Whelen Cencom Sapphire trouble shooting A dead unit

Txgunslinger

Member
Sep 16, 2014
18
El Campo, Texas 77437
Hello everyone. I bought a used patrol car recently and it has all Whelen lights and a Whelen cencom sapphire controller.
when the key is turned on, there is no power to the controller.
I looked at a schematic and started at the beginning. I unplugged the 40 amp vertical plug with 2 red+ and 2 black -. I have power going to the control box. No lights on on the control box at all.
I checked all the fuses on top and all are good.

should I suspect the main control box is toast?

I was looking for the ignition & backlight wires but could not determine which they are.

it’s mounted under the passenger seat on 2017 Ford Explorer police interceptor

I am planning to contact Whelen tomorrow and ask for some trouble shooting assistance

any input in the meantime would certainly be greatly appreciated

Tex
 

NoLimitSquads

Member
Feb 11, 2021
330
Minnesota
I don’t really pay much attention to the sapphires, because Ive never had a problem with one. But if you don’t have power to the ignition sense, I don’t think that there would be any lights. You could plug in the usb cable to extract or transfer a file, and that would turn on some lights on the control box. If you do get lights with a usb plugged in, then check your data cable to the control head. Check all the connections on the data cable. It could be a bad cable as well. Pull the control head, and plug it into the box with a cable that you know is good. If you can’t find any issues after all of that, then it could be a bad unit. Also, I know you checked the power coming in, did you make sure that the grounds are also good?
 

Txgunslinger

Member
Sep 16, 2014
18
El Campo, Texas 77437
Well it’s fixed. Issue one, when the previous owner decommissioned the unit , they removed the video system . They cut out the ignition circuit so there was no back light or ignition signal . Reconnected and checked, the majority of the lights worked but not the rear wing and inside bar lights. Power to them but no ground.
Replace the ground wire and all is well.
 

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