How many peripherals from one head unit?
 

I found a mysterious power draw in my new to me stereo system. Someone in another forum suggested that it might be a relay that was used to the amplifier remote turn on wires. Makes sense, and it might be buried under the carpet.

I am adding a WS 420, and running new power and ground wires and then I will run the HU turn on switch to a switch on my dash. Since I think that the amplifier turn on wire is involved in my power draw, I will run a new one of those also.

The question here is that I will then be running my remote turn on wire to the ws 420 and 3 amps. I always thought the power draw from a remote turn on wire was miniscule and you could turn on as many peripherals as you wanted to. I received some conflicting advice that the power in that wire is not enough. So you guys with a similar system, how do you run all of those remote turn on wires?

The rule of thumb as I understand it is no more than three devices, in your case amps, to the turn on lead without a relay. I'm running three Exile amps off of the HU lead no problem.

Another thing to do is run the HU power from the same source as the amps instead of the house wiring. David @ Earmark enlightened me to this saying that if you have the HU to house and the amps to stereo batt that if there's a differential in battery voltage it can damage the preamps in the HU. Easy enough to do, just draw power from the distribution block, in my case a fused Tsunami with an empty slot, or from a terminal strip connected from the stereo bank.

I had the remote from my headunit turning on 5 amps and a 420 and it worked fine. The instant i added a 6th amp it quit working so I must of fried it. I wired one of my extra acc rocker switches as a turn on and now it turns on everything including the head unit. no problems at all.

To answer my own question, my Alpine HU has done just fine with 3 amps on it so far. Keep in mind I did run a bigger wire (14g) just to minimize any voltage drop.

The amp turn on lead from my Clarion CMD5 triggers: 4 Wetsounds amps, HSE revolution, WS-420, MaxxBass processor (7 total devices). Works fine, all off 18-22ga wiring. Each device has it's own power lead so the blue leads really just close an relay internal to the device.