Amp in protect, still plays.........

[big_mofo 10+ year member]

Ok, going to town yesterday with my girlfriend, we got the system bumping, only listening half volume(20/40) an all of a sudden we here pop, pop. sounded like rocks hitting a windshield. I look back in the trunk(seat folded down) an see smoke coming from the amp. i turn the radio off as soon as i see this. when we get to the shopping mall we were headed, i get out an take the endcap off the amp, an the red protect light is on. BUT!!!!!!! the system still bumps fine, i can tell there is a little loss in bass but not much. my question is, what happened??? i thought that if the fuses blew, then the amp wouldnt work. nothing has happened since then. so any input would be greatly appreciated.

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[big_mofo 10+ year member]

wow, nobody????? well today on my way into work, i was listening, an i turned it down an i hear a little pop, turn around, an smoke is coming out of both ends of the amp. how did this happen???? what did i do wrong with it, i could never get the gain set right but i had at about a 1/4 of the way the whole time. set to low, or what??? if it was the gain, why did it take so long before this happened???? i have had the setup for about 3 months now an shit was fine, then this happened?? please somebody help.

 

[Beat_Dominator 5,000+ posts]

The first time you saw smoke, it was probably a few of the FETs dying..... so you lost some power..... no idea why it blew or why it still worked, things like that usually shut it all down.

 

[dB-r 10+ year member]

If it is in protect mode, and it still plays, but you saw smoke come out of it, then some of the FETs probably failed and the protection circuit may not be working right, you may end up with more smoke real soon. Maybe some of the FETs died and burned the legs completely away from the FET, therefore the shorted FET is no longer in the circuit, and the amp will still run, however, if this is a power supply FET and you lost some of them, you will soon smoke the rest of them.

If it is an output BJT or FET, then you need to be careful, you could end up with rail voltage on your subs, NOT GOOD. Send it for repair ASAP before it ends up costing even more to fix it.

Chris

 

[big_mofo 10+ year member]

thanks guys for the posts, last night alot more smoke came out, but i can still hear it turn on then off when i start up my car, then when i turn the car off it makes the little clicking noise when it supposed to turn off,