Blown Amps

[seg_representin 10+ year member]

How exactly do you tell if an amplifier is blown? And what are some things other than low imp rise and clipping an amp that cause an amp to blow?

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[thylantyr 10+ year member]

Connect the amp to a power source with inline fuse {fuse chosen depends on the amp}, then turn it on with no input or speaker connected. If the fuse blows, the amp is toast. Or, if the fuse doesn't blow *and* the amp has a protect light = on.

The other method is to poke around inside with a DMM and check for shorted power transistors with

nothing connected to the amp, no power, ziltch.

What causes an amp to blow up? You can make a huge list.

* power supply input voltage exceeds specs.

* speaker load lower than specs.

* overdriving the amplifier so it outputs high power.

* poor cooling.

* wiring error.

* bad luck, electronics will fail with no reason.

* lending your car to a friend who said "Really, I didn't turn up the stereo".

* bad design

 

[shallowfu 10+ year member]

I fix,buy amps and other 24/7 and my most common things i find are people what amps to push really low ohms on them.They try dropping 1.5 to .7ohms daily on a amp not able or they just don't know and burns them up.Second is over heating or way to much vibrating and i could buy 10 amps with no ques. and all of them would be 1 of the 2.Some people don't know if you have a hard enough hit on a sub the output caps lock and fri a sub in seconds and right through protection never giving a shut down.Many new orions and korean amps do this and keep the amps off the box's and out in the open and placed tight!Sometimes it's never the owners fault and don't let company's let you think that, because lots of high $$$ company's are selling stuff with many amp's with flaws.Really check or do a search of the amp before picking it up because some of there caps fall off or caps leak and company's know the problems.thylantyr has the most important facts for sure.

 

[luvinthebass 5,000+ posts]

shit happens

 

[luvinthebass 5,000+ posts]

Connect the amp to a power source with inline fuse {fuse chosen depends on the amp}, then turn it on with no input or speaker connected. If the fuse blows, the amp is toast. Or, if the fuse doesn't blow *and* the amp has a protect light = on.
The other method is to poke around inside with a DMM and check for shorted power transistors with

nothing connected to the amp, no power, ziltch.

What causes an amp to blow up? You can make a huge list.

* power supply input voltage exceeds specs.

* speaker load lower than specs.

* overdriving the amplifier so it outputs high power.

* poor cooling.

* wiring error.

* bad luck, electronics will fail with no reason.

* lending your car to a friend who said "Really, I didn't turn up the stereo".

* bad design

thank you for that info, i will keep that inmind when purchasing amps whenever i encounter some troubleshooting situation

 

[seg_representin 10+ year member]

Yea i was wondering because one of my amps blew on me in a couple weeks ago. It worked perfectly for 6 months and then i took it out of my car for a while and then i tested it out and the amp came on perfectly. Then the next day i was gonna hook up my subs to it but when i checked the amp again to see if it would work the fuse popped and when i opened up my amp it was blown. I don't know how it could have happened because subs were not hooked up to this when this happened. It could have been from vibration because the amp was on my box the whole time but i don't get why it would work fine the one day and the next day the amp flickered on (its a hifonics amp, so the hifonics light came on) and then i heard the fuse pop and i went and bought another fuse but the same thing happened. Any suggestions on this. My nine.1 should be back pretty soon though but i would like to sell this amp still. How much do you think it would to be fixed. Its a Hifonics titan txi6006. Shallowfu could you repair my amp for me?

 

[walkychalky 10+ year member]

I fix,buy amps and other 24/7 and my most common things i find are people what amps to push really low ohms on them.They try dropping 1.5 to .7ohms daily on a amp not able or they just don't know and burns them up.Second is over heating or way to much vibrating and i could buy 10 amps with no ques. and all of them would be 1 of the 2.Some people don't know if you have a hard enough hit on a sub the output caps lock and fri a sub in seconds and right through protection never giving a shut down.Many new orions and korean amps do this and keep the amps off the box's and out in the open and placed tight!Sometimes it's never the owners fault and don't let company's let you think that, because lots of high $$$ company's are selling stuff with many amp's with flaws.Really check or do a search of the amp before picking it up because some of there caps fall off or caps leak and company's know the problems.thylantyr has the most important facts for sure.

could that be why all my amps keep going *poof* on me? cuz i have them mounted to the box?.....but i have nowhere else to put them

 

[shallowfu 10+ year member]

could that be why all my amps keep going *poof* on me? cuz i have them mounted to the box?.....but i have nowhere else to put them

Not sure then what you can do,sideways mounting or maybe use very think box,mount it tight!Something you sould never do on a amp but,if you want to blow it and a speaker go try smacking the large caps in a amp and see if you don't smoke everything and it's the same when you got a tight hard hitting system.I'm telling you the output caps are hell sometimes and when amps blow there isn't any place that changes them.They don't even clean them off most of the time.

I have been sick for a little and been taking it easy.I do repairs other than that 24/7 and buy lots of peoples stuff they just don't want to deal with.I'm very into my family and spend alot of time at home and love the repair part of audio and testing.I never get onto the streets like in my single days and most other than locals i repair for never know what i got.

 

[generalGOTCHA 10+ year member]

IF you know what you are doing, and you have a digital multimeter , then what you CAN do for an overheating problem is install a fan in parallel to the systems HOT ! Or two fans , one blowing in , and one ******* the air blown in and blowing it out ! This works very good when you must stick your amplifier in a spot where there is not much air flow in which it conducts external heat. I usually use a dremel to cut the hole out for the fan //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif THIS WORKS REALLY GOOD on cheap amplifiers giving them a longer life.