Subwoofer wiring issues. help (1 Viewer)

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Cruiserhead05

Cruiserhead05

Joined
Jun 25, 2003
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Rixeyville, VA
So about 2-3 months ago i installed a small 10 inch boxed sub with a 200 watt amp in the back of my 80. I got it all wired up correct and its been very nice with my alpine head unit. recently i noticed the sub wasnt working and all i was getting from the amp with a small red lit light. I played around with it and still nothing. i ran my remote turn on lead to the correct spot on the alpine harness and it didnt help either.

Any suggestions, could the amp just be toast?
 
i assume you wired your sub to the head unit u said so theres a few things u can try. is your sub bridged? in other words to you simply have a pos and a neg going to the back of the sub? get a volt meter take it to the back of the amp. turn on the system like it should be running and see if you have current coming from the (remote, power) if u have power going to it and you have the remote on then the amp obviously is getting power. So check your ground, make sure it has a good ground. if that checks out try seeing if theres any power to the sub. if theres no power u rule out its the subs fault. Not sure what amp u have but on my old one there was a mono, stereo button and if it wasnt set right it fawked everything up. do you still have the manuel for it?


mike
 
Mike, i played around with it a little today. The wiring all checked out fine, i went ahead and replaced any in-line fuses. I had the sub setup so it was bridged, i undid this and put it back to normal. Now the sub is acting so strange, it slowly pushes all the way out every 3-4 seconds then goes back in....so its got power, I think the amp is done for.....i only paid 20 bucks on ebay for it, i believe its a walmart special and i am bidding on a nice 400w mtx right now.

Tell me if you think there is anything else i can do to fix this.

Brandon
 
doesnt sound like your running much power so this doesnt really aply but what guage wire are u running? some amps if they dont get enough power they go into "protection mode" I cant think of much else you could try. Im currently wiring up my replacement sub (last one was stolen) my problem is when ever build something for the second time for the lx i over build it . new system will be 760 watt amp and a 12 inch sub , boom boom here i come!!!!

sorry couldnt help much
mike
 
Mike, what your saying makes sense but i just dont see how it could be lack of power since its worked for 2 months just fine. also for what its worth i am running a .5 farad capacitor to keep my lights from dimming and the new amp im bidding on is a 600 watt rms as opposed to my current 200w.

BD
 
TJ,

You talking about the sub wires in the actual box? i checked them too. totally fine.
 
Cruiserhead05-

I would be suspect of a ground or bad line somewhere. The easiest solution is swap a friends amp in or run long wires from their truck to yours (like jumping a battery) and see if the sub runs fine on their stuff.

IF it does, you have a problem with your system. I would check wiring, amp, and headunit... in that order.

Alpines (most) have a sub turn off, but yours sound like it is bumping some of the time, which should rule this out. But for fun, I would reset the sub from the headunit, hold the eject button for 3 seconds and you will turn it off, do it again to turn it back on. I bet this dosent do anything but it cant hurt to try.

Actually, I would first clean the amp leads at the battery and reground the amp. for best results run the same gauge wire back to the battery. 9 out of 10 system problems are a wiring issue.

Rezarf <><
 
when you bridged the amp what ohmage did you achieve? how many ohms is your sub? what is the RMS watt rating on your sub?

#1 if your amp is two channel and you bridged it to one, your probably running at 2 ohms (most 2-channel amps are 4 ohms on each channel). if this is the case your 200w amp is only effective for about 100w at the sub. if the sub is a 200w or higher sub, you may be overheating your amp (and underpowering your sub).

#2 if your amp is running at 4 ohms bridged, and your sub is 8ohms, you may be pushing your amp to hard and overheating it.

#3 if your amp is running at 4 ohms and your sub is a 2 ohm sub, your going to fry your amp quickly by pulling to much load from your amp (the reverse situation of #1).

normally a decent amp will handle situtation 1 and 2 without a problem, but a cheapo could die from trying to push through the subs ohmage. situation 3 will KILL ANY AMP.
 
Russ, thanks for your help. im not very knowledgable on all this but maybe you can help me out here.

The amp is a cheap walmart 200watt 2channel. and the subwoofer is a 450 watt max Pioneer. I'm not sure of the ohm rating but i will look into it.

I just bought a 600 watt max amp off ebay.....any pointers, do you think the kenwood will work better with the pioneer or should i upgrade my sub too.

Thanks.
 
ok i played with it a little more and maybe these tid bits will help, i hope.

I put the 20 amp inline fuse back in and made sure the battery terminals were clean, when i tunred the ignition and turn on the headunit the REd "power protection" light lit up on the amp.

Once again it continued with its pulsating thump, it does it ever other second and it has nothing to do with the beat of any music. Also when i had it on a radio station with no reception all the speakers did this weird pulse thing, when i play a cd, only the sub does it.

also, all this is with the amp bridged, if i unbridge it....the subwoofer does nothing at all
 
more info:
The pioneer sub is a TS-W29C. rated at 4ohms.

The amp- VR3 200 watt 2 channel. (the 300 watt is 4ohms, not sure about the 200 watt)
 
I can try to explain...

When you bridged your amp (2x200W @ 4 ohms), you made it a single channel amp powering a 4 ohm Pioneer sub - right?

Okay, the resistance rating on the amp (4 ohm/channel) is not important in this situation because you aren't going lower than this rating. It IS important if you were running a DVC (dual voice coil) sub at 4 ohms apiece because the total resistance of the sub (load on amp) would drop to 2 ohms if the coils were wired in series.

Just to confirm...is your Pioneer sub a single voice coil? If it is a DVC, there will be a set of speaker leads on each side of the sub (normally 180 degrees opposed).

Power in the amp is important, but more important is the quality of the amp. For example, I had a 2x75W Phoenix Gold amp (when they were top notch) powering a DVC JL 12W6 - it sounded GREAT! I never had a problem with it. I think you are doing the right thing by replacing the amp. What kind did you get?

Any way you could post some pics of the wiring?
 
alright, your sub is single coil, and rated at 120w RMS, max is 450w. the kenwood amp model KAC-729S is the only one i can find with "600w" and i found some stats on it here.
http://shop.store.yahoo.com/discave/kac728s.html

bridged output of THIS amp is 300w @ 4ohms (i believe) so it should be fine to run your sub. for amps running subs only, i generally like to stick with mono amps. there isn't a reason to run subs in stereo (two channels) because the frequencies are to low for your ears to be able to detect the direction... but as you have already purchased an amp, bridging it should be fine for you.

being that your sub has a higher max watt rating then your amp will produce when bridged, it shouldn't blow your sub.
 
Russ, Chip,

Thank for the help. right now i am just going to wait to get the amp and see if it works out. If not i will start this thread up again and see what we find. Chip i will try to get pics of the wiring, are you looking for just the ends at the amp or like a complete diagram?

Again, thank you...i bought the cheap amp used so i am just hoping that is my problem, no sub the last week, wow i can tell the difference.

Brandon
 
How about pics of the wire ends at the amp? I know this could be a stretch, but depending on how close the positive and negative contacts are to each other, it is possible to short the two without knowing it - i.e. a strand of wire crosses the barrier between the two contacts.

I know it's not likely, but I do a lot of wiring at work, and have this happen sometimes - just lucky that I catch it before power up!
 
Guys, my new kenwood amp came in the mail today. i hooked it alll up and it worked very nice, immediately i can hear the difference with even a slightly nicer amp. I do still have a question though, my amp, if i turn the volume up pretty loud will totally cut off then it will turn back on like 3 seconds later....any ideas? B/c its related with the volume i assume its a power issue, like im overloading it or something. Can i adj something? or is an upgrade in the actual power cable needed
Thanks.
 
Hey Brandon,

I sounds like you are overdriving the amp a little - I think there is a switch inside that turns the amp off if it gets too hot or draws too many amps. If that is the case, then there isn't much you can do unless you get

1) a more powerful amp :crybaby:

-or-

2) a more efficient subwoofer - more volume for the same power :cool:

Do you have the gain turned all the way up on your amp? If so, try turning that down a little, and increasing your sub's boost from the deck (if your deck has an adjustment). That might work.
 
chip. i'll try all that. also, for what its worth...its not bridged right now, im guessing doing that would hurt the problem even more.
 
Chip, when you say a more efficeint subwoofer do you mean a higher powered one?
Also, my head unit has a level for the sub volume and then a bass volume for the overall system.
To keep it from cutting out which would be a better one to lower? the sub volume.
 
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