OEM Sony Remote Commanders not working after speaker upgrades

[cjmiller]

I recently added some amps and new speakers to the system. I kept the original Sony head unit and Sony remote commander (MRC-2) remotes at the helm and swim platform. They worked previously and now they do not work at all. The wiring changes that I made were all new wiring for the speakers, tied the head unit power into one of the accessory switches, ran a dedicated ground from the head unit to the battery to eliminate noise and wired the head unit memory wire directly to a battery. Head unit works fine. I can't find a manual or wiring schematic for the remotes but from pictures I have found it looks like they are connected to the head unit via a mini stereo connector and they have an orange wire for illumination. I don't believe the illumination has ever worked. Do they get power through the mini stereo connector? Any ideas as to why they don't work anymore? Thanks

[cjmiller]

Determined that it was a bad audio cable going to the helm remote control. Now I can't figure out why the remotes don't illuminate. If I put power to them individually they light up. Traced the power wire (orange wire with red stripe) to under the dash but it just does a loop and goes back out without connecting to anything. Anyone with the factory remotes know what switch or activity turns them on?

[Big Block Power]

I guess I never looked at mine in the dark. I had one not work at one time. I just unplugged it and cleaned the plug and put it back in and it worked.