Please help!! Im lost...

[SamanthaW]

Im going to try to give as much detail as possible, so please bear with me.... Last week I decided to move from my truck, to a different truck. It was already wired and ready to go, so I unhooked my amp and subs, moved them to the new truck, and all was good. Saturday I decided I missed my truck, and wasnted to move back. So - I once again unhooked everything, moved it back to the truck it was in one week prior, and now it wont work. I plugged in the RCA's, speaker wires, remote, power, and as soon as I plugged in the ground, my fuses blew. (2 30 amp fuses located on the amp body itself.) So, I tried to replace the fuses, and as soon as they touch their plug in, blue sparks fly. Tried a few times, checked wiring, and couldnt find a problem, so I assumed my amp had gone bad. Today I took my husbands amp to plug in, this time connecting the ground before the power, and as soon as I plug in the power, the fuses blow. Try a new fuse, get blue sparks again, and blown fuse. Unplug speaker wires, try again, same thing. Unplug RCA's, try again, same outcome. Unlpug remote, same thing.... For some reason all is fine until BOTH the ground and power are plugged in. And remember, they worked fine, 1 week prior to this. Does anyone have ANY idea what might e causing this, and how I can fix it?? Thank you! Oh, and the amp is attached to the side of the sub box, just in case that was a question.

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[Joseph7195 10+ year member]

Welcome to Ca.com!!! The most common cause of an amp not working is getting the positive and negative backwards. Please don't take offense if this is not your problem. Even me in my infinite wisdom has been caught off guard by this. If there are major sparks, you will definitely need to find the problem before you turn your amp back on. If ya got some time, some pics of your install could possibly help other members helping you out also.

 

[Kangaroux 5,000+ posts]

Welcome to Ca.com!!! The most common cause of an amp not working is getting the positive and negative backwards. Please don't take offense if this is not your problem. Even me in my infinite wisdom has been caught off guard by this. If there are major sparks, you will definitely need to find the problem before you turn your amp back on. If ya got some time, some pics of your install could possibly help other members helping you out also.

This, sounds like your pos and neg are backwards. If you check the DC voltage at the amp's input terminals with a multi meter and it reads a negative value (such as -14.1v) that means your wires are swapped

 

[SamanthaW]

well the first night, my husband AND his friend both looked, and said I had it hooked up right, which is why we thought it was the amp itself, but even the new amp does the same thing..... Ive got a bright red power, and a thick black ground, so I know I have them in the right places.... I am out of fuses, so I cant try again until tomorrow, and its too dark for pics at the moment, but I'll try to get some uploaded tomorrow.

 

[Umbra]

Is it possible the color coded wires were swapped under the hood, so the red is actually ground and the black is battery positive? Not recently, of course, but maybe they were put in backwards and once the mistake was realized it was just left that way and wired accordingly on the amp, because it's just a colored jacket after all.

It sounds like you can at least narrow it down to a problem with the positive and ground wiring if it happens with both amps.

 

[SamanthaW]

Nope, I thought about that too. The wire going to my battery, is red.

 

[mylows10 5,000+ posts]

Also check for a pinched or cut power wire

 

[SamanthaW]

Ahhh yes.... I didnt check for anything to be pinched.... I may have pinched it when I slid the subs back behind the seat.... I will double check that tomorrow as well. Thank you for your help, and thoughts, and ideas everyone!!