Problem with amp/wiring? Please help

[leon 10+ year member]

Thought I'll post my post here to garner the most support. I am completely and utterly desperate here!

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! =(

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.

Click to read more...

 

[thai_creeper 10+ year member]

why don't you take it back to best buy and tell them?

 

[leon 10+ year member]

why don't you take it back to best buy and tell them?

Trust me, I plan on doing that tomorrow. I just want to know if this is a problem I can fix myself and spare the installers at Best Buy a chuck norris roundhouse kick to the face.

 

[wlmrs 10+ year member]

why don't you take it back to best buy and tell them?

X2 you paid for an install they should take care of it.PERIOD!

 

[Prowler573 5,000+ posts]

Is the CUR warning only an indicator of overcurrent as opposed to also being the warning for undercurrent, too?

What kinda car is this installed in, friend?

 

[leon 10+ year member]

Is the CUR warning only an indicator of overcurrent as opposed to also being the warning for undercurrent, too?
What kinda car is this installed in, friend?

I looked closely into what CUR means and it's basically a short circuit. But it only happens when I turn up the subwoofers. When I play it low, it's fine and it sounds great. But sometimes I'd like to turn it up and rattle my windows. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

It's installed in a 2005 Nissan Xterra.

 

[Prowler573 5,000+ posts]

I'm really thinking that CUR could possibly be the warnning for multiple things. And my guess right now is that either the subs are wired to the amp improperly. What voice coil configuration are your subs, if you know? Outside of that I think maybe your Xterra's alternator doesn't have enough *** to keep up with that big ole Alpine? Dunno...

Let me know about the VC configuration for your Rs if you know and we'll go from there.

 

[leon 10+ year member]

I'm really thinking that CUR could possibly be the warnning for multiple things. And my guess right now is that either the subs are wired to the amp improperly. What voice coil configuration are your subs, if you know? Outside of that I think maybe your Xterra's alternator doesn't have enough *** to keep up with that big ole Alpine? Dunno...
Let me know about the VC configuration for your Rs if you know and we'll go from there.

It's a DVC Type-R at 2-ohms. I'm starting to feel like it's more of a wiring error in my box. I'm tempted to go out and check it now but it's 1 am here and I don't want to wake up my neighbors. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif

I'll try to describe how Best Buy wired my subs to the amp... From the two terminals, they wired separate speaker wire and joined them with a single run of speaker wire to create a "Y", then they hooked the lone end into my amp.

I don't know how they wired it inside my box. I think they might have wired it standard for a DVC 4-ohms, which would present a 0.5 ohms load to a amp that's stable at 2-ohms.

 

[Prowler573 5,000+ posts]

It's a DVC Type-R at 2-ohms. I'm starting to feel like it's more of a wiring error in my box. I'm tempted to go out and check it now but it's 1 am here and I don't want to wake up my neighbors. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif
I'll try to describe how Best Buy wired my subs to the amp... From the two terminals, they wired separate speaker wire and joined them with a single run of speaker wire to create a "Y", then they hooked the lone end into my amp.

So they wired the terminals in parallel. We still need to know how the subs are wired to the terminals.

I don't know how they wired it inside my box. I think they might have wired it standard for a DVC 4-ohms, which would present a 0.5 ohms load to a amp that's stable at 2-ohms.

"Standard" wiring for a pair of DVC 4 Ohm drivers results in either a 1 Ohm load or a 4 Ohm load depending on how it's done. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/fyi.gif.9f1f679348da7204ce960cfc74bca8e0.gif But you're right, if they are wired to a final load of 1/2 Ohm on that particular monoblock can it equal unhappy equipment.

 

[leon 10+ year member]

Well, I just checked my wires outside of the box and I noticed they said "rockford fosgate blah blah high speed yada yada 16 awg".

Does that mean 16 gauge wire? If so, I will be EXTREMELY PISSED OFF because I requested that they use 10 gauge speaker wire. And on top of that, my kit came with 14 gauge speaker wire so they "downgraded" my system. Now I'm wondering what else they could have fucked me on.

 

[Prowler573 5,000+ posts]

Yes, 16awg is the same as 16 gauge.

 

[leon 10+ year member]

Yes, 16awg is the same as 16 gauge.

//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/furious.gif.fc81ca146dbff91fede3ed290dbc4f4c.gif :furious: //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/furious.gif.fc81ca146dbff91fede3ed290dbc4f4c.gif