LC7i troubleshooting

Hey taco world! I currently just finished installing a system in my tacoma and I had a couple questions regarding some things, you are all way more knowledgable than me so I was hoping you guys could help solve some issues I’ve run into !

The amplifier for the subs was a pioneer GM-DX871 , the subs are two skar vd-10's which are dual 4ohm.

The speaker amplifier is a taramps 4 channels 400w amplifier

I used an lc7i with the system as well

As far as wiring, I tapped into the head unit wires for the lc7i input, I had the rears go into input 1 and the front in input 2 as I read in the forums. the remote out cable I sent to the speaker amplifier as well as a power cable to the amplifier, the lc7 was grounded as well as the amp. The output is RCA cables where 1 and 2 connect to the speaker amp and #3 goes to the input of the Pioneer amplifier.

I placed an ACR-1 on order to plug in the LC7i for sub volume control as I tried to use the knob that came with the pioneer amplifier and nothing happened volume wise when i plugged it into the amplifier port and when I tried the port for the LC7i so I was hoping the acr-1 should fix that hopefully?

The Pioneer amplifier is powered with a 4 gauge wire and grounded to the rear bolt for the middle seatbelts. For a remote wire I used an add a fuse with the cigarette fuse and made sure I had a 15 amp fuse on it as well as thats whats stock.

For the sub wiring they are wired to the first two positive and negative in a parallel pattern I believe(its my first time i was hoping i did it right !).

When adjusting my EQ levels on the stock head unit, I found that when I completely take the bass off of the eq settings the subs sound crispy and very pronounced but the second I add to the bass setting the bass seems louder but muddier? and off beat just slightly I feel. I am not sure what could be causing this so I just left it down on zero for now. I was wondering if this is normal or if something is maybe wrong with any way I wired it? I really would appreciate any help! you seem super knowledgable and I would love to learn more about my system.

**my biggest issue is that I went to set the maxes on the lc7i and when I disconnected the rca outputs the music still was playing so I’m assuming something I did somewhere is wrong? If anyone could please help I’d appreciate it!

 

i saw your pm, but it's easier to answer here in case someone else has an idea

can you post some pictures of the install wiring/power distribution, and some of the amp settings? you've only got the oem audio into the lc7 on channels 1 and 2, but nothing on channel 3?

you said you've got dual-4ohm subs, but then mentioned they were wired in parallel. did you wire both sub voice coils in parallel, as well as both subs together in parallel?

i think there's multiple issues at play here, just trying to figure out each one a little separately.

 

Hello! So far I’ve noticed that I have a brown wire that’s running to my sub amp remote but I have it connected to the lc7i 12v instead of the remote out, I included the wiring diagram I used as well as I used Tacoma world for it

 

thanks for the pics, it helps a ton!

the first issue you note is "i disconnected the rca's, and music still played"

looking at the amps, it appears that you haven't ran any speaker wire from the taramps 4-channel amp to the speakers. meaning that the speakers are still powered off the head unit, and are operating as intended. you'll need to run additional speaker wiring to the amp to correct this issue, but also to make the door speakers powered by the amp.

2nd, you don't mention jumper settings, but don't have an input going into the 3rd lci7 channel. did you configure the lci7 to run off the main channel? i would also recommend making the main channel the front doors, as the oem head unit does have an eq that cuts some bass out of the rear speakers, so the front channel is what needs to be feeding the sub, but with the lci7, that's only possible if the front channel feeds into 'input 1'.



the 3rd issue i'm going to note is a bit of a house-keeping issue that i feel is contributing to many of your issues. i used to do exactly as pictured with my amps-- fit them wherever they fit, jam them in a corner, use what i got, " it only needs to work until ____, it's only temporary until ____". what i learned is that it makes every issue and every small problem even larger and harder to track down. one of my cars went through 3 iterations of that, over the course of the install it actually blew out 3 amps, a pre-amp, a head unit, and i spent close to $2k in 'premium' 'zero noise 3, 4, 5, and 7' monster rca cables at different times chasing down issues that were half related to throwing the amps into the trunk corner propped up by the sub box. i've got more money now in a 5 gallon bucket of now-useless rca cables than most people spend on amps!

the lesson i learned from that ordeal is to get the amp actually needed, or plan to hard mount every amp like it's your last, and to use terminal strips for common connections. my next install i never had issues with despite a drastically increased complexity because of the pre-planning and forced-organization that went into solid-mounting all the parts.

the original install pictures are buried on another old computer/hard drive, and pay-walled in my old photobucket account, but i've still got most of that install board assembled, though it's been getting pieced out over the past 10 years for other projects.

as i said, this was a very complex install!


the board was set up with what i'd call 'umbilical cord style'. meaning that main power, ground, and signal inputs were easily disconnected allowing full removal. it also allowed me to 100% build it outside the car, and then move it to the car once i was ready for it.

to give a quick overview of what's happening, from left to right:
this was a dual-input, full-active system, with the clarion crossover unit handling a 'backup' 3.5mm ipod input, and the gigaport hd being the main input device(was running a computer for audio at the time with dsp capability).
next to the gigaport is the corrugated tubing that covered one mess of wiring and fuses, and at the very top is a terminal block that handled distributing the small power/ground/remote signals to all the smaller equipment.
next are 4 jl audio cl-rlc's. 3 are linked for global volume control(high, mid, sub) with an independent 4th for sub level adjustment.
next used to exist another corrugated tube that covered all those busy connections.
after that was a stack of 2 alpine pdx amps that got all the signals. the only on-device splice made was the remote wire from one amp to the next.

despite all that going on, i never once had issues with any of that gear because of the time spent setting it all up on an easy to access board.


the first step is that i would recommend moving the gear to a spot that it's all mounted solidly so that it can't shift around, and is safe from hazards.

 

I really appreciate the reply! With the lc7i I read and saw on YouTube that you can have both the front and rear inputs and no 3rd input as the auto summing takes the strength of the 2nd channel and puts that to the 3rd output. With the stock head unit I also read the rear speakers have little power really running to them so many have said to make it #1 and have the fronts be #2 so that the strength for channel 3 is the strongest it can be

 

This was the sub wiring diagram I followed

 

i see that part in the manual. however, relying on the auto-sensing every time the system turns on could quickly be problematic in the future. i'd highly recommend changing the jumpers to the setup you need so as to force it to maintain the appropriate input regardless of external forces.

 

Okay I see your point, so I’ll switch the front to be the main and then the rears for #2, I then sum them together correct to then produce a high quality signal for number 3

 

Update: still don’t have control with the lc7i over sub volume any clues as to why ? I followed what you said and still ran into this

 

what lights are lit up on the lci7, and what jumpers were moved where?

 

As far as when I disconnect the rca’s the music no longer plays. I switched the front speakers to be the main channel the rears to be number 2 but I left the summing jumpers off as I wasn’t sure which would sum the main to the 3rd

 

should be jumpers 1&3 on the 'sub' pins to the summed connection. easy way to test is to change the jumpers, then connect only the #2 speaker inputs. nothing should come out.

alternatively, you could also just leave the jumpers alone and run a physical wire from speaker-in-main to speaker-in-sub to accomplish the same thing in a more mechanical method.

 

Do you have a reference photo for what you mean by sub pins? For summing I see one on the left and one on the right that can be summed ?

 

page 5 of the manual:

https://www.audiocontrol.com/downloads/car/current/lc7i/lc7i-user-manual.pdf

 

I’ve tried the current things with no luck to get the subs to work, switched to sum on the sub jumper with auto mode on, tried it with auto mode off as well, I switched both jumpers for sub and rear to sum with auto mode on and off and still no sub output

 

i started digging in the manual more, and can see i've been interpreting it backwards.

best/easiest way to get something to the sub channel is to use a wire jumper from the front speaker input to the 3rd channel input.