So I have a strange question to ask:

has anyone had any experience with a soundstream head unit draining their battery when the bike is off?

I have a 2017 road glide special. It had the GT head unit in it. I wanted to get CarPlay so I upgraded to the soundstream unit. The head unit is plug and play with the bike harness. I drive an external amp that is controlled by the blue wire coming out of the head unit. That amp then drives the speakers. Pretty basic set up.

What I noticed not long after installing the head unit was that my battery was dead. I didn't have the bike on a tender. The battery wasn't just low voltage, it was dead. I could not put it on a tender and get it to charge at all. I had to jumpstart the bike with a power pack and let it run, and then the battery started to charge off the charger.

The battery wasn't new, so I figured I just needed a new one. I replaced it with a new one and kept the bike on a tender. I had a reason to move the bikes around the garage this winter and when I did that, I did not reattach the tender. My mistake. Once again, the battery is dead. I can't put it on the charger and get it to charge at all.

So something is draining my battery, even when the bike is off. I know this is not uncommon with Harley's, but I have never had this happen before with the old head unit. Has anyone else had a similar issue with a sound stream head unit draining the battery when not connected to a tender? It doesn't happen in one night, or even three. But the only thing I can point to is the head unit.

thoughts?

 

Where do you keep your security fob?

 

I'd check your amp. Charge battery. Disconnect charger for a few minutes, measure battery voltage. Disconnect amp power and ground. Check battery voltage later.

 

inside the house, far away from the bike. Same place as it’s always been when I had the GT head unit in the bike. Literally, the ONLY change is the head unit.

 

Interesting point. Let’s say the blue wire is somehow not connected. Broken wire, bad connector, etc. would the amp be on in that case or off? What’s the state of an amp (Stinger) if the blue control wire is somehow broken or disconnected?

 

It could be the blue wire is bad (in head unit or at amp). Unplug blue wire from amp and check voltage on blue wire from radio. There should be nothing when bike is off
The amp could be bad and have a short and not shutting off when told to shut off.
I've never seen a Soundstream cause battery drain. And if it's going completely dead within a day, that's a big battery draw.
My guess would be the amp.

 

I have the soundstream unit for my 14 Limited. installed it last year and have had no issues that I'm aware of. I do keep it on a tender and I don't have an amp. I have been on trips where it wasn't hooked to the tender for 4 days and it was fine.
I'd suspect the amp not shutting off or an odd malfunction with the head unit.

 

I would move your amps trigger wire to a switched 12vdc source rather than feeding thru the radio. There should be an unused one clipped to the R/S speaker pod.

 

thanks. It could be the amp. But I don't think it will be the wire controlling it unless it is somehow shorted to power. And that's really unlikely. If that wire is broken or loose, the app control input will float, causing the amp to turn off. That's exactly what an external switch would do.So I don't think it's that. However, it still could be the amp itself. I just wonder how many batteries I'm going to go through diagnosing this.Ugh.

 

Is there a power indicator light on the amp? Shut everything off and see if it's still powered up.