"Thomas G. Marshall" wrote:
>
> What I find confusing about these answers of your's and Clarence's is that
> the options connectors are designed for additional equipment to be attached.
> At the far left there is a 3 blade connector socket on the options connector
> block, which seems to have the center be power and the other two are ground.
> Presumably for something known device that needs both power and ground.
> Perhaps one of the blades is ignition, to complete the triad: [always
> on]power, ignition, ground.

The certainly *could* be a grounded options connector in the fuse box,
the fuse box already has ground for relays etc. It there *is* a grounded
options connector, it certainly would be a welcome change, But in three
different Honda's I have worked on there has not been a grounded options
connector.

> The other problem I have is how can that ground connection actually be
> something like the rear window defroster. Wouldn't I be measuring the ohms
> as /resistance/ and isn't a heating coil like that designed around the heat
> produced by resistance, as in a toaster? I guess I'm not sure I understand
> how that would be 0.

What Clarence and Remco are hinting at is that measuring small
resistances is difficult. A real ground connector will show a resistance
of more than 0 ohms to ground. You have resistance in the wiring and
connectors and resistance between your probes and what you are touching
the probes to etc.

With power turned off, many of the circuits in your car has very low
resistance. If you measure the resistance between the hot side of your
parking lights and ground with lights off, you are going to see low, sub
1-ohms resistances. A lot of places you measure will be
indistinguishable from ground with a simple ohm-meter measurement.

If you turn ignition to "on" and turn your parking lights on and then
measure the voltage between ground and those suspected ground
connectors, what voltage do you read? About 0 V or battery voltage?

The circuit diagram for the '97 CR-V shows one options connector that is
always on (C325), one that is on when the parking lights or head lights
are on (C326), one that is on with the key in Acc or Run (but not in
Start) (C327) and one that is on with the key in Run (but not in Start)
(C328). There could be more, the wiring diagrams
(http://www.hondahookup.com/manuals/CRV97wiring.zip) are tedious to
read. Your '99 may be different.

> But I trust you all----it's the point of me asking the question in the first
> place. I'd like to know what that 3 blade connector thing is for if not to
> supply a usage ground (with power) to something. It looks like a dedicated
> thing.

Again, if Honda did include a ground it would be a very welcome change.
Also, I would like to see one that is on in both "RUN" and "START", not
only in "RUN", as this is needed by most after-market alarm system. In
my car I am fortunate enough to not have power windows, and the spot for
the power windows relay in my fuse box is a good place to get both
ground and "On-in-run-or-start"

Are you relocating the power outlet, and is that the reason you can't
use the existing ground for it?