khott2003

I just got 2 Alpine 12" Type-R's and I hadn't previously hooked up the amp for them in this car. The amp is an Alpine MRV-1507. I had it hooked up in my last car, a 91 GXE and it worked fine. For those of you who don't know what it looks like there are three indicator lights on the top of the amp for Protection, Music, and Power. Well when i only had the remote turn on and ground hooked up the Power light turned red, which is normal and meant that I hadn't hooked up the power wire yet. So i hooked up my power wire to my battery but i'm not using power rings, but i didn't on my old car either and it worked fine. And my fuse holder was being a pain and for some reason the wire didnt fit smoothly into the holder, i actually had to use force. Anyways i got the power wire hooked up to the battery and amp and then the indicator lights started going nuts. I was getting RCA ground floated from the Protection light, Music input and Heavy current flowing in amplifier (alternating) from the Music light, and finally Poor battery voltage (less than 10V) from the Power light. I checked all fuses and they were fine. And my remote turn-on lead is putting out power. So I turned on the car hoping it would put out better power from the battery to the amp and at first both the Protection and Music light showed green but the Power light was still blinking meaning poor battery voltage. Then out of dumb luck it turned on and the subs were working. So i thought it was a fluke and i went to turn up the volume on the headunit and when it got to just above say 30% it shut off again with the Power light blinking red once more. Then it would sporadically flash all the lights like it did originally.

I am stumped, completely stumped. What would cause this?? I have all my wires running underneath the carpeting into the trunk and I dont think that anything is being grounded inadvertantly. Power must be getting to it for it to have worked for that brief moment. I'm thinking that I'm not getting enough voltage through my system. What can fix that? I have a 97 GXE btw. Thanks guys.

spta97

iTrader: (1)

I had problems with my JL Audio 500/1 amp that drove me nuts too. It would just die out with no pattern. Worked fine for hours then would go off. It turned out that my fuse holder wasn't cupping my fuse properly. I only found that out when I jiggled the wire with a friend in the car.

As far as your problem, first thing I would do is get a 12 volt test light and connect it to the wire coming from your battery (disconnect it from the amp). With the light grounded you should get a solid light. Have a helper jiggle the connections at the battery including the fuse holder. Since you had mentioned that you had to force on the fuse holder it could be a bad connection in there.

If that works ok, connect the test light to the positive battery terminal via a long wire (be carful, if it grounds out you could spark up stuff). Touch the point of the test light to your ground and do some jiggling. With a good ground you should have a solid light.

Next thing is to check your turn on lead. Disconnect it from the amp and connect to your test light (have your test light grounded). Turn on the radio and make sure you are getting a solid light (again, giggle the connection).

If all that fails, try another amp (if you have access to one).

Good luck.

khott2003

Do you think it could be related to this?: http://forums.maxima.org/showthread....ght=electrical

I think I've narrowed it down to it being a power shortage. I jiggled the wires and the amp turned on so i went to turn up the volume and it shut off again. so i tried jiggling the wires once more but no luck this time, so i gave up for the night. but this morning on the way to school they worked the whole trip and i didnt touch a thing.... any ideas?

spta97

iTrader: (1)

Yes, if there is a recall on your alternator I would get that addressed first. Actually, I would go through the trouble of taking out the amp (or at least the power wire out of the engine compartment). If you do have a bad alt, the dealer could claim that your amp is to blame.

What year is your car anyway?

khott2003

well i'm out of luck cause my car missed the recall range, i have a 97 gxe but it was manufactured in 96. at least i dont have worry about taking out my wires or anything. should i still look into getting the alternator replaced anyways? I talked to my mechanic about a month ago about the problem i was having which i had described in that one thread and he couldnt draw a conclusion. he said it might need replacement but he wasnt sure. well if amp still works tonight should i keep playing them or am i gonna damage something. i had my component amp running for nearly a month now and haven't had any of the problems im having with my sub amp. the component amp is a sony 40x4 RMS and right now my alpine sub amp is only wired to 150x2 RMS but i only have one channel hooked up to the subs. Thanks

spta97

iTrader: (1)

I'm not sure if you should replace the alt in the car. Did the mechanic take a volt reading off of it? Was it not putting out the proper voltage? If so, then sounds like it could be a bad alt. However, your component amp probably would have the same problem. I would see if you could get it working in another car (the sub amp) or try a new amp in yours. Just make sure it's not the amp that's busted.

Another thing to check is to see if it happens when the engine is not running (ie: stereo running of the battery). If it does the same thing then it is probabbly not the alt.

As far as using the amp now, I think that the circuits inside it will protect it but I would not take the chance. In my JL 500/1 problem I played it when it had the intermittent problem and everything was fine when I finally got it fixed. I just don't want you to blow your amp on what I tell you to do.

AudioAltima

I'm guessing the impedance is too low for the amp, and it shuts off into protection. This was happening to me, it turned out that one of my subs was blown. Test and see what the subs are reading right now. Then test them individually!

khott2003

Well the subs worked great for a full 15 min after school but then I turned them down and when i went to turn them back up about 20 min later they didnt come back on. I thought of another idea besides the alternator tho...I just remembered that i used the 10 ga ground wire from my component amp wires for my sub amp because it is about 2x as long. So I have a 4 ga power wire going into the amp and a 10 ga going out. Would that might cause it to do this? How do i test impedance? My friend who had the subs before said the box should be wired for 4 ohms. All of my connections are pretty good and tight so I doubt its that anymore, should I still look for power rings anyways? I can't find any for 4 ga wire except from Crutchfield but they are $10 for 2. Thanks everyone.

spta97

iTrader: (1)

Do you mean 10 gauge or 1/0 gauge? 10 ga. is smaller than 4 ga. You should have the same gauge wire coming from the battery and going to the ground (if you run 1 wire for 2 amps you can use distrobution blocks to split the ground and power wires to smaller gauges). I don't think it would cause your particular problem, but it could cause other problems (including noise) in your system.

As far as the power rings, check this:

Power Rings

(I would get the screw-down kind - they hold the wire the best I've seen)

I have no idea how you connected a 4 ga. wire to the battery without a power ring terminal Please explain! But YES, you should get them. If only one strand touches a ground that could cause you an a*ss load of problems.