Technical ICE problems

[F R O S T Y]

Right this is the problem, i'm running 2 10 inch subs off a two channel amp and up until the last few days it has been fine but now my amp stays on all the time, as in if you turn the sub off from the head unit the amp still gets power when it shouldnt and there is no sound coming through the subs either. I've checked the fuse which is ok and tested the amp on my mates car so dont know where the problem lies. Is it my earth?? Where have you guys all earthed your amps? I earthed mine to the bolt which holds the rear seat belt under the back seat. Its doing my head in because i had the same problem with my last amp but that one blew so i changed the amp and rewired the whole car less than 6 months ago. What else could it be?? need to figure this out because i hate driving the car without my bass lol if worst comes to worst looks like i'm gona have to rewire it all again.

F R O $ T Y

 

[Louie Bee]

Hi Frosty,

Has the amp run OK – are you sure it clicked off before with the head unit?

I had earth my amp to a passenger side shock upper mount (not recommended) I now have it earthed to the proper earth point behind the passenger lamp cluster. I can’t say ive had any problems over 8 years with my amps – apart from them getting robbed :band:

I don’t think it’s an earth problem as you would get no lights at all, as current won’t flow without earth – but don’t rule it out.

I would switch it off, perhaps by removing the Fuse, and check the cable run to the subs. They might be shorting inside the box, or across the amp’s terminal if the wires are not neat.

Also try gently pushing the driver cone inwards a little – if its not smooth, their coils might be down.

If that bit is OK – I would next suspect the remote wire (normally Blue in head unit). Try removing that wire to the amp and shorting the + 12V which should be a really thick red wire Straight to the battery with an inline fuse just before the battery. The amp should come on as normal. Oh yer replace the fuse(s)

Don’t leave the amp always on but let us know how you get on with this lot…

Regards,

 

[Jai]

i've got 3 two channel amps (the two running the 10" subs are each bridged, the third is a pass through that was meant for a pair of 6 x 9 three ways that are still in the shed!) in the back of my car, all run from a single cable from the battery up front to a distribution block that splits into 3 power cables to each amp. the "amp on" cable, sorry i cant think what the proper term is, works on a similair principle. as for the earths, each amp feeds into another distribution block, which then goes off via a meaty cable to the nearside rear passenger seatbelt anchor point, i scraped a little paint of the bodywork and wedged the cable shoe in real tight, hasn't caused a problem yet (touch wood) if it did be a bugger to get the double bass box out.....damn...may need a new design this summer...anyway i digress...

 

[NowIsGone1106]

the only wire to check is the remore wire from the HU.. it might be making contact with some other wire and fooling the amp into coming on...

otherwise.. your amp sounds b0ll0xed to me... i would disconnect it!! or youl have a flat battery soon lol


alfie

 

[Luke]

the only wire to check is the remore wire from the HU.. it might be making contact with some other wire and fooling the amp into coming on...

otherwise.. your amp sounds b0ll0xed to me... i would disconnect it!! or youl have a flat battery soon lol


alfie

Spot on

Get a multi meter and test the voltage of the amp remote wire. If its on all the time (even with the HU off) then you may have a short circuit on it somewhere causing problems - so check both ends (ie the amp end and directly from the back of the headunit). If its still live with the HU off at the HU end then your HU is the cause of the problem. If the HU is fine and stays live at the amp end, then its a short circuit. If both ends are fine but amp remains on, then correctly as alfie says, the amp has probably given the ghost.

It wont be a grounding problem, nor a constant power feed problem (unless a wire from the main power is touching the amp remote wire), and definately not a speaker problem Louie so dont go poking speaker cones

Oh and both my amps are grounded via a powercap to the bolt behind passenger rear cluster as thats a dedicated grounding point for the car, although seat belt ones should be fine (basically anything that connects to the car bodywork is fine - just make sure its a big enough surface to cope with the amp flow). Make sure you put a proper eyelet of the earth cable if you havent already

 

[NowIsGone1106]

wooo! go me! lol

 

[F R O S T Y]

No the amp is not on ALL the time. what i meant is that when the head unit is on the amp switches on automatically as in it gets power even though it shouldnt. Because i have a function on the head unit which controls the amp on or off, so when i select off the amp still has power, normally it switches off. This allows me to have bass when i want or simply run my 4 speakers off the head unit. The thing is the amp is not buggered for a fact because i took it out and tested it on my mates car and it works fine. the problem lies somewhere in my wiring but i cant figure out where. Either the power cable or remote wire because when i checked the fuse on the main power cable it looked melted as ****, replaced the fuse but made no difference. Tried a different ISO connector and made no difference, its weird because the green light comes on but no sound comes out of the sub woofers.

F R O $ T Y

 

[Luke]

No the amp is not on ALL the time. what i meant is that when the head unit is on the amp switches on automatically as in it gets power even though it shouldnt. Because i have a function on the head unit which controls the amp on or off, so when i select off the amp still has power, normally it switches off. This allows me to have bass when i want or simply run my 4 speakers off the head unit. The thing is the amp is not buggered for a fact because i took it out and tested it on my mates car and it works fine. the problem lies somewhere in my wiring but i cant figure out where. Either the power cable or remote wire because when i checked the fuse on the main power cable it looked melted as ****, replaced the fuse but made no difference. Tried a different ISO connector and made no difference, its weird because the green light comes on but no sound comes out of the sub woofers.

F R O $ T Y

The HU could still be feeding power down the remote wire but no signal...
Out of interest what HU do you have? My sony you can turn off the sub channel completely so its like running only the normal 4 speakers, but keeps the amps on anyway.

And again it shouldnt be anything to do with the power or ground cables. If it was, the amp wouldnt work rather than the other way round

The only 2 things the issue is coming from is the HU (most likely suspect) or the amp (but sounds unlikely now)

 

[F R O S T Y]

I have a pioneer DEH-P77MP. Its the silver one with the retro look, 2 chrome dials on each side and plays mp3s. Like you say luke my 4 speakers are meant to stay on when the amp is switched off through the head unit and usually when this happens the amp gets no power and switches itself off. However when i do this now the amp still has a green light, no sound coming out the subs even if the sub woofer is selected as on through the head unit. I think it may be the head unit to blame now, the only way to be sure will be to try a different head unit, if it works then the head unit is the culprit, if it doesnt then god knows!!!

F R O $ T Y

 

[Luke]

I have a pioneer DEH-P77MP. Its the silver one with the retro look, 2 chrome dials on each side and plays mp3s. Like you say luke my 4 speakers are meant to stay on when the amp is switched off through the head unit and usually when this happens the amp gets no power and switches itself off. However when i do this now the amp still has a green light, no sound coming out the subs even if the sub woofer is selected as on through the head unit. I think it may be the head unit to blame now, the only way to be sure will be to try a different head unit, if it works then the head unit is the culprit, if it doesnt then god knows!!!

F R O $ T Y

Cant be much else. All points to the HU really

Mind you, thinking about it- it maybe should keep supplying power out the remote wire... Cos thinking about it, if you have more than one amp running multi speaker setups, you only have one remote wire out of the HU, so if you turn the sub bit off you wouldnt want it to turn the other amps off..

Hope you get what i mean..

 

[F R O S T Y]

Yeh i know what you mean mate but i have just the one amp running 2 subs. all other speakers run off the head unit. And you was right because i just tested my old sony head unit just now and everything works the way it should. So that now leaves me with a pioneer head unit that only runs my car speakers and no subs any ideas as to what could be wrong with the head unit to do this and if it would be worth fixing it or shall i just get a new one now? Well gutted because i love that head unit, its worth 400 quid from halfords but i paid 120 for it through a mate. :'( p.s what head units do you guys recommend, i'm thinkin about an Alpine one now but i'm skint lol

F R O $ T Y

 

[Louie Bee]

Don’t write off the head unit out just yet frosty.

If you’re sure the amp’s output to subs is OK. Try the Line other outputs from the Head unit.

Or if no joy you could try a stereo RCA to headphone jack and a personal MD, CD walkman or any sauce which drives headphones...

Try connecting it up WITH AMP OFF, GAIN +WALKMAN VOLUME TO MINIMUM.

Power the amp up – by switching on head unit if that bit works.

Gradually turn up the Amps gain a little, then the Walkman’s volume.

You only need to hear them work at a low level to identify them as OK – Don’t increase the amp or Walkman’s gain too much! Don’t want it suddenly kicking in and blowing the lot

If all the HU lineouts are down, you could get a transformer resistor thingy which converts the HU’s feed to the main speakers down to Line level. A friend had something fitted as his HU had no line out.

 

[Luke]

Yeh i know what you mean mate but i have just the one amp running 2 subs.

I meant that IF you had more than one amp, you wouldnt want your HU turning off the remote feed because you may have more amps running other speakers (components for example). Say you were running a 6 channel setup... You have 2 subs bridged occupying 4 of the channels (2 each) and a set of rear components on the 5th and 6th. If you turn the sub bit off the HU, you wont want it to turn the amp off otherwise you'd loose your components.

I know in your case all your other speakers are run of the headunit, but if you had extra components/coaxials etc off other or the same amp, you wouldnt want the HU turning off the amps, if you get my gist.

Basically from what you said, turning down the bass (muting it in effect) would cut the bass out of the system, but the amp will remain on. From my experiences, this is totally normal. Basically the amp remote wire is live all the time the actual HU is powered on. It will only switch off when the HU is powered off.

all other speakers run off the head unit. And you was right because i just tested my old sony head unit just now and everything works the way it should. So that now leaves me with a pioneer head unit that only runs my car speakers and no subs any ideas as to what could be wrong with the head unit to do this and if it would be worth fixing it or shall i just get a new one now?

You lost me here now. You dont have any subs, so your amps arent turning on? If they are turning on and operating as above, then again i would say thats normal becuase of the reasons stated above. So a new headunit shouldnt be an issue really.

Well gutted because i love that head unit, its worth 400 quid from halfords but i paid 120 for it through a mate. :'( p.s what head units do you guys recommend, i'm thinkin about an Alpine one now but i'm skint lol

F R O $ T Y

All down to personal taste. I like my sony, it does what i ask of it - so really hard to recommend untill you know what you want from your HU



EDIT:
Just re-read a few posts above and i see your problem now Yea, definately a suspect HU. You need to see if the sub's volume hasnt been muted or lowered too much by accident, and that they are sending out a signal properly. Sounds silly, but try resetting the unit properly (with power on and pressing reset button) then disconnect it and let stand for a while. You'll loose all your presets, but sometimes cures little bugs like this too

 

[Louie Bee]

Pioneer and the reset button – that takes me back... .

 

[F R O S T Y]

Just been reading my head unit manual and found a reset function. Gona try that before writing it off completely.

F R O $ T Y

 

[Luke]

Deleted :woot:

Excuse me

 

[Louie Bee]

Woops that Split and move didn't quite work

 

[woohoo]

didnt quite work? like your car?

 

[F R O S T Y]

Lol wot were you trying to do???

F R O $ T Y

 

[Louie Bee]

Move only part of this thread to Band Posts Forum.

Most bits have gone as it went really :Offtopic:

Easiest way to tidy your thread

How are you getting on with the Subs Frosty? -