Use of a GPS wiring harness for powering radio head unit.

[CCP Mark]

My 2011 Club Car Precedent had a GPS unit removed from under the top before I bought it. The wiring harness for the GPS unit is still there and I believe it is a possible power source for the radio head unit I want to install. Is this likely to already be providing 12V power even though the Precedent is a 48V cart (I think). How can I test the wires in the harness to figure out which ones to use and whether or not the hot wire is providing 12V DC?

[FishingCart]

Do you have a multi-tester?

[stang99x]

You just need a multimeter (or voltmeter) with probe ends. Touch the ground probe to a pin in the harness and then touch the positive to all the other different ones. If you get +12v then you've found your plugs. If not move the ground to another pin and do it all again. Chances are the ground wire will be black, so look at the harness when you get ready to select your first ground wire.

When you say GPS, do you mean like a Course GPS unit for the holes, or like someone actually put a car like gps in it?

[Muddog]

If you don't have a multimeter, your best bet, is to trace the GPS harness back to the power source. See which color wires are connected to it ,there should be 2, a positive and a negative.
I would not recommend hooking up a stereo to the GPS harness. A GPS draws very little current, so the wire is sized to the current draw. Most stereos draw considerably more current than a GPS, so you will most likely need a larger wire from the power source to run your stereo.
Remove your GPS harness and route the correct size wire for your stereo the same as the GPS wiring was routed. Muddog

[stang99x]

If it was a large screen GPS used for a course, then the wiring will be well enough sufficient to support a radio. I've removed quite a few of those myself. If it was a little hand held gps the wires would be to small. It's not hard to run a set of wires up on of the front roof support rails and have them hidden from site. Many times I've found that they don't use the basic red is positive and black is negative simple wiring on those. Black may be the negative, but rarely is red the hot one. Again, probe till you fin dit

[CCP Mark]

I do have a multimeter so I will probe around with it to look for 12v wiring. Yes, I believe the GPS was one of the larger units used by golf courses for determining distance to pin, etc. based on the size of the housing/bracket assembly that is still on the cart. The wires making up the harness appear to be similar in size to the wires on the back of my head unit.

Thanks for your help everyone!

[CCP Mark]

BTW, I assume the GPS wiring harness was providing 12v power to the GPS unit and therefore runs through a voltage reducer (this is a 48v cart). Thoughts on this? I am new to working on golf carts and don't have much experience working with electrical systems. Is the voltage reducer likely to be near the bank of batteries?

[mrgolf]

First you are correct, the wires would be just fine for the radio. You are not talking about running a huge high output amp.
Not knowing how many wires you have, it's hard to say what is what. Some may have been for speakers, or antenna. They should not have any power on them.
If the cart still has a voltage reducer it is likely a 16-12 volt unit bolted to a frame rail under the cart. It is set up to use as a neg. power for the GPS, or radio in your case. The pos. would come from the proper pos. post of one of your batteries.

It would be better for you batteries to replace that voltage reducer with a 48-12 reducer. That way it would use all your batteries and draw evenly from the battery pack. These reducers come with wiring so that you can keep your radio presets, and turn the rest off with the key switch. Good luck.

[CCP Mark]

Originally Posted by mrgolf

First you are correct, the wires would be just fine for the radio. You are not talking about running a huge high output amp.
Not knowing how many wires you have, it's hard to say what is what. Some may have been for speakers, or antenna. They should not have any power on them.
If the cart still has a voltage reducer it is likely a 16-12 volt unit bolted to a frame rail under the cart. It is set up to use as a neg. power for the GPS, or radio in your case. The pos. would come from the proper pos. post of one of your batteries.

It would be better for you batteries to replace that voltage reducer with a 48-12 reducer. That way it would use all your batteries and draw evenly from the battery pack. These reducers come with wiring so that you can keep your radio presets, and turn the rest off with the key switch. Good luck.

Thanks MRGOLF!

[CCP Mark]

It turned out that, even though some of the wires in my GPS wiring harness showed 12v when tested with my multimeter, they would not power my head unit. So, I removed the dashboard panel and found an available 12v pair of wires with connectors ready to use. They were even labeled + and - with stickers. I ran new wiring up the roof support to my under-roof radio console. I installed a simple on/off switch for the head unit's red wire and attached its yellow wire to the always hot wire. Everything is working as it should.