Unexplained sub woofer behavior, can you help me find what's happening ?

[Mistushi]

Hi everyone,

i'm not new here but i finnaly joined today to get some help from you guys on a weird problem with my sub woofer.

So, i have a mitsubishi lancer 2011, i added an alpine head unit with some hertz speakers. Everything works fine and sounds really nice but the sub woofer is not working from time to time, it's really random, i can drive all day without problems and then the day after its going on , off , on , off and so on, like 5-6 times a day.

I was wondering if you guys could help me to solve this problem, to me it sounds like a wire that will fall of soon but i checked all the cables around the amps and the sub, they are fine, so maybe it's the cable behind the head unit ?

Here's my amps and head unit :

> mrp-f300

> mrp-m1000

> cda-117

( i did not changed settings on the head unit )

Tell me if you need more information and what you need to know to help me.

Thanks a lot !!!

Click to read more...

 

[matt_bennett05 10+ year member]

few things... amp going into protect? sub making any funny noises while playing? RCA cables behind headunit loose or bent causing a connection interrupt (cuts on / off if you move them)? Could be a number of things so we'll need more info

 

[blazian87 10+ year member]

Did you check your grounds for the sub amp? Maybe it's a little loose.. That can cause the sub to turn off and on randomly.

 

[LongThrow]

Did you check your grounds for the sub amp? Maybe it's a little loose.. That can cause the sub to turn off and on randomly.

Most probable cause.

That would send most amps into protect and would have to shut off amp on and off to get it to play again. Wouldn't just resume playing from my experiences.

OP does it turn on and off while playing music without having to turn your head unit/amp off and on? If so it's probably what the second poster said with loose or bent RCA's. Have you checked speaker wires inside your sub box and to your amp? Check again.

 

[Mistushi]

I will check the ground connection, i did not thought of that ! thanks !

The sub woofer stops playing while everything else keeps playing, and the head unit is not turning off by itself.

I tried to turn off and on the head unit but it doesn't change anything.

I will check the ground connection but i was asking this here before i begin to remove all the front dash and head unit just to see if its still well connected.

Thanks for your advices !

 

[JustGotOne]

I had that problem years ago with some subs, I checked everything, or so I thought. turned out it was the braided wire on the sub itself that was the problem. The solder joint separated. Once I fixed that no more sub going in and out. That may not be your problem, but it won't hurt to check.

 

[Mistushi]

you mean the wire connected to the sub woofer itself in the case ? sure i can check this, with all the vibration going on haha thanks !!

 

[Mistushi]

Hi everyone, i'm back after a while sorry for that.

I looked at all you said and i see the ground cable is still going on the frame of the car with a big bolt, looks like it's okay for that...

I don't know if it's on protect mode or anything but the cda 117 head unit have a small red led always on, i'm not sure if it was there before.

If i take a pair of headphones and listen to the wire that goes IN the speaker amp, i can hear the music in my headphones. But if i do the same on the subwoofer amp, i can't head anything, i also tried to put the cable that goes into the speaker amp INPUT on the subwoofer INPUT to test but nothing is coming out of the sub woofer. Settings on the CDA 117 never changed and i doubled checked them..

I looked at the sub woofer itself, connectors and in the case, everything looks like it's at it's place and well connected.

I can conclude the problem is from the head unit ?

What you think about this ?

Thanks !!!!

 

[Mistushi]

Hey guys, i finnaly ended up by getting a new subwoofer amp because the first one was blown, it was fine for one day but today i experience the same problem. I think it's my battery and the fact that i don't use my car every day. Like 30 minutes each 2-3 days.

Guy at the car audio shop told me the battery was outputing 10V when the car was not running ( only the electronics powered on )

I got a kicker amp for the sub, it then stoped playing after 1 day. So i immediately turned off the head unit and both amps. The guy at the car shop told me i have a acid battery, a cheap one... and that i would benefit a lot with a "Gel" battery... Is this true ? Where should i start ? He told me also that the ground of the amp is going to the car frame with a big cable but then on the battery the ground cable is thin so the big cable is almost useless. The problem also may be because i don't use the car very often, like 30 minutes each 2-3 days... so the battery don't have enough time to charge itself i guess... at this point i don't know more than that.

Ask me questions, i'll go verify and tell you, i really need to sort this out, i don't want to blow up my second sub amp again..

Thanks a lot for all your comments.

 

[Mistushi]

So apparently my problem was the cable at the center of the car that goes from battery + to amplifier + was completely melted at half way. It was a not bad cable but low budget... I now replaced it with high quality cable. Don't buy cheap cables!!!

 

---------- Post added at 05:44 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:43 PM ----------

 

Now i need to get a new subwoofer speaker because it blew after some days of use, mostly because of the bad amplifier because of the bad wire... All this because of a fuuuuuuu wire...