While I was tightening down the terminal of my power cable to the amp I accidently touched the screwdriver to the amp. There was a small spark and then the subs stopped working. I checked the fuses on the amp and they are not blown. The light on the amp no longer lights up, however when I first put the key in the ignition and turn the key, I can see the amp power light come on for a split second. Have I blown my amp? What else can I check?

 

Did you put an inline fuse by the battery for the amp power cable? Check that to see if it's not blown. Other then that, I can't think of anything else.

 

Most likely the fuse under the hood like posted above....

--Don

 

no fuse under the hood...i have the phoenix VB100. No fuse to replace, just supposed to reset the breaker arm. What the bumba clat!!

 

if that was blown there is NO WAY the amp light should come on at all..... no power would be getting to the amp.

 

There should always be an inline fuse no more than 12" from you positive battery terminal. It is there to protect the battery and keep it from exploding. If you do not have one you need to ASAP.

First unhook you speaker wires from the amp. Next go get a DMM or cheap VOM and test the voltage at the amp. You should have +12 VDC at both the + amp terminal and the remote turn on wire (provided the HU is on). You should also measure the resistance between the ground wire and a chassis ground point, it should measure extremely low. Also just cause a fuse looks good doesn't mean it is. Measure your fuses for resistance, they too should read almost 0 Ohm.

If all these check out and your amp still does not turn on...it's toast.

 

very familiar problem to me
I screwed my RF P5002 like this. It didn't blow... It was taking the power, the LED was showing the beats... meaning it was receiving the signal from RCAs. Came out to be that the speaker outputs were screwed. I bought exactly the same amp in Best Buy, took the cover off, put the old amp into this cover, and returned it to Best Buy... Maybe it's not fair for the next customer but... it hurts to buy an amp... and send it to manufacturer right away Get a tester and check the voltage on the inputs and outputs...

 

gonna go get a multimeter from radioshack today after work....im gonna check the power and remote for voltage. Hope things go well.

 

Update:

I checked the power and the remote to see if it was receiving power and they both were, around 12V. Then I pulled both fuses and check the resistance across each and they were both around .5 Ohms, normal. Then I checked the resistance through the groung by disconnecting the power cable and toughing the ground of the amp to the connection point at the end of the ground cable, also around .5 Ohms. So everything seems to check out but the fact that I am still getting zero sound. Very aggrevating!! Help please!

 

Open the amp up and see if there are any fuses inside. But chances are you need to get the amp repaired...I'm guessing it's shot.

 

Since I have another amp, I tried hooking it up to see what would happen. Everything works well. I guess I had blown the amp, so I opened it up to see if there was any burnt marks or anything.,,,,, Nothing. Wierd huh?...Anyhow, I have learned tons through my mistakes and all of your guys' helpful info. Thanks to everyone.

 

Sometimes in the power supply section of amplifiers there's a large diode that fries when B+ and ground are touched, it's the path of least resistance. This would happen to the older RF's before they starting using built-in fuses again. With your multimeter, switch it to the Ohm setting and see if it reads a dead short.

 

man, i've learned to never mess with an amps power supply unless you disconnect the fuse or turn the breaker off. sometimes you won't see a burn mark when something blows since it might be internal even if you take it apart.