Proper Amp Ground

[AphexTwin 10+ year member]

Ok so i have 2 Diamond amp's and im running 4ga grounds out of them to a unfused distro block and then 1/0 guage out of the disto to a factory bolt on the rear floorpan. My question is this a good way of grounding 3 amps, does it matter that its going up in gauge wire size?

Here is a picture, the 1/0 gauge goes to a factory bolt.

Im only asking because im trying to eliminate possible reasons for some trouble i been having.

I have been having problems with my component amp shutting off at extreme volume, it only shuts off at really high volume and only for a few seconds, it doesnt get hot and the other amps (subs and rears) are fine and dont shut off. It's really weird.

Click to read more...

 

[JimJ 5,000+ posts]

Have you measured the resistance at the ground point?

Run a clip lead back from the negative post of the battery on your DMM...use the other lead to test the bolt. If it's very, very close to zero ohms, you're good. If there's a significant amount of resistance there - you have issues.

 

[dkguitarist 5,000+ posts]

also, make sure your amps are getting enough voltage cuz most amps will shut off if they don't receive a certain amount of input voltage.

 

[jeepintn 10+ year member]

not sure if this helps... but a lot of times, i have found that the best place to ground amps to is a seatbelt bolt... remove it and the bracket... use a grinder and grind the paint off under the bracket... place the grounds on with a small amt of vasoline to prevent rust, place everything back and tighten. works like a champ!

 

[AphexTwin 10+ year member]

Well thanks for all the replies. I dont have a DMM (yet) but my friend is gonna let me use his, ill test volts and stuff then. I have a voltage readout on my instrument cluster and it hardly moves from 14v, maybe when im idle it goes down a tad but nothing huge. Are these voltage meters in the dash reliable? I redid my ground at the factory bolt, put a bigger locknut and tighten it really good. I havent put it really loud yet again (dont wanna piss off my neighbors) but when i put it moderatly loud no probs. So ill test it on the way to work tommorow. One more question any1 know if the passive crossover model 480 from CDT has a protect circuit? I know the 560 doesnt. Im throwing 200 watts at em just wondering if that could be part of the problem, they are rated at 140 but i also have an upstage connected to em so i figured the extra wattage wouldnt hurt.

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

I wouldn't worry about the power, you're not running that much to them anyway, regardless of what the amp is capable of.

Chances are that you have a bad power or ground connection causing the amp to go into low voltage protection mode. As far as how you have he ground running to a distro, there's nothing wrong with it at all as long as your connections are good. Raher than checking the resistance of the ground point, it actually works better to test voltage drop at various points along the power chain with the amp drawing current. If you get a significant drop, you need to make a better connection at that point.

 

[CityHunt3R]

OK OK IM CONVINCED MY GROUD SUCKS ILL ground thru the seat belt bolt my amp keeps going into protection mode too