Question about wiring problem

[krpto1973 10+ year member]

Guys/Gals,

I have a question about a problem I encountered while wiring up my new system this weekend. I solved the issue, but do not know why it was an issue, and was wandering if you couls shed some light.

So, I installed a 2 amp system (4-channel and a Mono), with 4 componets setups coming from the 4-channel. All the speakers worked great however when I hooked up the drivers door, and started increasing the volume, the amp would drop into a protection mode. I assumed, it was a problem with the crossover, and swapped it out with another from a door that was working. The problem stayed with the door, not the crossover. So, that wasn't it. I then disconnnected the tweeter from that crossover, and the problem still occurred. Reconnected the tweeter, and disconnected the woofer. Problem went away. So, great, I have it isolated to the woofer. I then swapped woofers with another door, and again the issue stayed with the same door. So the only thing left was the wiring. I pulled that run out, replaced it, and whala! The issue was gone.

So, great, no more problem, but that spawned two questions. The first, is... a problem downline of the corssover, and make it back through the crossover to fritz out the amp. Obvioulsy it can, because it did, but I thought that was odd. I figured the problem would just be isolated on that wire run, but I was wrong as it did go back through the cross over and to the amp. If anyone has any inside knowledge of how that works, I would love to be enlightend.

Second and more important, I checked that entire run of wire after I pulled it out, and do not see anything wrong with it. It is 14 guage wire with a second outer coating surround both wires. Thick and protected stuff. Now there was one section where the wire was severly flattened and both strands were really squezzed together. The casings never broke, so the wires never touched, but could they be in such... close proximity to each other while being cinked/squeezed together that it caused a voltage change that freaked out the amp? I am just curious because I see nothing else wrong with that wire run. And it worked fine at lower volumes, but as the power went up, thats when the amp would go into protection.

Any thoughts on either of those, and I would really appreciate it. Thanks

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[tobey 10+ year member]

I'm not sure I really understand the first question. You're saying you don't understand how a fault on one side of the crossover could effect your amp on the other side of the crossover? It's passive right? It's just a cap and some resistors, I'd imagine there's very little electrical isolation there.

As for the second question, did you ever examine your connections? It's possible the wire was fine, but you just had a single strand crossing terminals. This would cause the amp to overload at high volumes.

 

[krpto1973 10+ year member]

I just thought there was a little more stuff going on in the cross over, but if not, okay.

As for the the wires, I checked everything as it was coming apart, plus I reconnected both ends of the connection several times during testing. There was definitly no loose strands at the connection point. Whatever the issue is, is somewhere down in the wire.

It just seems odd that this would happen without an actual physical touch between the two wires.