Im confused! Please help! (Stereo came on by itself)
 

Here is the situation. Thursday I recieved my brand new windshield size solar panel in the mail and installed it immediately. seems to be working great all day and all day friday. now late friday evening a buddy of mine had his check engine light come on in his camry so I took my scanguage off my car and checked his car out, put it back in my car and left shortly after and went home for the night. then saturday around noon someone wakes me up by pounding on my door and asks me to please turn my car stereo off. I say oh thats not mine I havent been out yet today. He walks over to my car and listens for a minute..."yeah thats definitly your car dude". My car was locked and the keys were not in it. the stereo was bumping and my scangauge was flashing on and off. also my battery didnt have enough juice to start my car. I was hoping it was trying to turn into a transformer or something like that but was disappointed. Any ideas as to what happened? Was it the solar panel or the scan guage that caused this?:eek:

rsx - Hope you don't mind I moved the post into a better forum.

I can't answer the question, but I'm sure there are others who can offer suggestions.

Do you have a retained accessory power circuit in your car? Meaning when you turn the key off, does the radio stay on until you open the door? That would be the only way I could see the scangauge causing that if it were malfunctioning. Otherwise, How did you wire in the solar panel?

Does your solar panel plug into the cig outlet? Could be that the power feed tricked the car into thinking its still in accessory mode?

No my stereo shuts off as soon as I turn the key off. I did hook it up to the cig outlet. So how can I keep it from turning my accessories on? Do I need to wire it up directly to my battery? Im also thinking it may have done this to prevent overcharge. One more thing though I disconnected the solar panel and then went to work 2 hours later and came home for lunch. So about 8 hours has went by and my scanguage was still flashing (although very dimly) whats up with that? Do i need to start the car to reset whatever the solar panel set off?

Alright I ran it up the fender and in from the door and reconnected everything after I recharged by battery seems to be back to normal. time will tell. thanks for everyones help.

That is definitely possible if the cigarette lighter outlet is on a switched accessory circuit. "Ghost" problems have a tendancy to pop back up out of nowhere so keep your eyes peeled, (or rather ears) I would verify if your cigarette lighter plug is a constant 12v or an accessory 12v, just for peace of mind.