Being a novice/hacker at any kind of car audio repair, I perused all
of the Car audio solutions before tackling a problem with my Alpine
CDE-7872 head unit. After having some electrical problems with my '98
Toyota Camry and getting most of them solved, my head unit was
receiving no power at all. I checked the fuse boxes in the vehicle
(Radio 1, under the hood, Radio 2 under the dash in the fuse box, and
any other fuses in the usual spots) still no power to the unit.
Removed the faceplate on the Alpine, and hit the reset button did no
good). Removed the Unit from the dash, pulling out ashtray (See other
'98 Camry remove plastic flange on how to do this without damage). On
the back of the unit, there a three connections. 1 is the big wire
harness for Speakers, power, etc, all bound into 1 plastic plug into
the head unit. 2 is the antenna connection, 1 wire, kind of like a
small black coax. 3 is a yellow wire with a big (1" X 2") grey box
inline. Not having downloaded the manual from Alpine, I at first did
not know that this is a fuse box. If you pop the top on this, the
yellow wires run into two soldered connections on a curcuit board
(Don't know what this is, but suspect some kind of noise filtering
device). Don't mess with this. Turn the grey box over, and there is
a slide-out that contains the fuse. I found that this 15 amp fuse was
blown! Went down to my local hardware store and bought 5 spares for
$1.99, replaced the blown fuse, Viola, tunes are cranking.