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Im ready to smash my new amp against the garage wall
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solacedagony
- Master of My Domain
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- Location: Phillipsburg, NJ
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solacedagony
- Master of My Domain
- Posts: 2171
- Joined: Mon Nov 29, 2004 9:34 am
- Location: Phillipsburg, NJ
- Contact:
Just a couple general pointers... well, too little too late at this point, but anyway
Probably not helpful in this thread, but makes me think there might be a good reason for an "installation tips" sort of sticky:
Some higher quality RCA's come with a drain wire, which is a wire that runs down between the two cables. You are supposed to ground one end or the other, and this creates a drain for any induced noise, RFI or otherwise.
It's generally quite small, since it's really not meant to do any work. ]I go to connect the subwoofer wires and the rca's to the amp expecting a nice deep bass to no avail. Nothing. I tried bridging the speaker wires, putting all the gains up halfway, messing with the high pass low pass settings, putting the rca's to amplifier out and in. Nothing. I turn up the volume and the only thing that happened was the ohm light kept going on.
...I may as well call it a nite, throw in the old amp and see if that works. Nope. Amp kept shutting off like before. [/QUOTE]
A DMM is your friend. It not only measures voltage, but impedence.
To me, it sounds like an issue at the subwoofer... Both amps have impedence protection, and both keep shutting down. I would have checked to see if they were wired properly, and used a DMM to measure at least DC resistance across each coil - they should read just slightly lower than nominal (for example, a 4 ohm coil will likely read something like 3.5 or 3.6 ohms).
It also would in part explain your drained battery - if you had wired the subs wrong, or had a blown sub, you could be showing the amp an impedence it simply can't handle - and if the amp DID try to maintain voltage, and that impedence caused what inevitably would have been a big current to flow - and that'll drain the battery. However, that SHOULD have taken the amp out - be thankful if not!
Probably not helpful in this thread, but makes me think there might be a good reason for an "installation tips" sort of sticky:
A big misconception... RCA's never come with a "remote wire".ENVYMYZ wrote:...Well first of all, the remote wire sensing that the JL amp has through the RCA's didnt work. I connected a physical remote wire to the amp and great, it's staying on.
Some higher quality RCA's come with a drain wire, which is a wire that runs down between the two cables. You are supposed to ground one end or the other, and this creates a drain for any induced noise, RFI or otherwise.
It's generally quite small, since it's really not meant to do any work. ]I go to connect the subwoofer wires and the rca's to the amp expecting a nice deep bass to no avail. Nothing. I tried bridging the speaker wires, putting all the gains up halfway, messing with the high pass low pass settings, putting the rca's to amplifier out and in. Nothing. I turn up the volume and the only thing that happened was the ohm light kept going on.
...I may as well call it a nite, throw in the old amp and see if that works. Nope. Amp kept shutting off like before. [/QUOTE]
A DMM is your friend. It not only measures voltage, but impedence.
To me, it sounds like an issue at the subwoofer... Both amps have impedence protection, and both keep shutting down. I would have checked to see if they were wired properly, and used a DMM to measure at least DC resistance across each coil - they should read just slightly lower than nominal (for example, a 4 ohm coil will likely read something like 3.5 or 3.6 ohms).
It also would in part explain your drained battery - if you had wired the subs wrong, or had a blown sub, you could be showing the amp an impedence it simply can't handle - and if the amp DID try to maintain voltage, and that impedence caused what inevitably would have been a big current to flow - and that'll drain the battery. However, that SHOULD have taken the amp out - be thankful if not!
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solacedagony
- Master of My Domain
- Posts: 2171
- Joined: Mon Nov 29, 2004 9:34 am
- Location: Phillipsburg, NJ
- Contact:
'changes in impedence" is an understatement...
If the wires turn into "copper spaghetti", they rub against one another, the micro-thin insulation wears off, and you could have something very close to a dead short, even!
That'll take your amplifier OUT, stone cold dead, no recovery... blown sub = blown amp. Don't even mess around with it.
And hence, why I'd be quick to TEST TEST TEST with a DMM, rather than just keep hooking stuff up and 'seeing if it would work'.
If the wires turn into "copper spaghetti", they rub against one another, the micro-thin insulation wears off, and you could have something very close to a dead short, even!
That'll take your amplifier OUT, stone cold dead, no recovery... blown sub = blown amp. Don't even mess around with it.
And hence, why I'd be quick to TEST TEST TEST with a DMM, rather than just keep hooking stuff up and 'seeing if it would work'.
geolemon wrote:'changes in impedence" is an understatement...
If the wires turn into "copper spaghetti", they rub against one another, the micro-thin insulation wears off, and you could have something very close to a dead short, even!
That'll take your amplifier OUT, stone cold dead, no recovery... blown sub = blown amp. Don't even mess around with it.
And hence, why I'd be quick to TEST TEST TEST with a DMM, rather than just keep hooking stuff up and 'seeing if it would work'.
Thanks for the tips. Luckily the JL amp has a safety feature to guard against just such an occurance
