What is this blue transistor thing and can I delete it?

[wayno]

What is this blue transistor thing and can I delete it, I have power before it but no power after it, the wire is the ACC power to my radio and it works when it wants to which is very annoying, I am tired of it not working consistently/normally, you all know, turn the key on and the radio works.

 

[thisismatt]

It's a resistor. No idea why it's there...

[wayno]

I have been fighting this thing for a while now, I get in and start the truck cold and the radio doesn't work, then after it warms up I shut the engine down(diesel engine) and go into the store and do my shopping when I come out and start the engine the radio starts working 50 percent of the time, when I go somewhere else and shut the engine down and do my shopping, when I start it up this time it usually works except for today.

I will see if the radio has a wiring diagram on it and if it requires a resistor. 

[wayno]

This is all that is on the radio, I have pulled out and put this thing back in so many times trying to figure out what the issue is that it has wore the sticker off in the middle.

[john510]

Was it somebody's attempt at reducing spark plug/alternator noise getting to the radio ?  that doesn't look factory to me.I believe that's a capacitor not a transistor.Used to control voltage or current i think.

Edited March 30, 2019 by john510

[MikeRL411]

The intermittent is most likely caused by the crappy connection near the black tape wrap.  It looks from the picture as if the resistor is not crimped to the crimped connection and is only occasionally making contact.  Why someone cut the wire and spliced in a resistor is not at all clear.  Possibly a misbegotten attempt to reduce ignition noise in the tuner head.

[wayno]

I had this radio installed at a specialty radio store(it might have been "Car Toys") around 10 years ago, it is not factory.

 

This is a 720 diesel truck and it was one back then also when the radio was installed

2 minutes ago, MikeRL411 said:

The intermittent is most likely caused by the crappy connection near the black tape wrap.  It looks from the picture as if the resistor is not crimped to the crimped connection and is only occasionally making contact.  Why someone cut the wire and spliced in a resistor is not at all clear.  Possibly a misbegotten attempt to reduce ignition noise in the tuner head.

 

The tag on the radio says 12 volts, so unless anyone can tell me why not to delete this resistor I am going to take it out of the loop.

[MikeRL411]

2 minutes ago, wayno said:

The tag on the radio says 12 volts, so unless anyone can tell me why not to delete this resistor I am going to take it out of the loop.

 Sounds like a plan !  It does look like the power lead.  Cut, slide a shrink fit tube on, crimp in a butt connector and shrink the tubing.

[datzenmike]

You would use a inductance to reduce alternator generated noise on the power line. An induction is a coil of wire of various gauges depending on how much current will be used by the electronic device, that acts like a resistance to alternating current (noise)  on the power supply. As the frequency of the 'noise' goes up so does the inductive resistance. Much larger ones are used as filters on a stereo speaker. Lets through low frequency but attenuates the highs for the woofer.

 

 

 

 

[wayno]

Well it was "Car Toys" that put it in there, so I needed an SD card reader anyway, so I went to the electronics store near the Car Toys outlet and got the SD card reader and asked them and they had no clue, so then I went to Car Toys and asked them, the tech guy suggested maybe the unit would not turn on without it as the red wire is what turns the unit off and on, the yellow wire supplies all the juice, he said try it without the resistor first, and if the unit will not turn on come back and they would try to find a resistor.

[datzenmike]

Isn't Red the power wire? If it is, then that's a noise suppression inductor.

 

Jumper around it and it should still work. If there is a noise that goes up in frequency with engine revs take the jumper off.

[wayno]

The guys at "Car Toys" said the yellow wire supplies most the power for the deck/stereo radio to operate, the red wire turns the deck/stereo radio off and on.

I have thought the same thing for a few decades, but I don't know shit about electronics, I just wire them by the color of the wires, yellow is hot all the time, red goes to the key, black goes to ground, grey and blue are speakers, that is all I know, how them wires work inside the unit and what they do is above my pay grade.

13 minutes ago, datzenmike said:

Isn't Red the power wire? If it is, then that's a noise suppression inductor.

 

Jumper around it and it should still work. If there is a noise that goes up in frequency with engine revs take the jumper off.

 

Edited March 30, 2019 by wayno

[thisismatt]

Yellow is normally constant power (to maintain presets, etc).  Red is switched (ignition) power.

Edited March 31, 2019 by thisismatt

[wayno]

I guess I did forget to mention that everything works fine now, I connected the red wires together without a resistor and it worked fine(turns on), so now we shall see if it eventually smokes the unit or not.