Head Unit going into protect mode.

[bzubke1]

Last night we were surfing and all of the sudden the head unit said protect and would no longer play music. Earlier in the day were anchored and listening to music but not for too long less than an hour. After we were sitting my brother took the boat to the dock to pick up some ppl and he said it did the protect thing for a minute then came back on and it worked for an hour or so of riding then said protect again and wouldn't work for the last hour of the night.

We have the stock kenwood head unit and kicker in boat speakers powered by the stock kicker amp. On the tower we have 2 bullet hollowpoint 770's powered by a jl g4500. We also have dual batteries with a perko switch.

[moombahighrider]

Just a troubleshooting thing to try. Is the headunit internal amp turned off? If you are powering all your speakers with external amps, there would be no need to have it on and I always turn mine off if I can. The only reason I say this is that amplifiers often go into protection when there is a short on the speakers wires or too much of a load on the amp. This should not be the case with your headunit as you are powering all the speakers externally, right? So maybe there is a problem with the amp on the headunit and turning the amp off might stop the headunit from going into protect.

[bzubke1]

How exactly do you turn the amp off on the head unit?
Also i went out this afternoon an turned it on in the driveway and everything worked fine.

[moombahighrider]

Apparently I am the source of bad information. Sorry, bzubke1! I just went out to my boat and tried to figure out how to do it and remembered that I am thinking of an older DIN and half Kenwood that has that feature. Mine does not have the ability to turn off the internal amp.

How loud has the volume been when the unit goes to protect? What is your exact configuration as far as what speakers are connected to what amp?

[bzubke1]

All six interior speakers are wired to the stock kicker 250.4 amp. The bow speakers each have their own channels and the 4 rear speakers share the other 2 channels.

The 2 tower speakers use the JL Audio amp.

The first time it happened i wasnt in the boat. And the second time i was surfing. So i'm not sure of the volume but usually when we board we will play it at 30-35 all day and have never had a problem. 35 is the max the head unit goes to btw.

[moombahighrider]

You have yours hooked up just like mine, so a short in the speakers is not the problem. It sounds to me like the headunit is getting too hot. Is there alot of stuff smothering the face of the unit in the glove? What about behind the headunit. Is air able to move around the fins okay (i.e.- not alot of wiring or other stuff crowding the heatsinks)? We have the same headunit, I bet (or we did until I replaced mine this morning), seeing as we have the same year and model, and mine has been fine while cranked up for along time, but I am not dealing with DFW temps. I setup my amps to have the headunit maxed at 32 or 33. I never turn it to 35 because of inefficiency and distortion reasons.

BTW, I upgraded my headunit to Kenwood KDC-X794 and it is a BIG step up. The processing is much better and the subs sounds so much more full. I would highly recommend it (especially if you find that your headunit is giving up the ghost)!

[Morgan.black84]

It was nice to read. I have successfully overcome the same problem of mine now....

[bzubke1]

You know i think the reason was crap being piled in the glovebox and the head unit getting too hot. We had a few people with us and they were putting their stuff in there and for some reason everyone always wants to close the glovebox. We went out yesterday and had no problems. Thanks for all the help.

[moombahighrider]

That's great! Glad to hear that it is probably figured out. I hope it was excess stuff in the glove and you won't have the issue anymore.