hello. im new to the car audio world and dont know much about this subject but i have a problem.

i have a phoenix gold 15.0:1 mono amp and i think i overheated it.
i accidentally touched one of the speaker wires to ground and it blew my 100amp fuse on my underhood fusebox..then the sub went dead.

the amp still powers on but one of the red status LED's came on and in the manual it says "lights if the amp shuts down due to overheating. if the internal heatsink reaches 90 degrees celsius, the amp shuts down until the internal temperature falls below 90 degrees."

what does that mean? can i fix it myself? and what does the internal heatsink look like?
i opened up the amp and everything looks new..dont see anything fryed..
if you guys want pics i can talk some..

any help would be greatly appreciated..


oh..and another thing. if i pull out my rca cables and start the car..my inline fuse (60amp) from the power cable will blow.. is this suppose to happen?

 

When an amp overheats it usually blows the power supply transistors.

This is what it sounds like you have done. No its not something an average do it yourselfer can fix. Your looking at probably $100-$150 fix.

 

You said it... shorted speaker wire to ground. Probably blew the output stage or the protection circuit itself (sometimes the protection circuit goes and saves the rest).

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by sundownz &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">You said it... shorted speaker wire to ground. Probably blew the output stage or the protection circuit itself (sometimes the protection circuit goes and saves the rest).</TD></TR></TABLE>

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "protection circuit'. Protection circuits are usually very low current it would be difficult to blow one. The only "protection circuit I can think of that would blow is the reverse biased diode to prevent you from plugging the +/- in backwards. I doubt he blew this unless he plugged it in backwards.

Output stage rarely blows its usually the power supply that feeds the output stage that blows.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by nsxxtreme &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "protection circuit'. Protection circuits are usually very low current it would be difficult to blow one. The only "protection circuit I can think of that would blow is the reverse biased diode to prevent you from plugging the +/- in backwards. I doubt he blew this unless he plugged it in backwards.

Output stage rarely blows its usually the power supply that feeds the output stage that blows.</TD></TR></TABLE>

I've got two amps on hand sent back from customers that are simply stuck in protection. Both of them have a few small TO-92 style transistors in the protection circuit broken and nothing else. No obvious charring as the OP suggest about his amp. Sounds alot like what he is describing.

 

damn...so it's blown..
thats all i needed to know.. i guess ill just sell it for a parts amp or rebuild.
thanks guys for the help!

 

your amps output is done...