Amp Trouble

[knowlton]

So, i recently installed my 12" kicker cvx's in my truck & i have everything hooked up, but every 1 min or so, the amp restarts or turns off & turns back on & sometimes it won't even come back on until i turn the car off. everything is hooked up properly, i'm not sure what else to do.. i have a kenwood lax 921 amp. the ground wire might be it, but there nowhere else to ground it, i don't know. someone help please!

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[sounds_explicit]

check your ground wire. also

use a dmm to check your ground . red prong from amp ground terminal black prong at ground location with dmm setting set to ohms. youll want as close to zero ohms as possible.

nothing flimsy, scrape or sand off the paint if need be.

your amp may be going into protect it sounds like.

i had a crappy amp back in the day with crappy electronics and my amp would do that on really hard bass hits. only way the amp would come back on is if i turned the radio off and back on again.

 

[Boomin_tahoe 5,000+ posts]

Where is the amp mounted at that you say there's no place to ground? There's always places to ground in/out/around a vehicle.

 

[knowlton]

it's o the side of my enclosure. it's really tight fit in the back, there are just bucket seats in the back of the truck & they're folded up & the entire truck has this plastic carpeting all around. it's a ford ranger. i grounded in to the back where i folded back the plastic carpet & scraped all the paint off. the hole im grounding into was a joke that's already there & it indents inward. it's just a screw hole. should i drill my own hole?

 

[knowlton]

i did scrape all the paint off with a screw driver, should i use a piece of sand paper instead? & could it be the battery not giving it enough power? bc when i turned on the heater, which it may have been a coincidence, it turned off also.

 

[Boomin_tahoe 5,000+ posts]

You want the whole grounding point bare metal. Use sandpaper if you gotta. Some people use a wire brush into a cordless drill. Take your pick.

 

[knowlton]

if i show you a picture of the ground, will you let me know if i need to reground it somewhere else? or if the ground point is the issue?

 

[Austin175 10+ year member]

Pictures always help

 

[sounds_explicit]

youll never know if a ground is good enough without properly identifying it with a dmm.

imo. get one there cheap $10 at harbor freight or walmart etc.

you have a ranger which i know is quite old? possibly 10+ years as they dont makw them really anymore.

the alt may be insufficient . small amperage alt.

you may be pulling too much power from the alt to properly keep electronics and your amp a stable voltage. which can lead to protection which is what your amp is most likely doing. going into protect

 

[knowlton]

is there anyway to fix that? or would a new battery for just the amp in the back work better?

 

[sounds_explicit]

you need to figure out whats causing the problem to begin with.

if you have a 100 amp alt and a amp pulling 50 amps along with all the other elctrical needs of your car. you may be over what your alt can produce.

adding a extra battery in this situation exceeds the amps ability also. it will creat more stress on your alt.

id suggest checking your ground. try the seat bolts where your seats are bolted to. thats a very common place for people to ground to. its sturdy and thick by regulation for cars. sand down with some heavy sand paper to bare metal. also id sand down the terminal your using as well. pre fab terminals ave a glaze or finish on them to make them look pretty.. in reality it can hinder the grounding as well.

you may have the subs wired to a ohm that your amp is not suitable to handle as well.

there is alot of things that can come into play with car audio problems.

do your have a multimeter?

 

[knowlton]

I do not have a multimeter, but what i meant was, could i get another battery & just use it to power the amp? or instead of getting another battery, could i use the excess positive wire & ground my amp into the negative battery terminal?

 

[knowlton]

i'm not sure if the pic added, but here's my ground.. is it bad?

 

[sounds_explicit]

a battery just for your amp is ideal IF you have a proper alt to supply your reg battery and a battery for your system.

you just throw in a battery and use the pos battery terminal to your amp and ground the battery to any location wont help. that battery will be bead in an hour of playing without it being able to re supply the power taken from the amp.

you could run the neg power cable from amp to the original batteries ground or batteries ground location and see if it helps.

 

[sounds_explicit]

and i cannot find anywhere a kenwood lax 921

are you sure that is the amp you have? im seeing a kenwood kac 921 instead showing up everwhere.