[Help] Monobloc mysteriously no longer works

[Immortal 10+ year member]

Hi, I need some help as my subwoofers have stopped working without any warning over the last couple days.

I have two amps: The first is a RF 400w 4.channel that runs my speakers, it is working fine and so my speakers are outputting as normal.

My second amp is a (cheap?) Powerzone Crunch by Hifonics 1000w monobloc that I assume is the problem. I have two RF 500w Punch subs in 1-ohm stable layout.

In a nutshell everything has been working perfectly for months however over the last couple days when I have started my car the subs will not output any bass which is very frustrating.

Nothing changed in obvious terms such as wires being unplugged or head unit settings changing so the problem must be internal with either the monobloc or the subs themselves. The mono is 1ohm stable according to the manual (although he will overheat if I run it too loud for to long at 1ohm cause its not RF //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif ) and no protect lights are on the amp during use, and there is no way it is overheating from just sitting in the parking lot as the temperature has dropped a lot lately.

Id have thought that if the mono was going to fail or blow out it would be during use not while sitting off and idle in the parking lot...right?

The subs are high quality and I cant believe that they would both fail exactly the same way at the same time so this leads me again to the amp.

Any ideas on where I could start to find the problem or perhaps a workaround? I suppose ill head over to CircuitCity this weekend and get my friend there too give it a quick look to see if anything obvious jumps out at him.

Also this happened once before for about half a day however the next morning when I turned on my car it worked fine and has been working since.

Thanks for all your help! I really dont have money to replace a mono right now so hopefully there will be something else I can do //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/verymad.gif.3f39c5c2fd57527b671fad3efdfac756.gif

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[Immortal 10+ year member]

Bump Help Please

 

[Buck 5,000+ posts]

Do you have a DMM?

 

[Immortal 10+ year member]

EDIT: Oh a multimeter, no I dont but I supose I coudl buy one from radio shack if they arent too much, money is kinda tight atm

 

[Savstyle 10+ year member]

EDIT: Oh a multimeter, no I dont but I supose I coudl buy one from radio shack if they arent too much, money is kinda tight atm

radioshack has them for 15-75bux

i know this cuuse i work for the peice of shit company

 

[Supergumby5000 5,000+ posts]

Check the coils on the subs with a DMM

does the amplifier still turn on?

Check the voltage at the speaker terminals.

 

[TurdFergueson2 5,000+ posts]

Could low voltages over a long period of time cause something like that?

 

[mr. man 10+ year member]

crunch has been having a lot of returns in the past 11 months due to faulty parts in the pzi amplifiers. this may be one of the faulty amps or may not be, figured id let ya know

 

[Immortal 10+ year member]

Check the coils on the subs with a DMM
does the amplifier still turn on?

Check the voltage at the speaker terminals.

Will buy a DMM and research online in how to perform these tests (unless you want to give more details //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif )

crunch has been having a lot of returns in the past 11 months due to faulty parts in the pzi amplifiers. this may be one of the faulty amps or may not be, figured id let ya know

Yeah I had heard about this but I didnt buy from a store so im not really sure how id go about getting this replaced

 

[Immortal 10+ year member]

Ok the mystery takes on a new creepy factor. About 30 secs after starting my car my base kicked back in like normal and is currently working. However since this is the seocnd time my base has knocked itself out this month and it stayed out longer, id still like to find a solution. Help?

 

[Haunz 10+ year member]

wiring problem...

I remember how bad it sucked to be a noob...

 

[Immortal 10+ year member]

Ok can you be more specific? The only thing I can think of it is that it started after I rewired from 2ohms to 1ohms but it has been working fine for months after that and it just starts now? wtf. But god i hopes its wiring because I can fix that, cant fix a blown amp lol

 

[Immortal 10+ year member]

Bump on wiring...

 

[Immortal 10+ year member]

sorry for another bump

 

[Ge0 10+ year member]

Some words of advice. Take them for what they are worth.

1.) How do you have the amp grounded?

2.) Are you sure the speaker leads going to your subs are in good shape?

3.) Check for nice and tight connections for all wiring running into the amp.

4.) Swap out your RCA's. Sometimes the little wires inside break and provide intermittent connection.

5.) Make sure connections on the battery feed are nice, tight, and clean. Start from the connection to the battery and work your way back to the amp (include distro blocks in the check).

6.) Is your remote power lead in good shape? Check this out to.

7.) Is your amp mounted to your sub box? I highly recommend against this. The vibrations can crack solder joints inside the amp. Cracked solder joints can cause intermittent operation. Especially once the weather starts cooling down.

8.) I doubt the amp is truely 1 ohm stable. I highly suggest wiring the subs to put a lighter load on the amp. Thermal overload is an amp killer.

Ge0