troubleshooting alarm, remote start

so you have the 2nd ignition on the durango powered directly from the negative ground while running output? this will not work because all of the ignition and accessory wires require a positive 12v output to work. power your 2nd ignition with a relay and use the ground while running wire to activate that relay. also on some alarms the actual ground while running wire might be called the "status output" the ground while running gives you a ground when you activate the remote start through the keypad, it has nothing to do with the normal operation of the car with the key. it is usually used to turn on the bypass during remote start and sometimes to activate a relay for any extra ignition wires that need to be powered. you cant use the ground while running to send power an accessory circuit because they behave differently. ignition circuits will stay live when you have the key turned and during crank. accessory circuits are the same except that they lose power during crank and come back on right after you finished cranking the starter. so that could be another problem with your install because as you have it wired the accessory circuits are staying live through the entire start cycle. some cars are not very sensitive to this mistake and others are very sensitive to how the wires are powered up. this is the reason why the wires have different names because they work differently. do you understand what i just explained or do i need to be more detailed? the reason accessory wires turn off when you crank the starter is to make sure there are no unnecessary devices being powered while the starter is trying to turn the engine over, which might cause the starter to be weak. what i mean by "as soon as you activate the remote start" is exactly what it sounds like. when you press the button on the alarms keypad that controls the remote start function. the ground while running output should not be on during any other time. QUOTE "I am confused by something though. When you say "as soon as you activate the remote start", what does that mean exactly? See I cannot program the remote, as far as I can tell anyways, so how do I activate the remote start? Does providing power to it activate it?" how do you know you have a problem with the remote start if you cant activate the remote start? obviously you have found some way to activate the remote start or else you would not be asking questions about how the car is not starting... am i confusing something here? you said you have one remote that is programmed and the other wont program, so you have a way to activate the remote start through the remote that is programmed. the other keypad that wont program is an entirely different problem from your car not starting. please clear this up for me, can you or can you not activate the remote start? whether the car actually starts or not is not important. if you activate the remote starter and it fails to start and run then it still counts as being activated.

Hi soundandsecurity,

I must have misled you. Let me explain better.

The ground while running output is labeled IGN3 out and I am using it to power the coil of the relays that power IGN2 and ACC2. This is what the unit says to do.They will only see power when the IGN3 (-) output from the unit is activated or running .  IGN1 and ACC1 are like you said, they receive power in run and crank for IGN 1 only.

Does that still sound like it is wrong because this part was pretty straight forward to me. I understand your concern if I was directly powering IGN2 and ACC2 but I am only providing a (-) coil output from the remote start for when it sends it.

As far as activating the remote start, taking the second remote out of the picture........it seemed to program ok, meaning that it played a melody when programmed like it said it would but since the second one failed, I assumed that it didn't program either. It didn't give a guide to error messages or sounds like the one way transmitter did so I assumed it didn't program.

The bottom line is I don't know how to know if I can activate the remote start. I did put the red wire of my meter on the yellow start wire coming out of the remote and I grounded the black wire while pushing the remote start button and there was no reading so that means to me that when pressing the start button, no power is being sent to the starter. Does that mean it is or isn't activated....I still am not sure because I don't really know if the remote programmed. How could I verify that/ Am I correct is saying the remote does not activate since no power goes to the starter when pressing the remote?

By the way I installed a starter interupt relay but even if i messed that up (which I am pretty sure I didn't), the yellow wire coming out of the unit show be +12V when pressing the remote button......correct?

Sorry for the confusion and thank you for your patience and time. I just checked all my sense lines (door, hood, brake) and they all seem to be wired correctly. With that I have a question that may show my limited knowledge. The brake wire that shows +12V when depressed is wired to the remote and reads +12V when depressed. However if i put the red meter wire on +12V and the black on the brake wire, it reads +12V (undepressed). Is that because it is grounding thru the brake lamp or something. That wire when not depress goes to the open switch and the other end goes to one side of a grounded brake lamp.

is what you installed only a remote starter? meaning does it have buttons to lock and unlock the car? i am asking because that would be the only thing i can think of as to why you dont know if the remote is programmed or not. is there only one button on the remote? if the remote is programmed then you should get some kind of response from the alarm. you should hear internal relays clicking on and off, if it has an output for the parking lights then you should see them flash when the alarm is responding to your commands. if you say that the brake wire is reading 12v when the brake is not being pressed then that is definitely a problem. the brake input wire should only see 12v when the brake is pressed. the brake wire is used to shut off the remote starter when you are ready to drive the car after remote start. also if you press the brake while the car is remote started then the car will shut off. if the brake wire is showing 12v all the time then this might be why you cant activate the remote start because the brake wire shuts it off as soon as it activates. with what you said now it make a little more sense the way you have it wired but you still need to change the activation source for your 2nd accessory relay because it doesnt need to be on during cranking like the 2nd ignition and could cause problems.

I did some more checking after re-reading your previous reply and the instructions say to use the ACC (+) 12V output from the remote start unit to power a relay for the ACC2. I assume they mean to power the coil. I did not do this. Mistakenly i powered the (-) side of the coil for the ACC2 relay with the 'gnd while running' output.

After re-reading the 'gnd while running' instructions, it says to use this (-) output to power a relay for IGN2. This wire, it says, is connected internally to the IGN1 relay. I did use it to power IGN2 like it says and i used it to power the transponder bypass, like it says but like I said, and you alluded to, I mistakenly used it to power ACC2. I am not sure why that would cause it not to work but I think it is because the ACC wires are on only in run while the IGN wires are on in run and crank. This is what I believe you where trying to tell me.

If this sounds right to you, I will proceed to re-wire the ACC2 wire using ACC1 output to power the (+) side of a ACC2 relay coil. I will gnd the other side of the coil and switch +12V from the battery to ACC2 using the relay pins 30 and 87.

Let me know what you think and thank you very much. Ii think we (you) got it! I'll know more tomorrow night.

Jim

By the way i forgot to mention that the brake wire does not show +12V all the time. It shows that it is grounded with the brake not being depressed. I would think that it should be floating normally but it seems to be grounded thru the brake lamp.

In other words, the circuit looks like this: +12V to the one side of the brake switch (all the time), the other side of the switch (which I spliced into) goes to the brake lamp. The other side of the brake lamp goes to gnd. Depressing the pedal completes the circuit and sends +12V to the unit. What i am saying is that if i put a meter on this wire with the red on a known +12V wire and the black on the wire I spliced into (which to me is floating between the open switch and the lamp)................the meter reads +12V.

As a follow up:

I didn't want to wait to see if rewiring the ACC2 relay fixed the problem so i did a quick fix a few moments ago. I then went thru the program method for the remote followed by trying to start the car with it and nothing happened. The door lock and unlock buttons on the remote don't do anything either. i also noticed after making sure my key started the car still after these changes that it started hard and the gages  (miles to empty) was going crazy.

I unhooked the relay for now. Not sure what happened.

if you are starting to have problems with your car then i would uninstall the alarm and return the wiring to factory. it honestly sounds like the alarm has something wrong with it, the keypads wont program for some reason. it could be a problem with the input circuits like the doorpin or maybe a problem with the antenna circuit. either way now you have car problems, so are you willing to sacrifice your car for a $200 alarm?

I hear ya but I want to run one more test since I discovered the battery is low on the car. One last question......since this remote start sat around for 9 years, is it likely that the relay contacts within the unit have oxidized or frozen up? Just curious. I may take it  apart and  poke around some.

Well I have failed with this task  that I took on. I just blew up the unit on the bench poking around. I had run out of options anyways since I bought this 9 years ago from a company that is no longer in business. I learned a lot, that's for sure and I enjoyed the effort...

My question to the forum is a recommendation for a remote start that I could put in this ones place that is not too expensive. It should be easy to wire in at this stage. in any case, thanks for all your help.

Jim

Viper 5301, Python 580, Clifford 1.3x  are the ones I use. I have bought several refurb ones from E-Bay and have had no issues. All are 2 way remote start system.  I sure other can give you their choices and opinion.  I know there are people out there that despise the DEI stuff.When all else fails, Read the Instructions

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