Did this hurt my amp or head unit?

[ckunke002 10+ year member]

So I just sold a sub/amp and have the wires that it was using just hanging where the sub used to be (like the ground wire and RCA's and all). I have a 4 gauge wire going into a dist. block and had 2 8 gauge's coming out, 1 goes to my other amp that powers speakers and one went to my amp that I just sold but now is detached.

Today when I was listening to music with just my speaker amp, the ground wire that is still attached to the chassis from my old amp bumped it's wires against my dist block (which is powering my amp) and sparked up quite a bit. My headunit then froze for about 5 seconds before playing music again. This part confused me because it seems like the amp would have been affected rather than the head unit which has nothing to do with those wires.

My question is, what happened exactly? Why did the ground wire react that way just brushing against the dist block? If any of my stuff was damaged, what would it most likely be?

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[JoshC 10+ year member]

Your distro block has a 13v charge on it, you ground wire is suppose to lead to ground not hot. Therefore when they touched it made a short hints the sparks. I dont think this would affect you HU but im not sure.

I would remove any wires or leads not being used. I dont think there will be any permanent damage to anything, but perhaps

 

[mylows10 5,000+ posts]

wow!! .ok first the distro block is a + current while the ground is a - current thats why the spark,you crossed the 2 wire which is a //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/uhoh.gif.c07307dd22ee7e63e22fc8e9c614d1fd.gif and the deck and amp both can be effected ,but usually it would be the amp.up in smoke.//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smokin.gif.f1dc8d2acb1809e863ebd6a47eaa0d45.gif

 

[ckunke002 10+ year member]

Your distro block has a 13v charge on it, you ground wire is suppose to lead to ground not hot. Therefore when they touched it made a short hints the sparks. I dont think this would affect you HU but im not sure.
I would remove any wires or leads not being used. I dont think there will be any permanent damage to anything, but perhaps

The part that confused me was that ground wire is the same as power wire, and it wasn't leading to anything other than just a piece of metal. Then the headunit got affected by it. Could it have to do with my car battery being grounded as well to the chassis which powers the headunit or something?

 

[ckunke002 10+ year member]

wow!! .ok first the distro block is a + current while the ground is a - current thats why the spark,you crossed the 2 wire which is a //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/uhoh.gif.c07307dd22ee7e63e22fc8e9c614d1fd.gif and the deck and amp both can be effected ,but usually it would be the amp.up in smoke.//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smokin.gif.f1dc8d2acb1809e863ebd6a47eaa0d45.gif

Ok I see. Is there anything I should do now that it's all said and done other than just make sure it doesn't happen any more? Lol

 

[mylows10 5,000+ posts]

just remove or tape up any wires that are bare, and hope you didn't mess anything up.you may be fine ,but then again you may not know for a day or two, if the amp or deck is screwed

 

[ckunke002 10+ year member]

just remove or tape up any wires that are bare, and hope you didn't mess anything up.you may be fine ,but then again you may not know for a day or two, if the amp or deck is screwed

Will do. Thanks for the advice!

 

[ckunke002 10+ year member]

just remove or tape up any wires that are bare, and hope you didn't mess anything up.you may be fine ,but then again you may not know for a day or two, if the amp or deck is screwed

Will do. Thanks for the advice!

 

[15bass 10+ year member]

The ground wire shorted out ur block. No power went past the block with the ground touching it.

This caused BOTH amp and head unit to go into protect mode. It started working again when the ground moved?

If it turned on and sounds fine, its OK.

Advice: take the power n ground wires out that you Arnt useing