Did I do something wrong in wiring or something? (sub and amp issues)

[Winky]

Hey guys,

so i just bought and installed myself my first subwoofer and amp. I've been having issues ever since.

Heres what happened. After I had my stuff installed for about a day, I got a phone call on my cell while i had the music blasted, I went to turn it off and turned it to my radio stuff instead (since i just installed it i had no channel settings and was static) it was there for about a minute and then i proceeded to turn it off. After I was done with the phone call I went to turn it back on. When I turned it on it made a screech and nothing more. there was no bass, just that screech when i was reving up... so i got home and looked it up. ok must be alternator whine. I changed the ground (while disconnected from the battery) and reconnected and turned everything on. No screech this time . YAY right?? WRONG, my sub started smoking, then my amp turned off (i think it died). so i go open up my hood then turn off and on my car again, still smoking but i hear a loud screech from my engine bay (same kind i was hearing from my sub now coming from what i assume is my alternator.).

So now I have everything unplugged and the smell of burnt sub in my car completly clueless on what happened>..... can someone please tell me what i did wrong??? is my alternator shot is that whats causing all this? or is it something else? HELP

oh yea, car still starts up fine and everything so i dont know if its still an alternator problem or not...

 

[KlowdDragon]

Did you have an inline fuse installed in the power cable, and was the amp grounded?

 

[timm98gst]

tell us how you have it wired - or take pics

 

[robs90tsi]

Too big of a sub, too small of an amp, or other way around, there could be any # of things, we need pics, or at least what you have and how you wired it.

 

[Winky]

sorry for the lack of info. Things I got for this setup:

Optima yellow top 38/74
mtx3401 (rated 489 rms)
alpine type R (500 w rms)
I got this setup because my friend was selling... it was working for him fine.

how i wired it:
Stinger 4 gauge power and ground (I dumbed it up so there was no way i could mistake one for the other)
monster cable fuse holder (with fuse)

i ran the ground and remote wire on the passenger side up through the trunk (from the firewall the power came through the existing grommet, wire away as possible from engine... put it where the other wires ran)
and the remote gain and rcas on driver.... pretty straight forward i don't know how else to describe it. oh wait and yea i sanded off the bit of body i grounded it too then wiped it off before grounding....

i'm leaning towards the fact its my alternator since iive been having troubles starting in the cold... but i may be wrong



if its not my alternator (which im 70% sure it is) then what else could it be? bad factory wiring to the radio? radio somehow over surging it?????? im soooo confused

 

[Winky]

So I've been talking to people around my work about it. They think its faulty/rotted/shortted wiring which is causing the problem... this weekend (or whenever it stops giving me juice) im going to test all the wires....


now where would i get oe wiring harnesses?

 

[bkruahnndon]

wait...ummm where are you running your ground to? or did you mean you ran the power and remote on the passenger side??? what ohm load are you running that amp at? sounds kind of like your running too low of a load on the amp and it doesnt like it. also check your gains on the amp...they may be set too high which means you get all kinds of electric noise (alternator wine) incorporated into the music.

 

[Listen2myBASS]

check your fuse on your power cable, make sure it didn't blow, then check to make sure it wasn't running to high (watts), then check the resistors in your amp to see if those are blown as well...

 

[snyper1982]

I have no idea what you did. Just so you know though, your alternator has nothing at all to do with starting your car... well I take that back, if it has a bad diode in it, it CAN cause a parasitic drain on your system. Couple that with an old, weak battery, and I could see it being hard to start in the mornings.

Sounds like you wired something up wrong. Without actually being there it will be very hard to tell. In any case, you will most likely need a new sub seeing as you smoked your last one. Just for reference, size of amp, subs means nothing assuming it is set up correctly.

 

[kevindj4u]

Ok, here's some good tips when you install stereos:

1. Run the power wire as far away form the enigne as possible, so the power line doesn't pick up the wine of the engine (you can hear it when you rev it)

2. Try to make the ground as short as possible. If you are grounding to the frame, make sure that you take any paint off the metal. You'll run into problems there.

3. Check the load impedence of your sub/amp. Personally, I don't like to go below 4 Ohms. Maybe people run two ohms which is fine, but over time can really start to put stress on your amp. Make sure you have thick enough gauge wire on everything.

4. Check the gains, don't have your H.U. turned down when your amp all the way up. Roughly your amp should be about half way up or so.

5. Lastly, make sure you have the correct fuses installed. If you up the gauge fuse, make sure that you don't over do it, if you had a short, that fuse should have blown almost instantly.

Good luck on getting everything worked out!

 

[Listen2myBASS]

kevin is totally right with all of those tips, especially the ground wire being AS SHORT AS POSSIBLE, THE FUSES NOT BEING TO BIG AND/OR TOO BIG, but the best thing to do is turn your amp all the way down, so everything is at 0, and tune your sub through your H/U, most people find it easier and can turn there volume higher before distortion (if any occurs at that point) does occur. So just make sure you don't have your bass boost, gain and subsonic pushin the max, might be some massive distortion goin through that subwoofer! tell us the outcome, cause im bam-boozeld WTF

 

[95_E_clipse]

it sounds like the ground is ran all the way to the battery. also there is no way that the ohm impendence could be wrong...he has one sub and one amp. type R 4 ohms, mtx amp is fine at 4 ohm. It sounds like wiring me.

 

[Wpgdsm]

I had almost the exact same thing happen to me once. I was listening to the radio and then all I could smell was burning electrical, smoke was coming out of the hood and off the amp and the subs sounded like they were going to jump out of the box. It fried the amp but didn't pop the fuse but did melt the holder the 50 amp fuse was in. I took my amp in to get checked out (was still on warrenty). the shop sent it back to the maufacuror and they said it was an internal failure of the amp. You said you bought this equipment off your friend so it might just be that the amp was just wore out, this type of sound equipment doesn't give any warning when it's about to fry. If this is not the case pull all of you're power and remote wire and check for cracks and worn through sections at pinch points.

 

[bmason]

1 its not your alternator

2 when wirering your car make sure u cut the wires as short as possiable other wise they will catch on fire. you can have them all tangled up in each other.

3 take a home stereo or extra sub u have laying around and take the speaker wires and connect it to the speaker. dont turn up to loud and listen to see if it plays. if it does play then your amp isnt blown(most likely)

4 then if that works take a home stereo and connect it to the connectors on your sub box and see if your sub makes noise

5 some mtx have a protection mode on them try disconnecting your battery 4 like 5 min and then try agian

6 try some new rca cables if all else fails just go to any shop and ask to see if they have an extra set laying around and just connect them to the amp to see if that fixes your problem ( you dont have to run them nice your just testing something really fast)

7 in your fire wall make sure u put a spacer so your power wire doesnt ground onto your firewall before it reaches the amp

8 report back with your findings

i hope i can help and i hope your dont mind me not using grammer and punctuation

 

[turbo_talon08]

ok from what ive read among all the suggestions there are some good suggestions but some im not sure where they came from. you wont pick up engine noice because your power wire is too close to the engine, and if you dont cut your wires as short as possible they wont catch on fire. when your running a sub you wont pick up engine noise if your rca's ar next to your power wire although its still good practice not too. if your still havin problems feel free to send me a pm ill try to help you out.

 

[bmason]

my wire cought on fire becuase they were bunched all together so yes they will

 

[turbo_talon08]

if your wires caught on fire it wasnt because they were bunched together. somwhere in that bunch there had to be some bare wire showing and it grounded out a power wire or supplied power to a ground. wire that is insulated wont just catch on fire because its in a bunch.

 

[snyper1982]

my wire cought on fire becuase they were bunched all together so yes they will

HAHHAHA!!!! You had a direct short somewhere in there buddy. Look at the ENTIRE cars wiring, it is all bunched together isnt it? Yeah, I thought so. It is nice trying to help, but at least make sure you know what you are talking about. The suggestions you made are good practice, but your reasoning behind using them is completely wrong.

 

[bmason]

actualy im sorry im right and when i mean your wires are bunched im talking about the power wire wrap up with the same power and i knwo this was the problem is because when it happoned all i did was cut it where it cought on fire and connected it to the amp there and never had another problem

 

[turbo_talon08]

 

[snyper1982]

actualy im sorry im right and when i mean your wires are bunched im talking about the power wire wrap up with the same power and i knwo this was the problem is because when it happoned all i did was cut it where it cought on fire and connected it to the amp there and never had another problem

I am sorry but you couldn't be more wrong. I am not arguing this point with you. You had bare power wire touching ground. I know for a fact I am right, so does most everyone else on here. Like I pointed out in the previous post, the entire cars wiring is bunched together, why the heck doesn't the car burst into flames? Because I am right and you are wrong, that is why. Reply if you want, bu I am not responding to you anymore.

 

[bmason]

1 becuase the same wire is bunch together

2 explain then after i just cut some of the wire out (which wasnt touching any ground) did my car no long catch on fire

 

[snyper1982]

1 becuase the same wire is bunch together

2 explain then after i just cut some of the wire out (which wasnt touching any ground) did my car no long catch on fire

If I could understand what you are trying to say, I might be able to tell you why you are wrong. I have no clue what you are saying. Are you saying you had a lot of wires all bunched up and runing together, or are you saying you had one wire snaking back and forth over itself? In any case, MAYBE, if you had a wire MUCh MUCH MUCH to small, and had like 40-50 extra feet all bunched up, it COULD possibly create enough extra resistance in the wire to cause it to catch fire, IF you had an extraordinary load running through it. If all those criteria were met, then MAYBE.....

 

[bmason]

i had like 5 feet all together

and
i had 1 8 guage wire running to a fosgate 800a2 amp

 

[snyper1982]

Was this a power or ground wire? 5 feet of extra wire, or 5 feet for the total run? If it is 5 feet for the total run, it must be a ground wire...