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Knowledgable audiophiles give input please

S

Sprebound

Veteran CEG'er
Joined
May 2, 2005
Messages
806
Location
Lakeville, MN
Ok, so I bought a used Audiobahn A8002T amp off a guy on the forums. I am running a 4 guage power cable to the amp with an inline fuse. The amp turns on and works...but it only does this when the car is not running. As soon as I turn the car on, the amp goes into protection mode. The fuses are all good, the ground is good...so what could be going on? Maybe the remote wire? It is just confusing because I don't understand why it would work with the car off and then not when the car is on...
 
try this: disconnect ur power wire. start the car. CONNECT POWER WIRE.

- if the amp works, i would assume ur ground is not good enough and cannot handle the surge of power that it takes when u start ur car. i had issues with that when i installed my system. i would get insane kick-back. my subs would go "BOOM" intermittenly, EVEN WHEN MY DECK WAS IN STANDBY MODE (meaning that the deck was still on and so were the subs, but no information was being sent to the subs). so i used double 8 gauge wires for the ground with single 8 gauge power. havent had any issues since

- if ur amp doesnt work, i would say that something is wrong with ur amp. i dont see y it wouldnt accept that kind of power...i mean it could just be blown. *sigh* i know my philips stereo at home has a fried circuit board haha. it does the same thing: it turns on, but then just dies, going into protection mode...
 
worst case scenario, skip everything and run the power and ignition/remote wire straight from the battery (like a jumper wire, not routed in the car, etc) and see if it replicates the problem.. If it doesn't, the problem is either in a poor ground, or a missing/poor ignition wire.
 
Ray said:
worst case scenario, skip everything and run the power and ignition/remote wire straight from the battery (like a jumper wire, not routed in the car, etc) and see if it replicates the problem.. If it doesn't, the problem is either in a poor ground, or a missing/poor ignition wire.
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good call, ray. i forgot to think of that. thats what ive been told is called "ghetto-rigged," not that i agree with that name or anything. its where u dont have a remote wire and u just connect/disconnect ur power/ground to turn ur amp on/off (lol lots of /'s haha!). bcuz one thing i didnt think of is maybe ur remote wire is too big of a gauge? im not sure what happens if its too big, all i know is that its sposta be rather small...
 
FavoriteMystaque said:
Check voltage at Amp power terminal, see if it is too high (over 15V) when car is running.
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another good call. most systems in the car will "survive" if your voltage regulator starts heading south and producing too much power; the addition of an amplifier adds a more "sensitive" piece to the system. The amplifiers require a much tighter tolerance/range of input voltage.
 
Alright...sorry it has taken so long for a follow up. I have been pretty busy lately... I disconnected the power wire, turned the car on and then reconnected the power wire. No good, it went straight into protection mode. I then took off my ground (currently connected under the driver side rear seat latch.) and, with the dremel, made sure that it had enough bare metal for a good ground. Same thing, it turns on and runs with the car off but as soon as I turn the car on it goes into protection mode. This is the size of all the wire that I am using:

17 Feet ------- 4 Gauge ------ Red Power Cable
3 Feet -------- 4 Gauge ------ Black Ground Cable
18 Feet ------ 18 Gauge ------ Blue Remote Wire
15 Feet ---------------------- Blue Twisted pair RCA Cable

That is copied straight from the kit's page on ebay. I haven't cut any of the wire yet because I am still waiting on getting the sub mount from steeda...I just put on the ends and connected everything.

Maybe this is worth mentioning as well - I am using an AGU 80A in-line fuse that is connected about 8" from the positive terminal which also came in the kit. Both 30A fuses on the back of the amp are still good as well.

I just can't figure it out in my head why the amp would run completely fine when the car is off but as soon as I turn it on, it goes into protection mode.
I hope this guy didn't lie to me and sell me a broken amp. If it turns out that way, myself and Mr. ViggenPower are going to be having a lil chat...
 
Amp Voltage?

Amp Voltage?

What is the Voltage car off/system on, voltage car on?
 
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Ah...I dunno yet. I tried the multimeter today but I honestly have no idea to use it and I apparently did it wrong because I blew the fuse. I will get back to ya on that...haha...
 
hmm, maybe check ur ground connection on the back of ur amp to make sure its still holding nicely. a good ground is worthless if its loosely connected to ur amp :laugh: haha. umm i noticed ur amp is 800w peak. its probably about 400w rms, so imho, i would use an 8-gauge wire. im running 8-gauge power and two 8-gauge grounds, and i have an 800w-340w 2-channel amp. but anyways maybe you'll have more useful information when u check the voltage lol, i'll sit back and wait until then :).
 
My brother in law had this happen to his Hifonics Brutus amp a month or so ago. What happened is a wire came loose on the speaker terminal and contacted the other wire and shorted out sending the amp into protect.
He sent it into Hifonics for repairs and they told him nothing was wrong and that the amp just needed to be "reset" They didnt go into details about how to reset the amp but they reset it and sent it back to him.
 
Carpepoon, would your brothers play w/ car off like the OP? Just kinda curious, as the speakers shorting out should always send it into proitect mode, shouldn't it?
 
lol good point. is there a possibility that there is a short being created while the engine is running as opposed to when its not? it doesnt seem possible to me to be honest...
 
getsum111 said:
Carpepoon, would your brothers play w/ car off like the OP? Just kinda curious, as the speakers shorting out should always send it into proitect mode, shouldn't it?
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Sorry, I should have elaborated a bit more.. He obviously fixed the short and hooked everything back up. But the amp would only work until he gave it decent power. I dont think car off vs running made a difference but any time he turned the volume up to a moderate level it would go back into protect. Once the amp was "reset" it worked like new.

So let me get this straight, volume does not matter with this setup? Even with your volume at "0" your amplifier should still be on. This works fine but as soon as you turn your car on it goes into protect? Did you try the "ghetto rig" setup? where you disconnect the RMS wire and simply run a jumper from the battery hookup on the amp to the RMS terminal? Any luck with that?
What ohm load are you running? Your not running too low of a load are you? i.e. a 1ohm load to a 4ohm stable amp? I could see that causing a problem similar to this once the voltage gets cranked up to the amplifier with the car running.
 
You must have had the meter on DC amps. Make sure it's set for DC Volts, 20 range, black to ground, red to +.
 
Ok. I will go find my analog multimeter and check the voltages in a lil bit. I will also try the "ghetto fab" idea. Right now, I do not have the amp connected to any speakers at all. Regardless of the speaker being hooked up, it still acts the same. I bought a Pioneer TS-W257D2 thinking that I would be able to run it at 400W rms at 2-ohms. BUT, I didn't know that you had to have both voice coils hooked up for the sub to work correctly, so when it is hooked up, it is running at 200w rms at 4-ohms. Like I said....I am not knowledgeable with this stuff and the numbers confuse the hell out of me. But regardless...I will test the voltage and the "jumping" method and get back to ya'll within the hour.
 
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