Amp shutting down

**Adam432823** · 01-10-2005, 03:45 PM

My apologies if this has been covered before, but I wasn't sure what to search for. Any insight is appreciated.

I have my Audiobahn A8002T amp wired in stereo to 2 Kicker CompVR 12s. It puts out 400watts to each cone. Its been in and working for a few months now with no problems.

Now all of a sudden it will just cut in and out. Volume levels don't seem to matter, it just turns on and off at random. If, while its out, I turn off the system and back on again it will power up and run just fine (for awhile).

This leads me to beleive that its not a wire, cause if the wire was loose, it wouldn't power back up after a reset like that. I know its shutting completely off, because the light on the boost knob goes out too. So it isn't an interconnect problem. I've checked for heat and it stays cool to the touch.

So... heat, faulty wiring and faulty interconnects are all out. What else is there? Thanks again.

**bluehcc** · 01-10-2005, 03:55 PM

Check if there is any short circuit or any speaker is broken.

**kiltjim** · 01-10-2005, 04:02 PM

I know you said it stays cool to the touch, but it really does sound like heat issue. Has it ever over heated in the past? I'm thinking that maybe it did overheat, and blew out the heat protection circuit. I'm just brainstorming here so take it at face value.

**jugador** · 01-10-2005, 06:14 PM

well does not sound like a heat issue since it use to work good before, could just be a blown speaker. Arnt those kickers dual voice coils. if they are ive had it where one of the coils on a woofer goes out and the woofer will still work until u turn it up just a little and then it will cut out the amp and wont turn on till you turn of the car and turn it back on. if you have an ohm tester, multimeter you can test to see if the coils are any good. hope that helps. Oh yea i havent really heard anything good about those kickers you might want to think about getting some thing else if you on a budget i personally like MA Audio. ye ai know people dont like them but ive put in sooo many and i have yet to get one that blows out on me. good luck with you amp

**RedGTiVR6** · 01-11-2005, 08:55 AM

I will go with the blown speker theory, or something along those lines.

How well is your ground secured? have you checked it recently? it might have come loose and it might be giving contact at times and at times it might not be....

if a speaker is blown this will caus a problem as well....if you actually remove the subs and smell inside the box do you notice any burnt smells? can you see your subs move? if so are they both moving at the same time in the same direction? is one not moving at all? if so that could cause an impropper load on the amp if you will....

check it all out and let us know

yeah, the kickers might not be the best quality, but Audiobahn is far from quality as well....honnestly, just worry about narrowing down the problem and find it....then go from there if you need to replace something

=]

**starfox** · 01-11-2005, 07:52 PM

Can you take the amplifier out of your car and test it with some spare speakers for a while? You never know, there might be an internal fault (like a dry joint, or something's come unbolted off it's heatsink and is going into thermal shutdown).

**Adam432823** · 01-17-2005, 02:31 AM

So I had some time to screw around with it this weekend. The problem turned out to be the monster cable fuse block. When I opened up the compartment with the cables in it, the problem was pretty aparent. The clip that holds the 60amp fuse was loose and you could see that any cable movement (which is attached to the fuse) was moving the fuse around in its holder. That was probably good enough to drop the voltage and kick in the protection circuit. So I squeezed the clip with a pair of pliers and thats solved the problem.

Thanks for all your suggestions, I'm glad it didn't turn out to be a blown coil!

**Adam432823** · 04-14-2005, 03:27 PM

Update:
The problem started happening again... The amp would cut out and the protection light would light up. I assumed that this was the same problem as before and I figured rather than fixing the block again, I would just remove it and replace it with a non-fused distribution block. I figured since I had a 100amp fuse on the battery, and there are 2 30 amp fuses on the amp I was safe. Right?

OK so I took out the fuse block and put in a regular distro block. I had only the amp and an invertor running the pc hooked up to it. I turned on the car and invertor turned on and the PC just fine... no problems there. But the amp did not turn on. Hmmm... Checked the internal fueses: blown. Go to the Radio Shack, get 2 new 30 amp fuses and plug them in. WHAMO! The amp blew up. BLEW UP! Sparks, smoke, the works. WTF!?!?

So I'm in the market for a new amp. Oh and I checked my impedance, I get 2 ohms on each sub. Also, at the time the amp blew up, I had removed all other connects, even the remote lead. The amp wasn't even supposed to be turning on.

Audiobahn = suck