Power wire touches ground a few times

[Bomber Z 10+ year member]

It has to be a cheap amp to blow a cap before blowing the fuse or tripping a breaker. Most amps now will go into protection before blowing up. Something else has to be wrong.

 

[adulbrich 5,000+ posts]

The protection circuitry isn't fool-proof.

 

[Bomber Z 10+ year member]

Then it is defective..

 

[adulbrich 5,000+ posts]

Then it is defective..

Go ground out your speaker terminals and tell me if your protection circuitry works

 

[Louisiana_CRX 5,000+ posts]

Nothing like a good light show....

 

[Bomber Z 10+ year member]

It works. Done it several times changing speakers. Even had screwdriver hit the amp + and - teminals amp went right into protect mode and or burn the fuse. Can't even tell you how man times doing installs and hook up speakers to the amp just to see how it sounds and drrop a wire and ground out amp goes right into prootect mode. Now back in the 80's-90's some of those amps would fry if ground out speaker terms. Now if you try that with a hundred dollar amp I don't know if it would hold up. Don't get me wrong I don't go trying to do that put time to time it happens and I don't recommend doing it. But if the amp can't handle a quick ground fault it is not worth the time to install. Can't even say how many time I see people come in a say their amp wont turn on and find something in the truck grounded out on the power and burnt the fuse. Change the fuse and everything comes back on as it should. Here straight from a Sundown, DD, SoundQubed, Kicker amp manuals.There are two lights on the end panel of amp, one green and one red. The green LED indicates the amp is turned on. The red indicates that there is a fault condition with the end panel fuses and need to be checked and goes on standard items to check like speaker term shorts. " Sundown 4 way protect circuit {thermal, voltage, speaker short and dc offset}, Digital Designs, Protection LED It illuminates when fault conditions exist and amp immediately shuts down if illuminated turn amp off, check for shorted speaker leads and DC noise from rca input and attempt to re-power amplifier. Protection SoundQubed amps have the safest protection circuits. When the amp is shutdown, protection LED [red light] is turned on on endpanel. SoundQubed amps will be back on when resetting headunitby turning off and on if there is no curcuit fault. 1] Overload: make sure spker min impedance is used and not lower than recommened impedance. 2] Overheat 3] speaker short 4] DC offset. 5] high & low voltage protection. SQ amps have protection range from 8.5- 16 volts, SQ 3500 has 8.5- 18 volts. Just about every amp manual and install trouble shoot shows the same thing and has a protect curcuit to keep a simple short from burning amp for years now. If you simply short speaker leads and it smokes the amp it has a faulty protection curcuit and or over fused. Now a common fault I have seen over the years is people hooking up multi speakers driving amp under it's ohm rating. That will over drive circuits in amp. Simple speaker lead fault burns your amp is because it is not a quality amp.

 

[Louisiana_CRX 5,000+ posts]

It works. Done it several times changing speakers. Even had screwdriver hit the amp + and - teminals amp went right into protect mode and or burn the fuse. Can't even tell you how man times doing installs and hook up speakers to the amp just to see how it sounds and drrop a wire and ground out amp goes right into prootect mode. Now back in the 80's-90's some of those amps would fry if ground out speaker terms. Now if you try that with a hundred dollar amp I don't know if it would hold up. Don't get me wrong I don't go trying to do that put time to time it happens and I don't recommend doing it. But if the amp can't handle a quick ground fault it is not worth the time to install. Can't even say how many time I see people come in a say their amp wont turn on and find something in the truck grounded out on the power and burnt the fuse. Change the fuse and everything comes back on as it should. Here straight from a Sundown, DD, SoundQubed, Kicker amp manuals.There are two lights on the end panel of amp, one green and one red. The green LED indicates the amp is turned on. The red indicates that there is a fault condition with the end panel fuses and need to be checked and goes on standard items to check like speaker term shorts. " Sundown 4 way protect circuit {thermal, voltage, speaker short and dc offset}, Digital Designs, Protection LED It illuminates when fault conditions exist and amp immediately shuts down if illuminated turn amp off, check for shorted speaker leads and DC noise from rca input and attempt to re-power amplifier. Protection SoundQubed amps have the safest protection circuits. When the amp is shutdown, protection LED [red light] is turned on on endpanel. SoundQubed amps will be back on when resetting headunitby turning off and on if there is no curcuit fault. 1] Overload: make sure spker min impedance is used and not lower than recommened impedance. 2] Overheat 3] speaker short 4] DC offset. 5] high & low voltage protection. SQ amps have protection range from 8.5- 16 volts, SQ 3500 has 8.5- 18 volts. Just about every amp manual and install trouble shoot shows the same thing and has a protect curcuit to keep a simple short from burning amp for years now. If you simply short speaker leads and it smokes the amp it has a faulty protection curcuit and or over fused. Now a common fault I have seen over the years is people hooking up multi speakers driving amp under it's ohm rating. That will over drive circuits in amp. Simple speaker lead fault burns your amp is because it is not a quality amp.

I had a bad Voice Coil on a new Tantric HDD10 that was due to poor crappy glue job thanks to Murphy at Tantric Audio fry my $1500 Team Cactus 7KW...The same sub would only put my DD M4 into protect...so even some newer expensive amps have weak protection circuits...

 

[tramont 10+ year member]

A fuse or breaker used?

I have a 0 Gauge Fused power wire running to a distrubution block then 2 4 gauge wire outputs going to my amp.

 

[tramont 10+ year member]

I tried lineout 2 and get no output from it So thats when i took my amp apart and found that there was some bad solder on rca joints.

 

[Bomber Z 10+ year member]

I had a bad Voice Coil on a new Tantric HDD10 that was due to poor crappy glue job thanks to Murphy at Tantric Audio fry my $1500 Team Cactus 7KW...The same sub would only put my DD M4 into protect...so even some newer expensive amps have weak protection circuits...

If a coild took out your 7K Cactas it had more wrong then the protect circuit. Could it be running 7K with a bad coil stressed mor ethen the circuit? More likely stressed afew more things out then just the protection circuit.

 

[Bomber Z 10+ year member]

Thats an easy fix. solder back up and should be good to go. Since I'm gtting so much crap for trying to help. Why a lot of people don't post. What make and model amp is it?

 

[Bomber Z 10+ year member]

I need to get some sleep. My typing is getting worse and worse as the day goes on. Then back to build sub boxes in the morning..... Maybe wire up some batteries if it don't get to hot.

 

[tramont 10+ year member]

Thanks I'll solder on a new one and give it a try hopefully it works I'll let you know

 

[Jeffdachef 5,000+ posts]

Go ground out your speaker terminals and tell me if your protection circuitry works

my hifonics worked. the bxi1610D that my buddy fked up while installing and sparked it for a few good seconds along with a brx 2400 where speaker terminals touched inside of an enclosure and shorted out. Also kenwood KAC 9105 that my buddy AGAIN fked up while installing and had the negative and positive switched.

All popped fuses and went to protect. Replaced fuses, and working like normal. Needless to say, he's never going close to amps ever again, He already got his permanent setup.

Point is, most companies that make "okay" amps and above generally design the protection circuit to do its job properly before blowing up rather than blowing up then protect.

 

[adulbrich 5,000+ posts]

my hifonics worked. the bxi1610D that my buddy fked up while installing and sparked it for a few good seconds along with a brx 2400 where speaker terminals touched inside of an enclosure and shorted out. Also kenwood KAC 9105 that my buddy AGAIN fked up while installing and had the negative and positive switched.
All popped fuses and went to protect. Replaced fuses, and working like normal. Needless to say, he's never going close to amps ever again, He already got his permanent setup.

Point is, most companies that make "okay" amps and above generally design the protection circuit to do its job properly before blowing up rather than blowing up then protect.

I grounded a speaker terminal on my Ampere 125.4 to the amp heatsink and it was fine. Didn't protect or blow a fuse or anything. Just a small spark