Bridging amps

[bigred78797 10+ year member]

Ok, i haven't been on here in a while and haven't done a Major install in a while so a little of my electronics knowlegde has left me so this may be a stupid question.

I remember way back when Squeak or someone( knowledgeable ) said that any any two amps of the same model could be bridged together provided VERY careful gain and SSF adjustment. I just wanted to know what would need to be done to two Audiobahn 8000T's to make them bridgable.

OK before the flaming starts YES it's audiobahn and YES i do love them, those 2 ohm stable bastards take 1ohm Like champs, I had 2 each hooked up to a Treo SSX 15.22 ( dual 2 ohm ). Now i have 4 amps and imma hook it up so it's roughly 1.6kw per sub. Big 3 done with 1 bat under the hood and 2 in the back. I want to know about the Bridging amps so IF POSSIBLE to get 3200w to each sub for tone burst. Ill be getting two more batts and another Alt (hopefully) so getting the power to them shouldn't be an issue.

Question #1: IS it possible to bridge any amp of the same make and model?

Question #2: If so, If i were to Wire one sub( dual 2 wired parallel (1 ohm) ) to a Pair of Bridged amps. What would the load on each amp be? .5 ohms?

Question #3: If i were to wire one sub( dual 2 wired series ( 4 ohms ) ) to a pair of Bridged amps would that be a 1 ohm load per amp?

Question #4: What would need to be done circuit wise to the amps to make them bridgable if not straight out the box.

Question #5: If it isn't possible at all you know where i could get 6Kw of power cheap?

Sorry some people refer to this as strapping the amps together and not bridging //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

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[bigred78797 10+ year member]

Anyone?

 

[bigred78797 10+ year member]

//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/frown.gif.a3531fa0534503350665a1e957861287.gif Please help me i need to know becuase im gonna install this setup soon and the way i'm going to put them in it's gonna be a wh0re to get them back out even to just adjust the gains.

 

[thch 10+ year member]

Q1 - Eh, you won't like my answer.

A1.1 - Yes, using transformer isolation any number of amplifiers, even of different makes, can combine power.

A1.2 - No, while in some cases you can bridge 2 amps, there are cases where the amps have differential output and are not isolated. such is why a HU cannot be bridged. in this condition you simply short out both amps and the current protect kicks in.

A2 - each amp would see half the load. each amp supplies the same voltage, but double the current. this means each amp sees a load of half of the impedance.

A3 - not sure i know exactly what you are asking. i have a feeling you want to bridge two bridged amps to get 4 channels into 1.

A4 - a transformer of sufficient size and quality (not really cheap or necessarily good) can do this. otherwise you have to work with what you have. if the amps are isolated from each other it should work by attaching the amps in series in a similar fashion to speakers (unlikely unless you have dedicated batteries per amp AND transformer based LOCs for each amp). never hook amps in parallel unless you specifically know what you are doing! Other then this setback you might be able to if each amp has single ended outputs. then all you need is a phase splitter. such can be acheived with a phase switch on the amp (maybe) or a LOC hooked up backwards.

A5 - unsure here. most classD amps of high power will probably use a full bridge design which means differential outputs. maybe break some connections from the secondary grounds to try to isolate the amps, but i'm not advocating this.

 

[thch 10+ year member]

oh, you may concider using 1 amp per coil if possible. not sure if you are at that point yet. some competitors use 2 amps per coil.

 

[bigred78797 10+ year member]

Your right that's not what i wanted to hear, ah well, guess the subs are only going to be seeing the 1.6kw. And yeah im doing the 1 amp per coil. Thanks for the input, Guess i need to install these sukers now.