Audiobahn Amp Troubles

[BigFatCox]

I've had two 2 chanel audiobahn 500 wat amps sitting in my garage for a while now. I had swerved off the road in a bad rainstorm and my truck flooded with water, and one of them short circuited. Well i stupidly kept BOTH of them so now i cant remember which one was messed up, and which one was still working.

My truck is already wired for a system with 2 bridged amps, a head unit and 2 subwoofers. I've never wired anything myself but i figured i'd give it a try and thought hooking the amps up myself couldnt be that hard with little previous knowledge. mistake #1.

The first mistake (i think) that i made is not disconnecting the battery first. On the first amp I hooked up, I had the power and remote outlets finished and only needed to plug in the ground cable. As soon as I did the entire thing blew into ****ing smoke and a small fire was inside of the amp. Either this for SURE is the bad one, or i just ruined a perfectly good amp.

Weird thing was, I have a large fuse just outside the car battery box, heavy duty fuses fight before the battery to amplifier input, and 40 watt fuses on the amps; none of which were blown.

Was this probably simply due to the fact that my battery was on? I'm positive I had all the wiring in the right spot at least. Oh well, that amps fried anyways. Now on to the second one.

This time i unplug the negative terminal to my battery first. Then I hook up power, ground and remote cables and then replug in the battery and start the car. The thing didnt turn on. I figured 'shit, i just ruined the good one and this is the bad one'.

Just to be sure, I took that one off and plugged in an old 170 watt Kenwood amp that i had lying around that I KNOW is good. Re plugged in the battery and IT didnt turn on either. Whats the deal here?

Do I need to have two amplifiers bridged together in the car to complete a circuit? The power cable, before it reaches the amps, goes into a fuze box which splits it into 2 protected currents with 2 battery cable outlets; one for each amp.

To test that, I then unplugged the main power cable from that and shoved it straight into the kenwood. Still nothing. WTF is wrong with my setup?? lol.

It was working fine before the amps got ruined. Worst comes to worse ill take it in somewhere, but if I could do it alone itd be great. Any ideas into why even my good amp wouldnt work?? ANY help would be appreciated...thanks //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/greedy.gif.5a53e6246569d7ab79867170f3b06629.gif

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[audioatg 10+ year member]

Uggg.. Try this. Do you have a DMM. If so set it to DC voltage. Hook that known good amp up again. Unhook the battery first. Just to be safe. Okay after you have it hooked up. Turn on the car. Check to see If you have voltage from the HEADUNIT to the amp. It should be the remote turn on. See If there is atleast 12 volts there. If not. Will go over that later. Then check to see If you have voltage at the amp too. A good ground as well. A bad ground will cause it to not turn on as well. Were is your ground for the amp.

 

[MakeshiftAudio 10+ year member]

Amps generally don't blow like that if you suddenly give them power with REM. You had some internal amp problems. Sure there are not any polarity issues? ie making sure ground goes to ground, and +12V goes to +12V. Sure your speaker wires are not shorted?

As for the other one not turning on... Make sure everything is getting a good voltage, and to test via bypassing REM from the HU, jump the +12V over to the REM while the RCAs and speaker connectors are disconnected and see if it turns on.

It's a 40 AMP fuse, not watt. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/fyi.gif.9f1f679348da7204ce960cfc74bca8e0.gif

 

[BigFatCox]

Thanks for the reply man.

Is a DMM a voltage reader? My dad should have one of those in the garage somewhere that I can dig out. Im a poor college kid who doesnt know much about vehicles in general.

Anyways, as far as making sure there's voltage coming from the headunit, are you saying to put the DMM up to the remote outlet on the amp??

I know for a fact my ground is good, because its in the same spot as when i wrecked the car and the sytem worked fine then. Its connected to a bolt near the rear of the vehicle that touches the frame.

And a few more questions:

-is what i described, about the first amp blowing up and smoking, a regular thing to happen if you try to hook up wires when the battery is still plugged in??

-will the amp ONLY power on if the headunit is connected (via the remote cable) as well? Because im thinking this: My screen gets reset every time I unplug the battery. Maybe the amp isnt working because I forgot to put in the security code on the screen to fully activate it?

Thanks for your help man.

 

[BigFatCox]

Amps generally don't blow like that if you suddenly give them power with REM. You had some internal amp problems. Sure there are not any polarity issues? ie making sure ground goes to ground, and +12V goes to +12V. Sure your speaker wires are not shorted?
As for the other one not turning on... Make sure everything is getting a good voltage, and to test via bypassing REM from the HU, jump the +12V over to the REM while the RCAs and speaker connectors are disconnected and see if it turns on.

It's a 40 AMP fuse, not watt. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/fyi.gif.9f1f679348da7204ce960cfc74bca8e0.gif

lmao my bad about the 40 'watt'. I'm a retard with this stuff.

These acronyms are killing me...what is a REM/RCA (rear console amp? lol)? I got hu=headunit...etc

and what cable would be the +12V?

I double checked the ground and its really grounded....

As for the speaker wires, they werent even connected at the time; I was just focussed on connecting the amp up to the battery at that point

 

[MakeshiftAudio 10+ year member]

Get out of self install car audio, since you do not know which cable is the +12V, and much less the REM. You probably do not have the REM connected, being the main reason it's not turning on. I'm usually not this mean, but you probably just need to take it to a local car shop and have them due it/let them show you if they will, else you'll destroy more equipment. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/crap.gif.7f4dd41e3e9b23fbd170a1ee6f65cecc.gif

 

[lovindabass]

you could also try hooking up some small awg wire. wire up your ground and pos directly to the front battery. Then with a pair of pliers or another short piece of wire try directly wiring battery to remote terminal. see if the amp then cuts on. You may have blown the fuse and it still appears ok. I once blue an inline buss fuse looked at it and it looked brand new now visual signs of being blown but i replaced it and it worked fine. later i took apart the fuse to find that the brass or gold plating acted like a mask. the fuse inside was blown but the cover didn't move it just melted lol. try hard wiring the good amp the kenwood or what ever. if it cuts on then then your probably just got an issue with the fuse.

 

[BigFatCox]

Get out of self install car audio, since you do not know which cable is the +12V, and much less the REM. You probably do not have the REM connected, being the main reason it's not turning on. I'm usually not this mean, but you probably just need to take it to a local car shop and have them due it/let them show you if they will, else you'll destroy more equipment. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/crap.gif.7f4dd41e3e9b23fbd170a1ee6f65cecc.gif

Ha yeah no joke, good idea. I think I just figured out that the REM is the remote cable? or the one that connects to the head unit?

If so...are you saying that the amp ONLY power on if the headunit is connected (via the remote cable) as well? Because im thinking this: My screen gets reset every time I unplug the battery. Maybe the amp isnt working because I never put in the security code on my screen, thus the head unit was never really powered on??

 

[lovindabass]

ok you have a positive terminal a ground terminal and you have a (REM) or remote wire. The remote wire is a switched power source or when you turn on the key switch it allows power to go to it then. ( so amp doesn't stay on all the time and drain your battery. ) your rca is a wire thats just like home audio and video where you usually have a red and white wire that goes from the HU to the amp. it allows the hu to send signal to the amp. the rca looks like a thick speaker wire but the ends have a thick stud with a small tube around the out side of the stud that usually go on the input side of the amp. feel free to send me a pm if you have any other questions. I have many times helped people who have never even thought of car audio and i have plenty of patience. so just shoot me any of your questions.