Electrical experts out there?

[edzy 10+ year member]

how is your ground?

use the dmm on ohm setting and see what the ground wire when disconnected from the amp reads. (make sure to disconnect neg battery cable when installing any power wires.

You should have a reading of close to zero.

Also the subs coils will fluxuate due the slight movment of the cone.

To rule out the amp. Use a small jumper wire and jump the remote terminal on the amp to the amps +. This will elimate the rem as a source of trouble.

Next remove amp and and use small pieces of wire, (with a fuse on the pos) and run it directly to the battery. Now you should only be using small pieces of wire so you can see the wiring, like 4'-5'. Now if the amp stays on, and voltage stays up ~14 or so, then connect the rcas to it. If it stays on, connect the subs. if it stays on, rewire the power/ground/rcas/rem in your car.

If it fails when just power/ground/rem jump/ then its the amp.

 

[gev003 10+ year member]

Also the subs coils will fluxuate due the slight movment of the cone.

Will this be the case even when the sub is completely disconnected from the amp? The cone shouldn't have been moving.

I can't wait to get home and test everything else, hopefully its the ground or something simple cause I don't want to hassle with sending it away to Cali again and forking out at least another 75 bones (with shipping from KS), that will make it a total of 150 at the least. I could have saved that and bought a new amp for just a bit more.

 

[gev003 10+ year member]

The ground showed 0-.1 on the DMM... I hooked an ipod to the amp with RCAs and it played for a minute or so with the gains down until it went into protect again. I removed the sub, rcas, and jumped the remote turn on to the power, again it went into protect after a few minutes. Why does it take time before going into protect when nothing is connected? What is it waiting for? I would think if it was an amp problem it would immediately go into protect.

 

[gev003 10+ year member]

Next remove amp and and use small pieces of wire, (with a fuse on the pos) and run it directly to the battery. Now you should only be using small pieces of wire so you can see the wiring, like 4'-5'. Now if the amp stays on, and voltage stays up ~14 or so, then connect the rcas to it. If it stays on, connect the subs. if it stays on, rewire the power/ground/rcas/rem in your car.

If it fails when just power/ground/rem jump/ then its the amp.

The battery is in the trunk and the wire is only about 4-5 feet long. When you say remove the amp, are you saying I need to disconnect the remote and ground and just hook the power wire to the amp?

 

[scoob8000 10+ year member]

The amp goes into protect with nothing else (no RCA's or speakers connected), it really does sound like the amp.

Try this same exact test again with the ignition on and the engine off. Maybe the amp is seeing something in the power from the alternator that it does not like.

If it still does it, I would pull the amp out and test it outside of the car running on just a battery. If it still goes to protect, the amp 100% without a doubt has issues.

Also on a side note, when you read ohms measuring the coils you should to that with them disconnected from the amp..

 

[edzy 10+ year member]

The battery is in the trunk and the wire is only about 4-5 feet long. When you say remove the amp, are you saying I need to disconnect the remote and ground and just hook the power wire to the amp?

yes, thats what i meant, assuming the amp was in the trunk and the bat was up front. But if the bat is back there too, then its fine. The whole point is to make a short direct open connection to the amp, so you can see all the wires and know that they are not pinched or shorted running from the front to back. Being as its all in the trunk, and you can see that the wires are intact and in good shape, then its fine. BTW, what size wire are you running for power and ground? Should be at least 4awg for both.

And if its jumped and nothing connected but power and ground with the jumper, and it goes into protect, with apropriate wire size, wether the cars on or off, then i would say bad amp as well. Maybe it got damaged being shipped back after it was confirmed ok? Stranger things have happened.

So 14 volts at bat?

14 volts at amp?

good ground/power wires?

rem jumped for testing?

sure the power and ground are in the right terminals?

no sub hooked up for testing?

If yes to all those..bad amp.

and yes, disconnect subs when testing ohms of the coil. Otherwise your testing the ohms of the amp as well.

 

[pegasis50 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.

Sounds familiar!//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif