I am having problems with a system i got. I will try to explain it as best I can but please keep in mind I am a noob at this stuff so please bear with me.

I bought this system off my boss' son a month ago and hooked it up. It worked well for a while but then it started acting up. Like sometimes it would stop working and would hear deep, low tones kind of like hearing a heartbeat. Thats that best way I can describe it anyways. it would happen every now and then and to fix it I would just turn off the headunit and turn it back on. It got progressively worse over the course of a couple days to the point where it wouldnt even work even if I turn it off then on. Just those deep tones. I thought it may have been the amp so I later replaced that which I'll get to in a bit.

a week later my battery died, which may or may not be because of the system. Battery quit on me a couple times before I even put it in. So I took the system out of my CRX, seeing no point in keeping it in.


So since I have decided to put it back in and replaced the amp with a friends 240 watt amp which worked in his car.

Problems

Speakers not working.

Amp light didn't turn on which I fixed by replacing the ground wire. I think it was to big and a couple pieces of the wire were touching the 12v wire. the fuse was blown.

Crossover light will turn on when i turn on the car but will turn off after a few seconds. Few seconds being anywhere from 1-30.

If i remove the RCA wire from the crossover that connects to the headunit, the light will stay on. If i try to put it back in speakers make crackling noise and light will turn off.

When i was replacing ground wire on amp, the crossover light turned on for a couple seconds even with the wire disconnected from the battery.

So I am getting power directly from the battery. It consists of a crossover, two fuseblocks, capacitator and an amp all attached to a box with the subs inside.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by iggyca &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I am having problems with a system i got.</TD></TR></TABLE>

What does this "system" consist of?

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Speakers not working.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Speakers that are being run off your headunit (I'm assuming) or subs which you bought (also assuming [part of "system"])?

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">If i remove the RCA wire from the crossover that connects to the headunit, the light will stay on. If i try to put it back in speakers make crackling noise and light will turn off.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Connects to the headunit and what? Sub amp? Full range amp? And which "speakers" make noise, speakers or subs?

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">When i was replacing ground wire on amp, the crossover light turned on for a couple seconds even with the wire disconnected from the battery.</TD></TR></TABLE>

It's called capacitance in the power supply of the XO. That would be normal, because there is some power stored in the capacitors.

Spark notes:
What did you buy?
Speakers or subs not working?
Are the speakers run by a separate amp or by the hu?
Crossover for what, the subs?

From the information that I've gathered, it seems like your head unit pre-out is going out.

 

1. Last line. Only for 2 subs in the box. None of the side or rear speakers. sorry, should of made that clear.

2. ya only the stock side and rear speakers work but the subs do not work.

3. well one side of the wire connects to the headunit, and the other is to the crossover. It goes through the crossover to another wire which connects it the the amp which is only powering the subs.


1)covered in the last line, and at the top of this post.
2)subs not working, speakers are.
3)speakers run by headunit
4)yes, crossover for subs.

 

You can't disconnect the amp ground when the system is on amp will try to get its ground through the RCAs, the sig. return, [grounds] on the circuit boards of the amp and HU for the RCAs are very thin, [only need to carry very low current] when the amp tries to get it's ground that way the, it will blow the signal return traces on the circuit boards of the HU or amp like a fuse, no signal return=no sound.
As you have tried another amp I would say the trace is blown in the HU, or maybe the x-over. 94

 

fcm....

This has happened before i even tried changing the amp ground. Also, when changing the amp ground the car was off. I think I also disconnected it from the battery which is why I was wondering why the amp light would turn on. Probably from the capacitator like 02 Accord mentioned.

Anyways I tried connecting the Headunit directly to the amp and got nothing. Would that mean it is the headunit with problems? Also, should the capacitator be charged before I hook everything up? I don't think it should be a problem because I had it working before.

 

OIC I was under the impression the system was on when you disconnected the amp ground.

Even if you connected the HU directly to the amp and still got nothing does not necessarily mean it is the HU that has a problem, also you say the front and rear speakers that are running off the HU, [again I assume] are working, is that correct? If so, that makes it less likely that the HU is a problem, what is the make and model of the HU?

Do you have or can you borrow a multimeter?

I would start by disconnecting the sub(s) from the amp and meter the subs, [what is the make and model of the sub(s) and the make and model of the amp?

If the subs are OK then I would check the amp, a simple test is the plug a set of RCAs into the amp and then short the other end of the RCAs signal and signal return terminals wit your thumb, the RCAs signal, [or pos.(+)] is the center pin of the RCA terminal/plug, the RCAs signal return, [or neg.(-)] is the outer part of the RCA terminal/plug, touching both with your thumb, on and off, should get you a little bit of "hum" from the sub even a little movement of the cone, if you lightly touch the cone with your fingers you will "feel" it better. if this is not happening, there is a problem with the amp, if you do feel/hear the hum then it;s an indication the amp is OK and the problem may be the RCAs themselves or in fact the HUs pre-amp output, if the HU has more the one set of pre-amp outputs, try plugging the RCAs in to one of the other outputs and see what happens.

You also say you re-grounded the amp, where and how did you ground it, how long is the ground lead, and what gauge is the ground and power cables? 94

 

I tried testing the amp by shorting out the ends but can't hear nothing. The problem though is that they are inside a custom box so I can't feel them.

If it were the amp though, would that cause the crossover to turn off when the RCA wire is plugged into the crossover? Because that is what I need to find out... Why is crossover turning off when the RCA wire is plugged in.

 

Not sure why the x-over turns off when RCAs are plugged in, maybe a short in the system, [HU outputs or x-over itself] does it make any diff. if you unplug the amps RCAs?

Have you checked the subs? with a multimeter or at least "pulsed" them to see if they work?

Use a batt., [AAA, AA, C or a 9V] 9V works best, disconnect subs speaker leads from amp, touch the speaker leads to the batt. terminals, [pos. lead to one terminal neg. lead to the other terminal, the speaker(s) will "pop", loud enough with a 9V batt. so you will even be able to hear speakers in a band-pass box.

Let me know what happens. 94

 

well when plugging in the RCA into the crossover it will make a crackling noise. I'll probably go actually test it out a bit later but right now I am stuck inside trying to recover.