Installing an amp.....Ooops

[RabidTrout]

Yeah.. I'm a dumb-***.. A couple of variables here led me to where I am..

A. it was late and I was in a hurry.

B. When I first installed the first amp (6 months ago or so) i used a red wire for the ground.

The jist of the story is this; I attached the car battery to the amp ground and the car ground to the amp battery. Re-attached the battery ground at the battery and the fuse blew.. No smoke, no smell, just blown fuse.. Didn't have any more fuses so I just waited to troubleshoot today till I could get some more fuses.

I got the fuses and went to put one into the amp, then realized my mistake of the switched polarity :facepalm:. Switched the polarity on the amp to be correct. Installed fuse, connected battery then the fuse blew again. Tried about 5 fuses and each one blew.

Did I toast the amp?

To me, logically.. That amp mounted fuse that I keep blowing is there to prevent this type of damage to an amp. So hopefully, it is just something else.

I have been installing stereos into my cars since I was 16 and this is the first time I have ever done this.. I feel like a complete noob.

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[goingdef 10+ year member]

wire power to the amp outside of the car to eliminate that as a problem second insert a fuse into the fuse holder with nothing hooked up if it blows the power wire is grounded somewhere and that's your issue .....good luck!

 

[quackhead 10+ year member]

sometimes Car Audio defies all logic.

 

[RabidTrout]

wire power to the amp outside of the car to eliminate that as a problem second insert a fuse into the fuse holder with nothing hooked up if it blows the power wire is grounded somewhere and that's your issue .....good luck!

Thank you for the info.. Pulling it out of the car was the only thing that I didn't do.. I chased all of my wires and they check out. Changed my grounding location for that amp. The only reason I didn't pull it out of the car was because I am running two amps, both off the same 4 gauge wire. Well, to a splitter down to 8 ga. anyways. The power lead going to that amp is only about 8" long, so it was pretty easy to see that there were no issues with that wire (or any other wire touching it for that matter).

Same result. Reconnect the negative to the car battery and it the fuse that is in the amp itself, blows. Again, no smoke, smell or anything.

The only issue that I have out of my mid's and high's amp is a slight whine, so that tells me that it centralized to that amp alone. I know the amp worked previously because I just took it out of one car and put it in another.. Hooked it up wrong and now it has "issues"

sometimes Car Audio defies all logic.

You're telling me. I've never ever had an issue with installing stereos.. It just blows my mind that the fuse really isn't the safety catch that it is intended to be (unless its not intended to prevent stupidity)... I guess I'm just beating myself up over this too much.

I still just can't wrap my head around the fact that the amp is blown. But, like you said. "Sometimes car audio defies all logic". Figured switching polarities would just make it not work temporarily, not permanently...