Fried voice coil?

[Quiver]

I've had my sub installed for the past 6 months now and haven't had any issues with it. However, today when I was on my way home from work I was bumping it pretty hard the whole way (about 15 minutes) and right before I got home it just stopped working. I backed down the bass but it refused to come back on. When I got home I popped the trunk and to my horror I saw a fair amount of smoke coming out of the vent in the box.

The amp was warm to the touch but not at all hot. I took the sub out hoping that the speaker wires just weren't able to take the power and melted but unfortunately they are in perfect shape. The smell is definitely coming from the sub itself and the magnet was pretty warm. After reading around briefly on the internet I'm assuming that the voice coil fried.

I'm posting here to hopefully find out what caused it to fry so that when I get it replaced I don't have that happen again.

Here is what I have:

1x Alpine Type-S SWS-10D2

1x JBL GTX 500 (GTX500)

I wired everything up myself but maybe I did something wrong? What should I be looking for that could have caused this to happen?

Click to read more...

 

[Popwarhomie 5,000+ posts]

Clipping.

 

[Boomin_tahoe 5,000+ posts]

Yup, as popwarhomeslice said, you clipped it to death.

Where was the gain set on the amp?

 

[Quiver]

Yup, as popwarhomeslice said, you clipped it to death.
Where was the gain set on the amp?

I just went out to check what everything was set at. The gain was not even 1/5 of the way up...is it still possible that it was clipping?

 

[Flipper245]

So your gain was almost all the way down? Is bass boost on the amp turned up? What are the settings on your head unit set too?

 

[Quiver]

So your gain was almost all the way down? Is bass boost on the amp turned up? What are the settings on your head unit set too?

Yep everything on the amp is almost all the way down. I have an 09 G37x with bose so I did a LOC on the bose amp in the trunk to get the signal. Stock head unit with the bass at the "normal" level (in the middle).

The amp has an input level on it and right now it's set at low. The options for that are Low, Hi1, Hi2.

 

[Boomin_tahoe 5,000+ posts]

Stock HU=bad.

 

[Quiver]

Stock HU=bad.

I don't really have an option since it's the navigation unit that came with the car. There are numerous people on myg37.com that have installed subs off of their stock HU in this car with no problems at all. Mind explaining what is so bad about it because I honestly don't know what the difference would be?

 

[Boomin_tahoe 5,000+ posts]

Cause problems later on down the road. I think dirtier signal compared to an aftermarket HU persay.
@Jeffdacheff has more in depth exp in this area. So been following what he has to say about them.

 

[Quiver]

[quote name='Boomin_tahoe']Cause problems later on down the road. I think dirtier signal compared to an aftermarket HU persay.
@Jeffdacheff has more in depth exp in this area. So been following what he has to say about them.[/QUOTE]

Alright good to know. Thanks for the info.

 

[Flipper245]

Yep everything on the amp is almost all the way down. I have an 09 G37x with bose so I did a LOC on the bose amp in the trunk to get the signal. Stock head unit with the bass at the "normal" level (in the middle).
The amp has an input level on it and right now it's set at low. The options for that are Low, Hi1, Hi2.

If your input level is set to low that means it's set to have a low voltage signal sent to it. If the signal going to it is in fact "high" then your probably clipping the heck out of it. Setting your amp to high would in turn be like setting the gain to low.

 

[Quiver]

If your input level is set to low that means it's set to have a low voltage signal sent to it. If the signal going to it is in fact "high" then your probably clipping the heck out of it. Setting your amp to high would in turn be like setting the gain to low.

Okay that's what I figured too. I have a line out converter from the bose speaker to the amp which would take that high signal and convert it to a low correct? Or maybe it doesn't. I am pretty new to all of this lol.

 

[Boomin_tahoe 5,000+ posts]

Which is why tapping into stock signal is bad to begin with. I mean yeah it's all fine and dandy but when you start adding components left and right, serious trouble is bound to happen.

 

[Quiver]

I realized that I might possibly have the wrong amp for this sub? This is a dual 2ohm sub and the amp is mono and stable at 2ohms. How would I need to wire these two together to work properly or is it not possible/suggested?

 

[Boomin_tahoe 5,000+ posts]

2 ways you can have that sub wired safely: 1 ohm or 4 ohms.

How did you have the two wired together?

JL Audio » header » Support » Tutorials » Tutorial: Wiring Dual Voice Coil (DVC) Subwoofer Drivers