ground to battery???

[Lowridin_Chevy 10+ year member]

i went to autozone yesterday and got the battery checked and it was fine........**** i am frustrated

 

[forbidden 10+ year member]

Do you have a meter and have you checked the resistance on the ground return? You may also have a bad sub that may have a flat spot on the voice coil. Is there any chance that the cone of the sub has been making contact with the back of the seat?

 

[Lowridin_Chevy 10+ year member]

i doubt it is the sub and what would the sub touching the back of the seat have to do with it(i got grills on it so its not that either)....the reason i doubt it is the sub is because when the truck is cranked up i can turn it up alittle bit louder before it shuts off.....how would i check the resistance of the ground...do u think that is the problem....

 

[forbidden 10+ year member]

Speakers cones that are hitting the back of the seat will off center the voice coils and the coils or former will rub against the pole piece, thus creating a flat dead spot on the voice coils until one day, poof, blown subwoofer. Resistance on the ground return can be equated to this. You head into Subway, eat a foot long sub and then have your butt crack sewn half shut, get the picture. Electricity is an albebra equation, what you do to one side you must do to the other. The ground is the most important wire in the system.

Take a dmm and set it to read resistance in ohms. Disconnect the ground wire from the amp. DO not touch the dmm probes or the wire. Make sure the bare wire is not in contact with the vehicle metal. Take one probe from the meter and connect it to the neg terminal on the battery (have a friend hold it there), take the other probe and attach it to the bare wire end of the ground wire that was attached to the amp. If the probes do not reach you can use a length of speaker wire as a jumper cable. What is the reading in ohms that you get?

 

[Lowridin_Chevy 10+ year member]

well, i did some more sanding around the ground area and i rerouted the wires....see the rcas were RIGHT beside the battery cable....the max amount i could seperate them was about 2 inches so that what i did and bam.......i could turn it up louder but....it still shut off when it was REALLY cranked up....i think i will run my rcas an the otherside of the truck and i HOPE this will eliminate the whole problem

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

You are having a power supply problem. The RCAs didn't have anythign to do with it. Something else you did made the difference.

 

[Lowridin_Chevy 10+ year member]

well i rerouted the rcas on the other side...nothin...so i then spent another hour changingin it back to how it was........i really think it is the ground...there really is nothin else it could be.....it cant be the speakers or the amp because i can turn it up louder when the engine is cranked so those are very unlikely the problem.......do u think i should run a wire straight to the neg. on the battery.....could that possibly be the problem....oh yea something else i thought of....could having a stock radio have anything to do with it..

 

[forbidden 10+ year member]

Uh yes, you could be clipping the input stage of the amp and the amp is going into protection at higher volume levels, or the load on the amp is beyond the capabilities of the amp. Did you check the resistance reading yet?

 

[Lowridin_Chevy 10+ year member]

ok i forgot to mention this....when the amp is turned on a litlle blue light lights up..but when my subs shut off the amp still has the blue light lit up....what does that mean...is it in protection mode or would that mean the problem is somewhere else

 

[Lowridin_Chevy 10+ year member]

need some more info....any help???????

 

[Lowridin_Chevy 10+ year member]

any1 have an answer about the light staying on on my amp but the subs wont move

 

[forbidden 10+ year member]

Disconnect the rca cables and the speaker wires from the amp. Does the amp turn on? Next plug in one speaker wire at a time and see if the amp turn on, move on to the next set of speaker wires then the rca's, checking for power up after each connection. Is this a power on led or a protection led?

 

[Lowridin_Chevy 10+ year member]

it is the power light nad that is the only lite on the amp i think

 

[Lowridin_Chevy 10+ year member]

the test u said to try above, what would this tell me???????? when i do that test i turn the key in the ignition to the on position rite????? i wont get shocked by touching the speaker wires or rca wires while the amp is turned on will i???? what about the battery wire while the amp is on...

 

[forbidden 10+ year member]

Dude, I could teach you all about this, but words are starting to fail me. Head into a stereo shop and get it looked at before you blow something up.