hi there ... i really need some advise... i installed an amp and a subs on my friends 98' mustang... and i swear to god i have never had so many problems after an install before... now heres the story... about 2 weeks after installing the amp my friend came over and told me that the amp stoped working ... so i poped the hood and saw that the fuse holder that i put about a half a foot away from the battery was completly warped and the fuse was blown... so we put in another fuse and the system worked fine.. but after about 5 mins of being on, the wire and the fuse holder got very hot... so we took out the fuse and the fuse was very hot also... so what do i need to do in this situation??? do we need to get a larger gauge power cable?...

a month later...

today i installed a power capacitor and i still noticed that the power cable in the engine compartment still got hot about 10 mins after first play... then 30 mins after he left he called me and told me that the amp got hella hot so i told him to disconect it ...

please i really need help since i dont want his car to fry up cause of me


thankx.

tio

sorry... the amp is a sony 1200 watts p.m.p.o

and the power cable is a small gauge... its a pretty cheap BOSS cable and is pretty thin... not as thick as other cables i have seen...


and also ... why is the amp getting so hot?


Modified by 90civic_tio at 2:28 AM 5/21/2005

 

what's the specs on the amp? what guage power wire did you use? maybe the amp is pulling more power than the wire can handle?????

 

bump

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 90civic_tio &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">and the power cable is a small gauge... its a pretty cheap BOSS cable and is pretty thin... not as thick as other cables i have seen...</TD></TR></TABLE>

You just answered your own questions...

 

this should get you pointed in the right direction of what gauge wire to use.....

http://www.the12volt.com/info/recwirsz.asp

also be sure to use the same gauge wire for the ground as well and keep it as short as possible.....

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Phat_Jax &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

You just answered your own questions...</TD></TR></TABLE>Ditto that, I would also like the know what kind and how many subs there are and how are they wired, what is the load the amp is seeing 4ohms, 2ohms, 1ohm, less, and is it stable below 4ohms, nothing like a 2ch amp, [bridged into mono, running 2 DVC 4ohm subs wired in paralle] to heat your car, or burn it down 94

 

To kind of expand upon what I stated earlier, I'll give you a decent analogy. It has nothing to do with electronics, but then again most physics laws are pretty transferrable (to some extent):

Let's say you have one of those Triple-thick milkshakes. Obviously the point here is that you are trying to pull the milkshake into your mouth to consume it. So you need a path to get it from one point to another.

In comes the straw. Now let's say you have a few different ones to choose from and you want to try them all to see what gets the best results. You have two short straws and two long ones, and one from each set is thinner in diameter than the other. From trying all of the straws you tend to notice a pattern. The longer the straw is the more you have to work to get the milkshake up the straw, but with the thicker straw it seems to be easier at least. However, you yourself tend to get headaches and feel like passing out from trying to get milkshake from out of the thinner straws. This is because the thinner and longer straws are more resistant to allowing the milkshake to flow.

You can kind of think of this example in terms of the power in your system. The milkshake would be the electric charge, you would be the amplifier, and the straw of course would be the power cable. Now let's say you have a bigger amplifier, this of course pulls more current. This would be comparable to you sucking harder on the straw. (Which of course in turn would make things harder on both you and the straw if it wasn't thick enough.)

Hope that analogy helps.

 

Boss - shitty brand...it would do it's job but i wouldn't use it

Capacitor - any audio expert would say its a waste of money....well, not a waste of money if you know what you're doing with it..most people think it will help your electrical problems but it wont.....just do the big 3..

Gauge - get a bigger one :D

 

if your wire isnt sufficent, it will get hot and also cause the amp to get hot. if the amp is wired incorrectly (speaker wiring) that would cause the amp to get hot also.

 

any amp 400 watts or greater should see an 1/0 guage wire. make the ground as short and possible and make it a good connection ( sand the contact point with sand paper) another variable is the resistance the woofers are, and how there wired.