Electrical experts out there?

[gev003 10+ year member]

Amp is going into protect AGAIN.

older Hifonics Brutus 1500

ran it for 3 years at 4 ohms (500 watts) to a 15" Adire Tempest in my Ford Explorer with the stock electrical system...never and I mean never did it go into protect mode.

Then I installed it in my 04 Saturn Ion, this time switched to a dual 2 ohm Pioneer Championship Pro 12 rated to handle something like 1000 or so watts. Wired the sub to 1 ohm in a small sealed box. Knowing that the sub needed breaking in before leaning on it too hard I kept it down. With that said, I still expected much more from a single sub getting a supposed 1000 watts. It sounded like something was missing. Turned it up a little and the amp goes into protect. On again off again until apparently the sub blew, all this at relatively low volume levels. I checked the polarity, all good...the power and ground to the amp were directly connected to the battery (Saturn Ion battery is located in the trunk), I thought everything was good. Based on this I thought the amp had to be the problem since I barely heard anything out of the sub. I contacted Hifonics, they directed me to 2 authorized repair shops in the US...I quickly sent the amp to Audio Clinic in California and then took the sub back to where I bought it. The sub was determined to be blown. Audio Clinic said they tested the amp and it was working fine, so they shipped it back. I swapped the dual 2 ohm sub for a brand new dual 4 ohm model so I could safely run the 1-ohm stable amp at 2 ohms instead.

I wired it up and for a good week I started breaking it in. It sounded very clean, but like it was still missing something. My sister's cheap little Infinity Reference 12 had much more impact with 1/3 the power. What is going on? I feel the sub is getting better so I turn it up a little, protect again.

I then wired up an old school 10" SVC orion cobalt that I keep in the garage for times like this. Now can anyone tell me why the amp goes into protect with that little thing hooked up?

I've been told I need to bolster my electrical system, will a 1 or 2 farad cap do the trick? I am only running one amp so I do not feel I should need to get a new alternator.

I also ran a short ground to the chassis instead of going directly to the battery, someone told me that would help.

Any suggestions?

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[pegasis50 10+ year member]

I am by no means a Car Audio Amp expert, but do know a little about DC electronics (I teach it).

It would appear that:

1) the amp is bad (they didnt do a thorough, full load test)

or

2) the amp is drawing too much current, thus going into protection mode. This could be caused by several things, but most likely is do to wiring in some way shape or form.

Have you verified the supply voltage at the amp under heavy loads? A lower voltage will draw more current, and thus potentially shut the amp down. With the car running, you can expect to have a good 13-13.8 volts at the amp. Maybe more, but not less. Most charging systems put out around 13.5-14.5 VDC. You should have about this at you amp. If not, its starving. You can also do a voltage drop test across the positive cable. Run the + (red) of your DVOM (digital meter) to battery positive, and the - (blck) to the Positive input of your amp. Check this under load. You want the meter on DC volts and it should read near 0, like .2-.5 volts. (this is what you are losing through the cable). IF you get anything over .5 volts or so, you have a Voltage Supply issue to the amp. You can test your ground cable the same way, and expect the same results. Neither connection from amp to battery terminal should lose more than .5 volts or so.

A good ground to the battery is the preferred way to ground the system. The body of the car has extremely high resistance as it is assembled in pieces with seam sealer in between. Grounding to the body would only help if your initial run the battery was too small, or had connection issues (see above).

I am assuming you have calculated the size conductors you need and are running the right sizes.

As a side note, your new car could have less voltage/amperage available to the amp, and thus could be starving it for power. This would explain why it occurred when you made the swap. Testing connections and using proper wiring can go a long way towards fixing this, but may not cure it completely. A capacitor, and then a second battery may be the fix. (this will be evident when you voltage drop the cables under load-if you have a solid voltage, this is NOT your problem.)

I hope this helps. There are many other things that come into play, but this is a good starting point to cover the basics.

Let me know if I can help any further.//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

 

[Rashaddd 5,000+ posts]

One of my 2607's used to go into protect every 5-30mins if I played it at full tilt that long (2 ohms), did that for about a month maybe, or less, and then I changed my install to what it is now, still using the same amp, and it hasn't happened since. I'm convinced it was just some wire or something, idk...cuz I tried rewiring it many times in the old setup and nothing helped, and after I reinstalled it completely and rerouted some wire connections it's never gone into protect once since then, and I beat the hell out of it...

so...it's probably not getting enough current/voltage, likely due to a poor connection somewhere or something.

 

[gev003 10+ year member]

Thanks guys, sounds like you're on the right track. There's no way in hell that amp is seeing 13.5. Unfortunately I don't have a multimeter at the house, so i scheduled a quick appointment for Thursday at the install shop so they could do some testing for me. From what I've heard, the Ion's stock electrical system is very weak, so I guess it's not surprising that the amp shut down when trying to hit low bass notes. I'll add a cap and pray that helps. If I'm running the amp at 2 ohms and it's supposed to send 1000 or so watts to the sub, will a 1 farad cap suffice?

 

[KyleBechtold 5,000+ posts]

my rockford did that.. scared the shit outta me thought it was done.. found out my fuse was cracked.. not blown.. and the amp wasn't seeing enough power so it wouldn't let it play..

 

[loopkiller 10+ year member]

Thanks guys, sounds like you're on the right track. There's no way in hell that amp is seeing 13.5. Unfortunately I don't have a multimeter at the house, so i scheduled a quick appointment for Thursday at the install shop so they could do some testing for me. From what I've heard, the Ion's stock electrical system is very weak, so I guess it's not surprising that the amp shut down when trying to hit low bass notes. I'll add a cap and pray that helps. If I'm running the amp at 2 ohms and it's supposed to send 1000 or so watts to the sub, will a 1 farad cap suffice?

Your alt in the Saturn is probably half the size of the alt in your Ford. That is the first thing. Secondly, you probably had a bigger battery in the Ford as well. Third, the Ford had a full frame for the ground, where the Saturn is a unibody car.

Take your cheap *** down to the dollar store or Walmart and get you a $5 DMM. Start the car, monitor the voltage at the amp, and record when it goes into protect mode. If you are seeing

Your alt is what charges your batteries, the batteries are what will power your system. If your alt cannot keep up with demand, it will not be able to keep the batteries charged. If you do not have batteries to power the amps, the larger alt alone will not be able to keep up with the quickly varied load that music presents to your electrical system. Only a good battery can provide that seamless power needed.

And forget a cap. There is no cap that will provide what you need. A cap will only be an additional load on your system at this point.

 

[scoob8000 10+ year member]

Take your cheap *** down to the dollar store or Walmart and get you a $5 DMM. Start the car, monitor the voltage at the amp, and record when it goes into protect mode. If you are seeing

A big +1 on this. A DMM is something that everyone that is even remotely involved in car audio should own. Buy one and save the trip to the install shop.

Low voltage is probably the issue here. The protect circuit prevents the amp from drawing too much current and smoking the fets/power supply. Remember, as voltage drops, current increases.

It could be the sub too, perhaps it was labeled wrong at the manufacturer and it's got D2 coils instead of D4. The lower resistance again lets the amp pull more current and thus goes to protect.

Use the same DMM you buy set to ohms and measure teh resistance at the speaker wires..

 

[chunky cumz 10+ year member]

DMM FTW... check your speaker loads lol....

 

[gev003 10+ year member]

OK,

I went to Radio Shack and got a DMM, started the car and it was reading 14.2 V at the amp, I then turned the volume up on the headunit, still hardly any output from the sub because the gains are set so low (less than halfway and the Kenwood headunit supposedly has 2 volt preouts), the meter still showed 14.2 and then the amp shut down. No drop in voltage that I could see, but then again the gains are turned down so far that the sub was nearly inaudible. I don't understand. I checked the sub last night, did the 9v battery test with both voicecoils after taking the sub out of the box and they both popped quietly, then I ran the coils in parallel and did the test again, again a little pop. It makes me think that there is possibly a problem with the signal line, either at the HU, in the RCA cable, or at the amp. Is there anything else I can use the DMM for to test this? I tried to test the ohms at the speaker terminal but it was giving me wierd readings. Any ideas?

 

[loopkiller 10+ year member]

A DMM can test 90% of the things you will need to know. Since you now know that your voltage is not dropping out, I would make sure that your amp is actually functional. Step one would be to remove the subs from the equation. Remove the speaker wires from the amp and try it without a load. If it still cuts out, then you know it is not the speakers. At that point, you might want to test the amp in another system to see if it is an issue with the RCAs or your HU. This one seems like a bad component somewhere.

 

[gev003 10+ year member]

I diconnected the speaker wire and RCA's let the car run for a few minutes and the amp went into protect. I tested the sub and it fluctuated from 0 to 2.5 or so, is that supposed to do that when it's not turned on? Tried to test the RCAs and could not get a reading, I probably wasn't doing it right. Now what?

 

[loopkiller 10+ year member]

Well it sounds like a bad amp to me bro. If you had the RCAs and the speaker wires disconnected, then the only thing that can make it go into protect mode would be a defective amp. Sounds like you found your problem.

 

[gev003 10+ year member]

That's not good, because I sent this amp to an authorized Hifonics repair shop and they said it was working fine. What do I do, send it back to them?

 

[loopkiller 10+ year member]

That's not good, because I sent this amp to an authorized Hifonics repair shop and they said it was working fine. What do I do, send it back to them?

I would try to call them and ask them for a reccomendation. Maybe there is something specific to that amp that I am not aware of that they can tell you about. If that does not work, I would try to mount the amp in another system to see if you get the same issues. If you can reproduce the same problems in another system, then it is obviously defective and they need to repair it again. Force the issue. Until you get a working amp, never settle or take no for an answer. There is somebody who cares that will help you at any company. It just sometimes takes a few calls to find that person.

 

[gev003 10+ year member]

Thanks loop