Car Stereos: stereo wiring issue, fake car alarm, blown fuse

Question
Hello

I have been installing my own car stereos for as long as i've been driving, which is now about 15 years.  Right now in my car I have a fairly old Kenwood CD player, it is a very basic player with no frills but it has been solid since i got it (probably about 6 years ago).  Recently i was on a road trip and was using one of those mp3 player adapters that plug into the lighter.  I have used it many times before, and in this case I had used it for several hours straight with no issue, however on the return trip something happened and nothing has been the same since.  At one point I took the adapter out, it fell into pieces.  It had become loose and basically fallen apart, but no biggie, i could fix it later.  at some point while I was fiddling around trying to pick up the pieces, my stereo went blank. when i looked in the lighter cavity, i saw a small metal ring (a piece of my adapter) was in there, which probably led to a blown fuse.  I took the ring out.

Anyway when I got home I checked the fuse and it was fine.  In my car the stereo and the lighter are on the same fuse, and neither are working.  I just went out there now and checked all the wiring between the stereo vehicle harness and my CD player harness with a multimeter, and its all ok.  The thing that is weird is that the CD player is getting SOME power.  When I remove the faceplate there is a small red blinking light (a fake car alarm) and it is blinking, and when I hit the reset button the CD mechanism starts whirring.  The lighter is still not working at all.

Is this a much more serious wiring issue? Will I need to follow the wires further into the dash? I guess I just figured if anything shorted the fuse would blow before any other damage was caused.  I also figured that if the wiring truly was destroyed, then the CD player would be getting ZERO power.  now I'm just stumped.

thx
C

Answer
Hi Charine,

Most cars these days have 2 sets of fuses.  One under the hood, and one under the dash.  In my car's case, the other fuse panel is up in the steering column and near impossible to reasonably get at.

I would suggest your cigarette lighter and the deck's switched power are running off of one fuse, but your deck's constant power is run through another, and so the blinking alarm light as well as eject button still function.

Justin