oxygen

Hi all, thanks for reading this thread... Recently I found that I have blown yet another car stereo amplifier... This is the second one that I have blown since getting my system hooked up, and the fourth one I've blown in my young car-owning life, and I don't even want to admit to who did the install...circuit ****ty... Since they hooked everything up I've realized what a bunch of clowns these kids are and that they know nothing about car audio and do awful work and love using hoards of electrical tape... Anyway, I am running the factory head unit, and I had them use a line-out converter to tie into the factory system... It appears as if they spliced into the factory subwoofer connection to install this converter. The first amp I had I purchased from them and had them wire up ended up shorting out and they issued me a credit under warranty. They used Tsunami cables to do the install. On that amp it ended up blowing fuses and then blew the subwoofer aswell, ruining the amp and the woofer i had. The second amp I bought for this maxima I installed myself, it also was a Kenwood KAC 7201, the same as the first one that blew. When I was on my way to Boston I smelled something in the trunk that smelled like burning plastic and immediately powered off the headunit. No woofer was connected at that time as I was using the trunk for storage. Just hooked up a woofer to it and found that the amp's fuses were blown. Put in 2 new fuses and they blew immediately. Hence, the amp is toast, yet the in-line fuse under the hood did not blow. Luckily the woofer didn't blow this time, but this is the second amp that has been toasted on this maxima.

Can ANYONE explain why exactly this keeps happening? I have never had such bad luck with anything in my life besides car audio. it is not right that I've toasted 2 amps in 3 years... I am figuring there is something wrong with my car or the install because I have no idea why abundances of juice keep running into the amps/woofer and blowing them.

I hope I have explained enough/made enough sense in this post to get a resposne.. This really is frustrating. I would def buy another amp but I am sick of blowing them out and at this point in time I feel like my car is going to just blow another one if I buy another.... Glad it wasn't a JL!

Thank you all
-Brady
-Oxygen

nismos14

iTrader: (56)

OMG cliffs?

nismos14

iTrader: (56)

How high were the gains set?

oxygen

gains were minimal, set on 'normal' and never increased or decreased

Bollwerk

iTrader: (1)

In a nutshell, you should have a power wire running directly from your positive battery terminal (with an inline fuse appropriate for the wire thickness) to your amp (or distribution block). If this is already the case, inspect the entire wire for any cuts or areas where the wire might short out on bare metal (firewall for example). Your ground for the amp should go directly to the closest bare metal point on the chassis you can use.

Check out http://bcae1.com for more info than you'll ever need for hooking up car audio.

If it is blowing fuses and whatnot, that leads me to think your power wire isn't setup properly. Maybe it's not fused properly (wrong size?) near the battery or it is shorting out somewhere. But I'm no expert. I know just enough to be dangerous.

BTW, here is a very useful chart for determining what fuse size to use for what thickness of wire:

Wire Gauge Recommended Maximum Fuse Size
00 awg 400 amps
0 awg 325 amps
1 awg 250 amps
2 awg 200 amps
4 awg 125 amps
6 awg 80 amps
8 awg 50 amps
10 awg 30 amps
12 awg 20 amps
14 awg 15 amps
16 awg 7.5 amps

These are the recommended maximum fuse ratings for the corresponding wire size. Using a smaller fuse than what's recommended here will be perfectly safe.

oxygen

thanks for your reply & help... does blowing fuses constantly imply that the amp has indeed died or could this be a wiring issue that when fixed will allow the amplifier to work again?

travmaximas1998

could be internally grounded some where

bigleman

iTrader: (4)

check your grounds

mendon99

iTrader: (15)

The woofers could be wired improperly. That particular amplifier is only stable to 4 ohm while bridged (assuming they bridged it to get most power). What subs are you using and what are the coil configurations? A model numer for the subs would help.

oxygen

here's a pic of the ground. it isn't a very good pic, but the ground doesn't look bad to me -- it isn't touching a painted surface or anything, although it does appear to be stainless steel.. this is in the trunk by the seatbelts

I think I'm going to have a look over the entire wiring job with another one of my co-workers this weekend, although the installer did use a rubber grommet on the firewall as well as wire loom, so this leads me to believe that there isn't any fraying of the wire @ the firewall.

If I am able to locate any wire damage and have that repaired is there hope for life in this amp again or is it fried and time to buy another? Thanks!

CarAudioHelp

Blowing fuses won't be related to a ground connection since the fuse is on the +12 volt wire. Here's a few articles on determining the cause of an amplifier problem.

http://www.caraudiohelp.com/newslett...amplifiers.htm

http://www.caraudiohelp.com/newslett...leshooting.htm

http://www.caraudiohelp.com/newslett...ction_mode.htm

Basically you need to tear the amp down to its most basic state and starting adding things back on until you recreate the problem.

oxygen

thanks your FAQ's are very helpful and i'll be looking at this tomorrow -- also quick question... if I have a 5.5 gen which has an issue with the left side fading in and out (worn cable, needs replacement) could this be causing the issue?

oxygen

thanks for all your advice. although -- checked everything . redid ground wire... still blew 2 fuses out immediately .. going to have a coworker try my amp in his car to see if its toasted or not. thats the only thing we could conclude at this point unless something is messed up behind the head unit

still need to have that cable repaired internally on my stock bose unit. if anyone is interested in making some money to help me out with that i'll gladly pay you