I apologize in advance if there's something obvious I overlooked, but I am absolutely baffled.
Ok so after work today I found that my old Blaupunkt powered sub (here) had arrived from back home in Cali. I was excited to put it in under my seat; I've been waiting a while for it to arrive in the mail.
I had done the wiring beforehand--the amp originally had two 18 gauge wires for power coming out of its little harness, but those were cut short to remove it from my last car. I ran a 10 gauge power wire (fused of course) in advance to streamline the install and ran the RCAs already. At the moment they are close to each other, but that will change in a few weeks.
So i got the thing in the car and plugged in the RCAs. (I should mention that this thing doesn't use a remote turn-on wire- it uses signal from the RCAs or something) Then I connected the old 18 gauge power leads to my new 10 gauge power wire. Then, I discovered that my voltmeter's battery was dead, so like a curious cat I touched the ground wires (also two 18s with a ring terminal) to my seat bolts. The keys weren't even in the ignition, my faceplate wasn't even on. So I don't know what I expected to happen. But when it made contact, I heard a slight noise. I thought it was coming from outside the car, but when I removed the wires the noise stopped. Curious. I did it again, and on the third time the sub started making a medium-loud pulsating noise. This freaked me out- I immediately removed the ground wires but IT KEPT MAKING THE NOISE!!! WTF?!?! It didn't stop until I unplugged the harness!! brand-sneakers.com
This defies the laws of physics! I'm pretty **** sure the wires weren't grounding out on something else. And why the hell was it making noise in the first place?! There was no signal!!
Sufficiently disturbed by this, I plugged the harness back in and tried it again- nothing. Hrm. I couldn't use that as a grounding point (I can't get the **** thing out atm) so I drove a self-tapping screw into an unused hole in the seat's metal mounting bracket-where it bolts to the car- and used that. By this point I was quite frustrated and it is 9 degrees outside and snowing pretty crazily.
I hop in the driver's seat, put the faceplate on, and hope for the best. I turn on the stereo and no green power light from the sub. wtf. Check both fuses, both are intact (amp has 10A, so I put 10A on my power wire). I fiddle with something and look back- all of a sudden power light! I play some test tones and am about to start tuning when I look back- no power light. It does this twice. I wiggle every connection and absolutely nothing happens. I wonder if I have a bad ground, so I remove it and touch it to the seat bolt. Nothing at all. Bewildered and very cold, I go inside and hope that you guys can help me. I've only done two powered sub installs before this (one was this sub in my last car) and have experienced nothing of this sort. What the hell do you guys think is going on?
There are a few things that make no sense:
1. Sub made noise with car off, no faceplate
2. Sub continued to make noise AFTER THE GROUND HAD BEEN REMOVED
3. Power light comes on and goes off with no rhyme or reason- no seemingly bad connections.
all of these come with a (WTF WHY?!) after them. rage.
Things it could be: Power wire shitting on me? All connections seemed to be secure.
Something wrong with sub... :/ I hope not.
Your help is very much appreciated.
Ok so after work today I found that my old Blaupunkt powered sub (here) had arrived from back home in Cali. I was excited to put it in under my seat; I've been waiting a while for it to arrive in the mail.
I had done the wiring beforehand--the amp originally had two 18 gauge wires for power coming out of its little harness, but those were cut short to remove it from my last car. I ran a 10 gauge power wire (fused of course) in advance to streamline the install and ran the RCAs already. At the moment they are close to each other, but that will change in a few weeks.
So i got the thing in the car and plugged in the RCAs. (I should mention that this thing doesn't use a remote turn-on wire- it uses signal from the RCAs or something) Then I connected the old 18 gauge power leads to my new 10 gauge power wire. Then, I discovered that my voltmeter's battery was dead, so like a curious cat I touched the ground wires (also two 18s with a ring terminal) to my seat bolts. The keys weren't even in the ignition, my faceplate wasn't even on. So I don't know what I expected to happen. But when it made contact, I heard a slight noise. I thought it was coming from outside the car, but when I removed the wires the noise stopped. Curious. I did it again, and on the third time the sub started making a medium-loud pulsating noise. This freaked me out- I immediately removed the ground wires but IT KEPT MAKING THE NOISE!!! WTF?!?! It didn't stop until I unplugged the harness!! brand-sneakers.com
This defies the laws of physics! I'm pretty **** sure the wires weren't grounding out on something else. And why the hell was it making noise in the first place?! There was no signal!!
Sufficiently disturbed by this, I plugged the harness back in and tried it again- nothing. Hrm. I couldn't use that as a grounding point (I can't get the **** thing out atm) so I drove a self-tapping screw into an unused hole in the seat's metal mounting bracket-where it bolts to the car- and used that. By this point I was quite frustrated and it is 9 degrees outside and snowing pretty crazily.
I hop in the driver's seat, put the faceplate on, and hope for the best. I turn on the stereo and no green power light from the sub. wtf. Check both fuses, both are intact (amp has 10A, so I put 10A on my power wire). I fiddle with something and look back- all of a sudden power light! I play some test tones and am about to start tuning when I look back- no power light. It does this twice. I wiggle every connection and absolutely nothing happens. I wonder if I have a bad ground, so I remove it and touch it to the seat bolt. Nothing at all. Bewildered and very cold, I go inside and hope that you guys can help me. I've only done two powered sub installs before this (one was this sub in my last car) and have experienced nothing of this sort. What the hell do you guys think is going on?
There are a few things that make no sense:
1. Sub made noise with car off, no faceplate
2. Sub continued to make noise AFTER THE GROUND HAD BEEN REMOVED
3. Power light comes on and goes off with no rhyme or reason- no seemingly bad connections.
all of these come with a (WTF WHY?!) after them. rage.
Things it could be: Power wire shitting on me? All connections seemed to be secure.
Something wrong with sub... :/ I hope not.
Your help is very much appreciated.
