Qlink Commuter 250 radio upgrade By thor1954 (Read 4,122 times)

[thor1954]

So I purchased this Qlink about a month ago so am new to scootin and posting on here. Rode mc's a long time ago. Pretty mechanically inclined and lots of tools. Not so good when it comes to electrical components. Anyway I am attempting to upgrade the radio and am having a very hard time figuring out what wires to hook to where. I was able to get the new radio to fire up but am not getting any sound. There are two terminal blocks in the boot and four speakers on the scoot. Also control knobs on both the dash and the steering column. I believe after checking with an ohms meter that the smaller terminal block is connected to the speakers somehow and the larger on is connected to the control knobs. Could anyone help me figure out how to wire a Blaupunkt arizona cm148 in this scoot?
Thanks in advance. Sorry for being so lengthy but wanted to give as much information as I knew.

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[yoster]

Hi thor1954,

First of all, welcome to the forum and congrats on the scoot!

I'm not familiar with the OEM stereo wiring of that scooter, but I have quite a few years installing aftermarket stereos, amps, mixers, caps, speakers, etc. Probably a good dozen or so full install jobs.

First things first, be leery of how much you hook up to this thing. These scooters don't have the charging capacity as some of the motorcycles you may have had in the past.. especially these China clones. Many of us have to DECREASE the amp draw right off the 'showroom floor' in order for the charging system to keep up.

That said, I'm sure someone here has a wiring diagram for your scooter that will show what's running to what. If you want to start from scratch wiring up all new components, I'm your man. Otherwise someone else may be better suited to answer this.

Thanks, and again, congrats! Glad to have you and NICE scoot! I love those Helix clones.

[JR]

Also Welcome! Yes we do have the diagram Yoster, I just updated the Fashion diagram and it gives the speaker wires and colors!

thescooterprofessor.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=250g&thread=587&page=1

It's pdf and you can rotate it even blow it up where you can see the wires andf there colors.

Hope this helps and Yoster can for sure help you on this. Again glad you're here.

JR

[thor1954]

Thanks guys. I think I figured out part of my problem. The stock radio was basically shall we say 2 channels running four speakers. The radio I am trying to install is four channel with the ability to hook up each speaker independently. However the new radio could be hooked up to function as only two channels I'm guessing by just hooking up the front Left and Right hookups and setting the fader function to only front. The diagram you sent shows different colors than i have for the speakers. Not a problem, I figured them out with my multimeter. I think the real problem I am having is connecting the volume control on the front dash and steering column. I figured out the ignition wire but don't know what speaker wires to connect to volume control. Also should I ground the control along with the ground for the radio itself, which I currently have hooked to the negative side of the battery?
Thanks again for the help.
Can't wait to go scooting again. Shoulder surgery two weeks ago making me crazy. Weather is beautiful this week and I can't ride.

[richardthescooter3]

thor1954, welcome to the forum, awesome looking scoot now you have your tunes thoughts and prayers for a speedy recovery on that shoulder surgery. Have fun and be safe

[yoster]

Hey thor-

In regards to the 4 speakers being wired to 2 channels, if you're not concerned about fade control, you might consider keeping it hooked up that way if your new stereo can handle it.

Assuming the speakers are 4ohms each and they're wired parallel, you'll have 2 ohm at each speaker terminal on the head unit. You're going to maximize power that way (You can get roughly 50-100% more power at 2 ohms vs 4 ohms.) Again - assuming your HU can handle a 2 ohm load.

The reason I recommend this comes back to power issues. If you can run those 4 off 2 channels @ 2 ohms, and assuming it's sufficiently loud for your tastes, then the HU (or amp) itself is going to pull less from the battery than 4 speakers @ 4 channels @ 4 ohms.

Now BE CAREFUL though. Most (if not ALL) head units CANNOT run at 2 ohms. You mention your new radio can run 2 channels.. yes it can.. but I'm almost positive that's 2 channels at 4 ohms. If that's the case and you run it at 2 ohms, and it's not rated for that, you're eventually going to burn it out. If you need to wire it that way, and your new radio can't handle it, you might want to consider a low power 2-channel amp.

That said, I'm almost willing to bet money that the stock speakers on that scooter are 8ohm speakers. There's no way a china radio is going to run 2 channels at 2 ohms, so I'll bet the 4 speakers are 8 ohms, wired to 4 ohms @ 2 channels. In that case you'll be fine! Unfortunately you can't test that with your multimeter - hooking it up to the speakers does not give the correct ohm rating (they rate speaker impedance via a different process.) Can you access the back of one of the speakers to see if it's stamped on it? If that's not possible, does your new radio offer any form of thermal protection? If so you can just wire it up.. and if it DOES overheat (which will happen after extended use at high volumes at 2 ohms, if it isn't rated for that,) the radio will simply shut off. Then you'll know for sure. I wouldn't recommend this if the radio doesn't have that safety feature built in though.

I apologize if you already know all this!

[thor1954]

Thanks Yoster. Going to go check the speakers right now. I can see the back of the speaker so should be able to tell right? The other problem I am having is how to wire the volume controls on the dash and handle bars back up. Oh I didn't know all that by the way. Not real good with electronics but I can fix most anything else. Although with that said I did do a couple of LCD tv's last year. Good thing I have internet access.

[thor1954]

Yoster I have an update. The front speakers are 5W 4ohms. So for now I have the rear speakers disconnected. Now here's what I have wired up. The front speakers are wired thru one terminal block with a full time power lead. The second terminal block(control block) I have red wire connected to ignition switch, orange connected to orange, which by the way goes nowhere in the terminal block. And I have a black wire attached to the ground wire for the head unit which is attached to the negative terminal of the battery. I have 4 wires left from the control block which look to be the size of speaker wires. Yellow and blue, and green and brown. I'm wondering if I need to attach my four speaker wires to these four wires in order to have input to the volume control in the dash?

[blitztek]

just rip the speakers out and replace with pioneer marine/boat 5 1/4" 2 or 3 way speakers. those 5w speakers are pretty useless when it comes to hooking them to a real stereo. Trust me, I know!

[yoster]

Hey Thor,

Ok, so they must have been wired in series then to 8ohm at the stereo. Well either way, only only running 2 would do the trick. You can also do as blitz recommended and replace them.

Again since I'm not familiar with the stock system on your scoot, I don't know what these terminal blocks are doing. Can you snap a few pics of what you're looking at? I'm wondering if this terminal block is some form of a low-power amp. If so then we need to go about this a different way. If you can get some pics that would be great; we'll go from there.

[thor1954]

Yoster;
So I took some pics but don't know how to send them to you.

[yoster]

Do you have a photobucket account? If so you can upload them there, then just post them right here in this forum so everyone can see (re-size first so they aren't SUPER huge)

[thor1954]

No photobucket account. Any other way to post directly in here?

[alleyoop]

Just link onto photobucket IT IS FREE most of us use it I have a shit load of photos and videos on there that i post on the scoot forum.
Alleyoop
photobucket.com/

Here is a how-to thread:
thescooterprofessor.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=directory&action=display&thread=90

[thor1954]

Thanks alleyoop. I'll try that right now.