how hot is too hot?

[dillinja666 10+ year member]

i have 2 tc sounds 8's in a 1.6 cube box at 32 hz. They are seeking 2k watts. If i bump low music like bass mechanic for 5 minutes or so the speaker cones start to get warm to the touch. Am i putting too much power to the subs? is there something i can do to help cool em off? is that normal? this is my first system over 1k.. thanks

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[Skip01 5,000+ posts]

Do they smell?

Prolly just working hard

 

[dillinja666 10+ year member]

i dont think they smell, but its kinda hard to get back there very quickly to take a wiff. plus with the air blowing in and out of the box woulnt it disperse the smell pretty quickly?

ive heard about thermal problems when useing smaller drivers and small boxes..just was kinda curious if im starting to run into these problems

 

[ultimate157 5,000+ posts]

You would know if you smell coil.

 

[dillinja666 10+ year member]

ok cool then..ill keep pushin em //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif thanks.. think i could turn the amp to its full 2.5K or is that waaay to much for daily on these?

 

[skateboardkid 10+ year member]

I cant believe that they take 1k rms each. You are probably near the thermal or mechanical limits of the sub at that wattage. If someone has used more power on those subs Im gonna let them tell you its cool.

 

[Atimm693 10+ year member]

X2, thats alot of power for those drivers. Id set my gains low if i were you.

 

[Kyle_Keating 10+ year member]

the 1k's usually reach mechanical limits long before thermal limits, i have not see many blown 1k vc's for that reason. maybe only a handful. having said that, if you bottom them out, i would back off the voltage and/or check the high pass filter to make sure you're not pushing past unnecessary throw during the system unloading below fc (tuning).

 

[JohnEJanowitz 10+ year member]

You can get an idea of how hot the coil is by measuring the DCR. Any time you heat up a coil, either copper or aluminum wire, the DC resistance of the coil is going to go up. How much the coil DCR goes up is directly proportional to how hot it is. Measure the DCR with a multimeter when the woofers are cold. Then when you play it for awhile, measure it again. Let me know the two measurements and I'll let you know approximately how hot the coil is. I'll post the formulas if I can find them. Do you know if that is a copper or aluminum coil driver?

The coil itself will fail at between 550-600F. TC used the same VC vendor we do and their coils are dipped and baked at 550F and when they cure they can withstand slightly higher temperatures. The trouble is TC always had pretty wide tolerances, meaning more air gap around the coil. Air doesn't pull heat away very well, and steel doesn't absorb it well. To really boost the power handling you need a copper or aluminum sleeve on the pole very close to the pole to help pull that heat away.

The other thing to realize is that as you heat up the coil, you're no longer delivering anywhere near the power you think. If you have a 2000W amplifier delivering that power into a 1ohm load, after 5min you can expect the DCR will double or triple and your delivered power will be cut in 1/2 or 1/3.

John

 

[MyFartsStink 10+ year member]

hmm I learn something everyday on this site. pm me the formula if you can.

 

[dillinja666 10+ year member]

well ill keep the amp set where its at then. i set the gain with a dmm so im sure im not clipping my signal to the subs. With the heat raising the resistance in the subs, there is nothing i can do about that is there? doesnt every sub do that then? Thanks for all the info i learn a little everyday on here too