Not getting the full potential out of my amps

[stangman67 10+ year member]

I do not think I am getting nearly everything out of my Cadence iA7 or my kicker 4 channel. The iA7 has 120 amps of fuses and I have 1/0 going to the batt with a 100 amp fuse in line. The 1/0 is then split into 2 with a total of 160 amps of fuses from both my amps (ia7 and kicker). I am not even blowing that 100 amp fuse with both my amps going full blast. Do you think this could be a voltage problem? The car has a stock alt(95 civic hatch), diehard battery and I am in the middle of a big 3 upgrade. I suspect that my alt/battery combination is the problem, does this sound right? I would like to get the full power out of my amps..

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[Side Show 10+ year member]

upgrade ya battery

drycell (optima/orbital/odessy) ect ect

 

[DidUHearThat? 10+ year member]

Do you own a meter? Why haven't you told us your voltage yet?

Try running some test tones like 60 hz sine wave. That should blow it.

 

[stangman67 10+ year member]

Yea sorry I do have a DMM just didn't get the chance to do it tonight, it is too late and I will severely piss of my neighbors if I do it right now. I do have a fairly decent light dim though

 

[godhatescivics 10+ year member]

Do you own a meter? Why haven't you told us your voltage yet?Try running some test tones like 60 hz sine wave. That should blow it.

roflmao

 

[pawn man 10+ year member]

what imp are you running the cadence at.

 

[DBBOOM 10+ year member]

I do not think I am getting nearly everything out of my Cadence iA7 or my kicker 4 channel. The iA7 has 120 amps of fuses and I have 1/0 going to the batt with a 100 amp fuse in line. The 1/0 is then split into 2 with a total of 160 amps of fuses from both my amps (ia7 and kicker). I am not even blowing that 100 amp fuse with both my amps going full blast. Do you think this could be a voltage problem? The car has a stock alt(95 civic hatch), diehard battery and I am in the middle of a big 3 upgrade. I suspect that my alt/battery combination is the problem, does this sound right? I would like to get the full power out of my amps..

Go to Autozone(or similar) and have them do an output check on your alt/charging system. Free and you will know what your stock system is capable of producing.

 

[stangman67 10+ year member]

what imp are you running the cadence at.

Cadence is running at 1 ohm, powering two AQ SDC's. I will go run into autozone after my big 3 is complete and see what the alt is outputting. I am thinking the stock alt is about 80 amps //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/frown.gif.a3531fa0534503350665a1e957861287.gif

 

[thegreatestpenn 5,000+ posts]

your alt can only create 80A at a time so with wire that thick you'll probably never blow a fuse bigger than 80A. That doesn't mean you're not getting full power, it just means you're not blowing fuses to get it.

 

[stangman67 10+ year member]

That really doesn't make much sense, If my ia7 requires 120 amps of current to create full power and it is only receiving 80 from the alt, how is it putting out full power?

 

[thegreatestpenn 5,000+ posts]

efficiency is the reason, and the technology. Someone said it here a while ago, think of a fuse - power relationship like your hand and hot water. you can put your hand in hot water for a while before it hurts and you have to take it out the water. same with the fuse and large gobs of power. Daily you're amp is not pulling a constant stream of 120A since the bass changes. Because of this the fuse may be able to handle the short bursts that require gobs of current and not blow before the lighter periods in the songs. Tones would probably blow your fuse, but even that might not. I can get a full 2400wrms from my 2 amps strapped through a measly 60A fuse no problems right now (working on getting all that through a 40A fuse). Talk to MECA competitors and we'll all tell you its possible

 

[stangman67 10+ year member]

ahhh ok now it makes sense. Thanks

 

[thegreatestpenn 5,000+ posts]

you should still check to see if you are getting bad voltage drops because that is a sign you're killing your battery and alt. if your voltage at the batt is dropping below 12.5V its time to upgrade your front batt and maybe add another batt to the back if you don't want to do an upgraded alt.

 

[stangman67 10+ year member]

Yea I am still going to check the voltage and add another batt anyway

 

[pawn man 10+ year member]

put a volt meter on the power & ground wire at the amp while it is playing loud to see what the voltage is dropping to. if voltage is dropping very low this could be the problem.