Speakers died for no reason?

[SGSeeker 10+ year member]

I went to plug my 1.1000 into the car and it made a nasty smell (without being plugged into any subs). I bench tested this thing prior and it worked fine. Only had power, ground, remote, and rca's but I never saw the thing on - upon close inspection it smelled funny. Now I have to pull this thing apart and see what the **** thing did to itself. Of course, fuses are all good still. The gain was turned all the way down, the crossover was apparently at 75hz, subsonic off and voltage setting at 1.0-8.0v.

Plugged the old amp back in and it works fine. Why are my things just randomly frying for no reason?! I've never had a problem with any car audio equipment until now.

Anyways, with a 1KHz test tone, the voltage going to the speakers is about 1/3 that with the 100Hz test tone. Being set at 100Hz, or at 1KHz, the old speakers wouldn't have been overpowered at all. Tested these all to get a good baseline for setting up the gain for the midbass/midrange speakers I have in the doors for now until I get get some better drivers.

 

[Pl8er 5,000+ posts]

Have you always used the same ground? How and where are you pulling your power from? Something seems very off here.

 

[Linkz 10+ year member]

wired the power backwards?

 

[SGSeeker 10+ year member]

wired the power backwards?

Nope, that was the first thing I checked which is when I noticed the smell. I also probed it and got 12v (edit: actually 12.1v) grounding to the neg and checking both the + and remote. Very odd issue. Kinda hard to kill an amp by only trying to power it up unless you do indeed put the wires in the wrong places.

I have the power being Kicker 1/0 to the back, starting from a Stinger dual 1/0 post battery terminal to a 150A fuse then in the back a T block puts 4 gauge to the two amps (4.150 and, well, an Eclipse right now). The ground is to a 1/2" (thread width) bolt that holds it to a thick sheetmetal area (main support for the rear roof) that is ground down to the metal with two of those...washers that press into the material in a star pattern, under washers, under a nut on the opposite side of the bolt head. Anyways, the gain was turned down to nothing so if my 500w amp works great there, there is no reason the PDX shouldn't. I don't remember the resistance from the ground mounting point to the battery but it was quite good when I ran the wiring 2 years ago.

I'll drop the amp off at a relatives and let them have a go at figuring it out - all that pro-studio electrical knowledge should fit right in here.

 

[macq32 10+ year member]

there's a reason

 

[Pl8er 5,000+ posts]

Have you checked the power wire from the battery all the way back? Check for any pinch points that could be making contact with the frame.

It could just be a coincidence and nothing is wrong (just faulty equipment). But seems off with the problems you are having.

 

[SGSeeker 10+ year member]

Have you checked the power wire from the battery all the way back? Check for any pinch points that could be making contact with the frame.
It could just be a coincidence and nothing is wrong (just faulty equipment). But seems off with the problems you are having.

There is nowhere the wire could even be pinched - it runs in a big open void and is ziptied in place. The wire's fuse would burn fairly quickly if this were the case. Anyways, the amp was opened up and there isn't a single scorch mark anywhere and I guess all the culprit parts have been tested and all test fine (I'm not an electrical engineer - I don't know what all the parts are or what many of them do but just going off what I was told). He's going to try powering it up himself now on the bench to better see what's going on. Supposedly there isn't any smell inside either...thinking the smell I smelled earlier was wire rather than the amp. If the entire power supply checks out fine, I don't see why it won't power on.

 

[edzy 10+ year member]

I would ohm out the ground to start. next make sure the rem is 12 volt +. ( if the rem was effed it it would show in the deck, so its dobtful). Other then tha??? if the feed is 12.1? now is that with the car on?

At this point i would hook things up with whips at the battery to see if it was indeed the amp or wires.

in this order.

neg to amp/bat

fused pos to amp/bat

jumper from rem to amps pos

rcas from deck

sub.

if it works fine like that, then its the wiring in the car, if not, then the amp.