Amp won't power on > Need help!
 

Was wondering if any could help me with this problem I have. I just installed an amp and woofers in my 97 maxima, but the amp wont turn on. I ran the wires through the car and all that already. The amp power wire says "+ battery". I first connected it to the negative side and it didn't work, then I switched it over to the positive side and it still didn't work. Not sure whats wrong.

So it told you to connect it to the positive (+) and u connected it to the netative (-)? wow. We will start here first, well lets see where do you have your remote wire ran (this is your turn on wire)?

I assume you have the ground and positive hooked up correctly now?

I ran that and the RCA cable along the right side of my car to the amp. I only realized it said "+ battery" after it didn't work the first time. Even after that I didn't know if the "+ battery" meant connect it to the positive side of the battery or it was something else.

Does the amp have any fuses on it?

Yep thats what that means. The power and ground usually come red (positive) and black (ground) in the kits for amp hook-ups; however, this is not always the case. Hook the +battery(red coated wire) to the positive(+) on the battery and the positive(+) on the amp then hook the negative black coated wire to the negative(-) amp and then take the negative(-) on the battery. The RCA cables should run from the amp to your radio the remote wire that is with them (sometime, sounds like it in your case) should run from the "rem" on your amp to a whatever you want to turn it on with (ex. ingnition fuse, radio fuse). If you have done all of this and it still does not come on, chime in and we will go deeper into solving this issue.

btw make sure once you run ur remote to whatever, make sure that its on - like ur ignition, you can flip the key to "acc." the amp won't come on, but if you flip it to "on" it will.

this is also true, if the amp is new it should come with fuses, but not always (99% it will). If its used the person before you might have taken them out.

Most people ground their amps to a convenient place on the chassis instead of running a cable all the way back to the battery. The chassis is the ground, not the negative terminal on the battery, although they should be at the same potential.
This is why amp kits typically have a 6m +bat cable and only a 1m ground cable.


The amp should come on whenever the head unit comes on. My head unit comes on in the ACC position as I am sure yours does as well.

Yeah sorry about the misleading statement, I was thinking +/- on the battery and wrote that, I have never connected my ground from my amp to the battery, its always been grounded to the chassis.:laugh:


on the amp turn on, thats what I was saying though depending on where you wire your remote wire will depend on what turns your amp on. I will look to make sure I did hook mine to the ignition because if you wire it to the ignition fuse it will come on when you flip to "on" and not "acc". If you wire the remote to your radio fuse the amp will come on when your radio does regardless where the switch is.

This is the pic from the amp. All connections in.


http://img529.imageshack.us/img529/362/img4035.jpg




RCA side of the amp:
http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/9220/img4036q.jpg



And now I realized its easier making a gallery:

http://img9.imageshack.us/gal.php?g=img4037n.jpg

Starting from top row its:
1.) ground from amp to chassis
2.) Back of deck RCA connections
3.) AMP turn on wire crimped to deck wire
4.) Some other "system remote control" wire, I dont know what it does. Didn't connect anything to it
5.) Power lead from battery to amp
6.) Picture of power lead and fuse
7.) Fuse up close and personal

Take a look and tell me if anyone sees anything wrong.
Any input is greatly appreciated. Thanks to everyone's input thus far!

You got quite a bit of loose unshielded wire there. It wouldnt be the problem, just something I'd take care of. Did you check the main fuse on the power cable coming from the battery?

Your fuse is blown. The element has been vaporized all over the inside of the element carrier. That is typically the result of a dead short


Probably a result of the horrible connections at your amp.

wow you have some awesome eyesight, I can't even see the fuze blown by stuff on the carrier; however it does come to mind now

to the op when u hooked up ur positive on the ground did you run the other end to the positive on ur amp and then run your positive on your battery to your ground on your amp? If you did this you probably did blow a fuse. Pull the fuses out of the amp and check them and also check the one in the positive coming from your battery.



I will also say that all the frayed wires at your contact points on the amp need to be cleaned up, that will cause blown fuses if some of the frayed wires get over on the other contacts or wires. twist all of the frays on the wire one way to make it solid, then bend it around your screw from left to right. Try to get the plastic coating up close to your contact so there will be less naked wire showing. If you want they make connectors for the ends of the wire that you clamp on and then it will make sliding your wires in and out of your contacts easy!!!

yeah, the positive and ground can touch each other easy from what I see....i lost a JBL amp because of that some time ago...

shyheim - nice sig!!!!!

Ok so I completely cleaned up the wiring at the amp. I checked the power lead fuse, its intact, and both 25a fuses on the amp are fine. Any other suggestions?

That power fuse sure looks blown to me. Did you check contnuity or just inspect it visually?

Do you have a voltmeter?

If yes, do you get 12-14VDC measuring at the amp between +bat and gnd? Do you get 12-14VDC between the remote terminal and GND when your source is turned on?

If you do not have a voltmeter, then buy or borrow one.

check your remote wire (blue). Ive seen folks hook it up to their HD and it ended up going to like the antenna wire. I think if u wanna test out this theroy you can just put the power wire directly to the remote turn on to see if the amp even comes on, if not, theres a fault somewhere...

also check your fuse to the amp that you should have under the hood if u dont :)

Church!!!

Nice!!!!:cool:

ok so everything is cleaned up - this is a good start. Show us a pic of where you have the ground grounded to the chassis and also a pic of the connection at the battery post.

Is the amp turn on lead supposed to be connected to the "amp turn on" wire or the system remote wire? Take a look at the pics, perhaps I should try and switch them around? Also I doubled checked the power fuse by replacing it with a spare however it still didn't work, same with the two fuses on the amp, they're still good.

http://forums.maxima.org/members/har...mp-hook-up.jpg

I wrote what the other end of these wires need to be connected to.

If all of this is connected like wrote above in the pic and all (3) fuses are in good shape I would start leaning toward - you have a bad amp. Make sure you have good connections at the other ends (thats why I asked for a pic). On your ground make sure there is no paint in between your wire and metal. On your 12+ wire going to your battery make sure it is secured to the post tight/snug.

i'm still worried about your positive power wire. there's just way too many uncovered strands of wire. it only takes a one or two to touch the negative to cause a short. i highly recommend getting some spade connectors and crimp them onto those ends for a much cleaner install.

one sure way you can test if the amp will turn on is take a small wire and just touch one end of the positive to the remote. if it still doesn't turn on then your amp is likely toast or the fuses are fried again from a short.

Okay so I figured out there IS power going through the power wire, so most likely my amp is dead. Just a quick question, is there any specific way I'm supposed to remove the amp from the housing? Do I have to remove my 2 10' subs also in order to take out the amp? What wiring is inside the housing that I have to remove?

Also, I have a 4 year warranty for this amp at bestbuy, is there anything I should or shouldn't say to them to replace my amp? Or do they have to replace it no matter what?

just remove all the wiring from the amp and unmount it. no need to take out your 10s. but before you start disconnecting stuff, remove the fuse from your power cable so it won't spark and stuff when it accidentally touches a ground.

Hey guys, thank you all for your input! I finally got it to work! The amp was fine, what I did was take the power lead and split it into 2 and plugged it into the power terminal and amp turn on terminal on the amp just to see if it would work and to my surprise it did! Then I went back to the wires and connected the amp power lead to the ignition and it finally worked! Thank you all so much!

glad it worked out for ya :)

i really hope youve cleaned up that power lead

* way too many loose strands, so close to teh ground wire!