sub keeps turning on and off

[chrismagee]

sometimes when I start my car my sub wont be on, or it will be on and eventually, sooner rather than later, turn off again.

so naturally I opened my trunk to look and see if any of my amp wires were loose or if anything was out of place, checked all my wires, everything was nice and tight, ground was still grounded, everything looks good. Went to the front, took my head unit out, RCAs plugged in fine, remotes hooked up, everythings gravy.

so I slam my trunk shut in a little frustration and bam, my sub turns on, stays on for a little bit, shut back off, and I try the thing with my trunk again and it turns back on.

so this lead me to thinking that maybe it was the speaker wire inside of the box, took my sub out, checked all the wiring inside and everything looks good.

I also checked different sources to see if that was the case, still happens whether I'm using my iPod attachment or CD source.

so basically I'm lead to believe its either my head unit, which I think it isn't, or my amp, which is a shitty BOSS brand amp that I've had and used quite regularly for almost a year.

can anyone think of anything else I could try before buying a new amp? i'm eyeballing a few alpine v-power mono's on eBay to power my 12" type-e

thanks in advance

ADD: another reason I think its most likely the amp is because I have it mounted on the box so I'm thinking cheap materials in the amp + being mounted on the box = some broken welds or rattled wires inside there

Another add: I've also checked my battery connection and fuse under the hood and everythings solid there too

Click to read more...

 

[Boomintempo 10+ year member]

I think you answered your question in the post...

1- It's a BOSS amp that's mounted to your box

2- It's a BOSS amp

3- BOSS

Dunno if you've seen the guts of a BOSS amp...but they're cheap for a reason!!! Shake the amp, if possible, and see what happens. That'll let your REALLY know if it's the amp or not...

Also...lots of people mount their amps to their box's, but it just doesn't sound like it's a good idea. That's a lot of vibration for equipment...

 

[misfit138 5,000+ posts]

I've never spoken up on the whole "it's bad to mount an amp to a box" debate, but I'm going to now.

Mounting your amplfier directly to an enclosure isn't ideal, but it's not the worst idea in the world either. People claim that the vibrations damage the amplfiers circuitry, but I have not once witnessed this in my nearly 15 years of experience in the hobby.

If reasonable levels of vibration can damage an amplifer, then how can you explain massive ground pounder systems that have amplifiers mounted directly above or below the enclosure (or anywhere else within the vehicle's interior for that matter)? If vibrations really kill amplifiers, guys that run 25,000+ watts would have to install their amps in trailers and pull them along everywhere they go. Seriously, when you're running multiple subwoofers and tremendous amounts of power, EVERY SINGLE THING in your vehicle is going to vibrate violently.

 

[Anton Miller 10+ year member]

sounds to me like a shady ground. try grounding to a different location. make sure to scrape the paint away from where you ground.

but you could always take the amp apart and try to see if there are any loose wires. i do it about every 2 months just to make sure.

 

[Kern417 10+ year member]

I've never spoken up on the whole "it's bad to mount an amp to a box" debate, but I'm going to now.
Mounting your amplfier directly to an enclosure isn't ideal, but it's not the worst idea in the world either. People claim that the vibrations damage the amplfiers circuitry, but I have not once witnessed this in my nearly 15 years of experience in the hobby.

If reasonable levels of vibration can damage an amplifer, then how can you explain massive ground pounder systems that have amplifiers mounted directly above or below the enclosure (or anywhere else within the vehicle's interior for that matter)? If vibrations really kill amplifiers, guys that run 25,000+ watts would have to install their amps in trailers and pull them along everywhere they go. Seriously, when you're running multiple subwoofers and tremendous amounts of power, EVERY SINGLE THING in your vehicle is going to vibrate violently.

I know if you don't have proper bracing on a big enough enclosure it will damage the amp fromt he box hitting the bottom of the amp. I would highly recommend using spacers either way, that's what I use to protect my amp. I've heard even then it can get damage though.

 

[x2o 10+ year member]

I've never spoken up on the whole "it's bad to mount an amp to a box" debate, but I'm going to now.
Mounting your amplfier directly to an enclosure isn't ideal, but it's not the worst idea in the world either. People claim that the vibrations damage the amplfiers circuitry, but I have not once witnessed this in my nearly 15 years of experience in the hobby.

If reasonable levels of vibration can damage an amplifer, then how can you explain massive ground pounder systems that have amplifiers mounted directly above or below the enclosure (or anywhere else within the vehicle's interior for that matter)? If vibrations really kill amplifiers, guys that run 25,000+ watts would have to install their amps in trailers and pull them along everywhere they go. Seriously, when you're running multiple subwoofers and tremendous amounts of power, EVERY SINGLE THING in your vehicle is going to vibrate violently.

As kern mentioned above, think of a box that is not properly braced and suffers from large panels flexing. This happened to one of my boxes and my GP3000D, the vibrations actually broke the transistor legs that mounted them to the board. Upon breaking, I'm assuming they shorted out with either the casing or one another, and quickly blew multiple fets in a violent firework show, lol. I actually heard this was somewhat a common problem with the GP3000D's, which I'm assuming is from diminshed quality in certain parts or solder connections, but hey, for the price what do you expect? It was a great amp //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif.

EDIT : Just so you know I am not saying you are wrong, I do agree with you. It is not an ideal mounting location by far, but has worked well for many, many people. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

 

[x2o 10+ year member]

Now, as to the original question at hand, I would first check grounds, but another thing you may wanna check is the tinsel wire. This happened on my MT, the tinsel wires started to become frayed from excessive tinsel slap (which wasn't very audible due to felt pads), but basically the wire was about to break and the connection was shotty at best. Some new tinsels and I haven't had the problem since, it is still beating away in my brothers trunk //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif.

 

[chrismagee]

Now, as to the original question at hand, I would first check grounds, but another thing you may wanna check is the tinsel wire. This happened on my MT, the tinsel wires started to become frayed from excessive tinsel slap (which wasn't very audible due to felt pads), but basically the wire was about to break and the connection was shotty at best. Some new tinsels and I haven't had the problem since, it is still beating away in my brothers trunk //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif.

whats tinsel wires?

 

[x2o 10+ year member]

whats tinsel wires?

Basically it's the wire that connects the terminals (where your speaker wire plugs to on the sub) to the voice coil. It's generally a silverish, thick, braided looking wire. Let me see if I can find a picture..

 

[x2o 10+ year member]

Those two leads you see going towards the center of the spider would be the tinsels.

 

[misfit138 5,000+ posts]

if you don't have proper bracing on a big enough enclosure it will damage the amp fromt he box hitting the bottom of the amp.

Of coarse the amplifer can (and probably will) be damaged if it's mounted to a baffle that flexes like crazy. That's common sense...

 

[chrismagee]

Basically it's the wire that connects the terminals (where your speaker wire plugs to on the sub) to the voice coil. It's generally a silverish, thick, braided looking wire. Let me see if I can find a picture..

once I started thinking about it I figured thats what it would be, how does one go about replacing those?

 

[subzero 5,000+ posts]

once I started thinking about it I figured thats what it would be, how does one go about replacing those?

Recone...

 

[DidUHearThat? 10+ year member]

Possible problems:

1. Loose power connection

2. Loose speaker wire connection

3. Loose component in amp

4. Broken connector terminal/mount

5. Low battery voltage

6. It's a shity BOSS amp

 

[MakeshiftAudio 10+ year member]

With every amplifier repair I do, I resolder every mosfet leg to prevent vibration damage. Same method as dB-r's.

He has a competitor with 4 Memphis Mojo 4ks that were sent in due to vibration damage, and have not had a problem to date after the solder job. It's standard service for my repairs.

If something is flexing, even slightly, don't mount your amp to it. *Facepalm.* How simple is that? If you absolutely have to, mount something like another layer of MDF to it to help prevent it.