Please Help! Amp problems!

[leon 10+ year member]

Please Help!

Today I got my system installed by Best Buy because my dad did not want me to attempt installing it myself.

It worked beautifully on the drive home, but I didn't turn it up too much because my dad is not a bass head like I am, but when I was playing Andrea Bocelli, he said it sounded like he was at a concert. Really nice and crisp.

So when I got home, I decided to plug in some Linkin Park and cranked it up. Nice and loud, with minimal dimming. Then all of a sudden, my subs cut off. WHAT THE HELL?!

So I checked my amp and it was flashing 'CUR' which meant it shutted down because of "excessive current". The manual advises me to find and eliminate the cause of the excessive current.

I have an Alpine MRD-M1005 monoblock amp pushing about 700 (at 12v) - 1000 (at 14.4v) watts rms to my two type-R's in a sealed box with .8 ft^3 per sub. I seem to be getting about 13.7 volts to the amp (the amp has digital display that can show the volts/gain/bass level/what have you.

To make matters even worse, I can only remove one of the two allen-head screws holding down the faceplate of the amp (which covers all the oh-so-important buttons and adjustment tools). The stupid installers at Best Buy managed to torque the other screw down so tightly I can't even get it to budge. I stopped after a while because i did not want to risk stripping the screw head. On top of that, they did not give back the tools that came with the amp, the allen wrenches that would have fitted perfectly in those hex screws.

UGH I am so pissed off. I want to get this fixed ASAP because I leave in one week for college where I will be working for the rest of summer.

My wiring kit is the Absolute Kit 850, which has 4-gauge power wire. It came with 14-gauge speaker wire but members of this forum recommended I use 10-gauge speaker wire instead, so I bought some so the installers would use it instead.

I hope I gave you enough information to help. Please help! =(

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[leon 10+ year member]

Also, my subwoofers is the 2-ohms ('06 Alpine SWR-1222D) model, so I could wire it to my M1005 for a 2-ohms load. Is it possible that my subwoofers could be wired wrong and presenting a different load to my amp, causing it to draw too much power?

EDIT: I ran a search and found that some of the problems could be overheating, which I doubt my amp is. it's slightly warm to the touch AND it has two fans built in it so I should have no problems... it could be the battery/alt and I find that hard to believe because my truck is a 2005 nissan xterra and when the bass hits, i only have very MIMINAL dimming... barely noticable.

That leaves me with the ground wire not being grounded right and the speaker wired at the wrong impendence.

Someone please comment. I'm dying here.

 

[crow 10+ year member]

First thing I would do is go back to Best Buy and tell them I want my tools back. If you trust them, have them troubleshoot the system. You paid good money for the install and you bought quality gear, they should make it right.

According to what I'm reading about the protection on the Alpine, the excessive current may be caused by a short circuit somewhere in your system. This would certainly cause the amp to go into protection.

If your going to troubleshoot the system yourself, the first thing to do is disconnect the negative terminal at the battery so you don't risk zapping anything. Check all the wires to be sure they are tightly connected and that there are no areas where bare wire may come in contact with another wire or conductive surface to cause a short. A good way to do this is to start at the top. Trace all the power wiring back to the amp starting at the connection at the battery just to be sure it's a clean run and the fuses are good. Then check the ground to the amp. It should be the same gauge as the power wire and as short a distance from amp to ground as possible. Make sure it is bolted solidly to clean bare metal on the chassis. Some installers will just find the nearest factory bolt and use that. Sometimes they end up with a good ground and sometimes they don't. I like to sand the paint off to bare metal and install a bolt or grounding lug so I know I have good contact. Check all the speaker wiring to the subs. Make sure everything is wired correctly to provide the correct load for the amp and that the wiring is cleanly terminated.

If everthing outside looks ok, you may be looking at something internal on the amplifier.

 

[djman37 5,000+ posts]

your subs need to be wired in series/parallel to not damage that amp.

each coil should be wired in series, then each sub in parallel. Wiring it this way prevents the 35 degree phase shift seen when wiring speakers in series. You can do the coils in parallel and the subs in series, but I'd do it the other way.

CUR might mean you tried to pull more current through the amp than the wire was capable of. To eliminate the source of excessive current, turn down the gains. Amps try to draw what they are asked to.

My best guess is that the subs are wired in parallel all the way. The link you posted gave the fusing of the amp at 2x40 which means your amp isn't gonna draw more than 80A for very long w/o popping those fuses. Good luck.

 

[leon 10+ year member]

your subs need to be wired in series/parallel to not damage that amp.
each coil should be wired in series, then each sub in parallel. Wiring it this way prevents the 35 degree phase shift seen when wiring speakers in series. You can do the coils in parallel and the subs in series, but I'd do it the other way.

CUR might mean you tried to pull more current through the amp than the wire was capable of. To eliminate the source of excessive current, turn down the gains. Amps try to draw what they are asked to.

My best guess is that the subs are wired in parallel all the way. The link you posted gave the fusing of the amp at 2x40 which means your amp isn't gonna draw more than 80A for very long w/o popping those fuses. Good luck.

You mean like this:

Wire each speaker individually to a terminal cup like so:

Then wire each terminal to the amp like so, substituting the subwoofers shown in the diagram for your two terminal cups:

??

 

[djman37 5,000+ posts]

yes, like 1, then each SUB will be wired like 2 using the remaining positives and negatives.