smaller wire goes to the inside fuse block where it supplies ACC circuits in the car which are individually fused themselves at no more than 30amps. If you put a larger fuse in that location and then short the output of that fuse, it will still never go above 30amps because of the main fuse. THIS is because the fuse is in series with the main fuse.

 

Parallel fuse circuit: Now with the information above, imagine we go back to that main fuse and electrically connect another 30amp fuse where both fuses share their input and output wires. This is parallel. The current has two paths to flow in parallel with each other. This adds the two paths together. So two 30amp fuses in parallel now become a path for a total of 60amps capable. If the wire on the output side was not sized correctly and shorted, it would most likely cause a fire or melt the insulation off the wire.

 

Not sure if this clears it up for you or just makes it more confusing. Hopefully it helps!

A quick doodle to visualise.

In the bottom series example, the 15 amp is in series with the 30 amp

Wow that's all great info - I appreciate you taking the time to help me out on this.

 

This has been resolved!

 

Solution: Under the good, the fusebox has a 20amp fuse called "backup". I had taken that out to use in my fuse taps thinking it was a spare. Once I made the connection that maybe it was to backup the memory of the radio/nav I put it back and it turned on!

Glad I could help. Would've been much easier to troubleshoot though if you told me you stole a fuse from under the hood lol!

Don't you know there's always a key piece of information missing? Well hopefully this will help somebody in the future

Yes, yes there is lol. No matter how long I've been doing this, I more and more forget to ask the question (what ALL did you do before and after it stopped working?). So many times at work this bites me in the butt. ☺