Help me find this short before I blow a mental fuse

[oTurtlez 10+ year member]

Ok, so I decided to amp my front door speakers and I finally got everything fabbed and put together so I could install my 4 channel amp. Got all the wiring ran and went to hook the positive up and when I touched the battery terminal with the ring connector, there was a spark. Happens every time, I'm used to it, checked my inline power cable fuse, no blow, decided to bolt the cable on. Got everything all set up, had my ground running to the same bolt as my other amp, flipped my turn on switch, my mono powered up by the 4 channel didn't. Checked all fuses and sure enough. one was blown on the amp. I went to put a new one in, forgot to disconnect the amp, and got a nice arc to the new fuse. Fuse didn't blow so I disconnect the ground (mistake #2 ) and plugged the fuse in. Went to plug the ground back in, got an even bigger arc, and it blew both of the fuses in the amp. I'm out of fuses so I have to run and pick more up today and see if it's a short somewhere, which is has to be. Going to test the amp on my bench to see if it still works, hopefully. I have no idea where it could be shorting out. No damage to my power wire, all voltages are fine back at both amps, just the second I put a fuse in the 4 channel in my car, it blows it. If anyone has any good ideas as to what's happening, I'd really appreciate it.

EDIT: I currently only have a 50A fuse for my power wire, not sure if that's a cause.

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[jco1385 5,000+ posts]

Sounds like the amp is toast. You should find out on the bench though.

 

[oTurtlez 10+ year member]

Sounds like the amp is toast. You should find out on the bench though.

It worked fine on my bench for a while, then I finally got my speakers in, threw it in my car, and now this is happening. It only popped one fuse the first time, then it popped both. I'm so confused.

 

[jco1385 5,000+ posts]

See if you can get the neg input and the remote input to ring out with a dmm. Something is going direct to ground. Check for a pinched remote wire. I had a similar problem a couple weeks ago.

 

[oTurtlez 10+ year member]

See if you can get the neg input and the remote input to ring out with a dmm. Something is going direct to ground. Check for a pinched remote wire. I had a similar problem a couple weeks ago.

Define Ring out, equal 0?

I had the turn on lead bridged with my other amp so I didn't have to run a second, and the mono powered on but the other one didn't. So I temporarily put it directly to the 4 channel and got 14.4 at the amp on the +12 and ~13v on the remote lead. I'm not sure if I've tried unplugging the rem lead and putting a fuse back in, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it won't make a difference.

 

[jco1385 5,000+ posts]

Define Ring out, equal 0?
I had the turn on lead bridged with my other amp so I didn't have to run a second, and the mono powered on but the other one didn't. So I temporarily put it directly to the 4 channel and got 14.4 at the amp on the +12 and ~13v on the remote lead. I'm not sure if I've tried unplugging the rem lead and putting a fuse back in, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it won't make a difference.

Check for continuity between the negative input and the fuse connections. Either using the Ohm setting or the continuity setting on your DMM. The continuity setting will 'ring out' if they touch.

Edit: if they show continuity, then the amp is toast.

 

[oTurtlez 10+ year member]

I'm a moron. +12v =/= the ground cable and vice versa....

 

[jco1385 5,000+ posts]

I'm a moron. +12v =/= the ground cable and vice versa....

i hope you haven't killed your amp :/

 

[oTurtlez 10+ year member]

Thanks, I hope so too :/

 

[oTurtlez 10+ year member]

i hope you haven't killed your amp :/

SHE LIVES! Who knew fuses worked?