Exactly what title says.
This is for anyone who loves bass and wants to get more out of there system or who just need help with install's or anything along those lines.


This is for anyone looking for help. I am sure there are other people on the site that can help.

 

What would make an amp intermittently cut off (light goes out and everything) when you have some bass heavy music pumping through it? It isn't even warm to the touch when it does it and it cuts off for about half a minute then comes back on.
Fuses are good on the amp and the power wire, wiring is connected correctly with no corrosion on the connections, got a good ground, 5ga power/8ga ground wires, Power Acoustik 0v2-820 is the model.

It didn't start doing this until a month or two ago and my current subs only hit about 1/3 as hard as the one's I used to have in there.

 

You need to be more specific about what you mean by "turning off". Many people include the sound dropping out as "turning off", but this isn't necessarily so.

Do you see power indicators on the amp actually going off when this happens or is it just a loss of audio?

If the power indicators are going off, it could be:

a) Bad ground,
b) Bad fuse or fuse holder (could be arching),
c) Bad amplifier.

If just the audio is cutting out, it could be:

a) Amp going into thermal protection (getting too hot),
b) Amp going into low-impedance protect (check the resistance of the load).
c) Low voltage to the amp,
d) Shorted speaker voice coil.
e) Bad amplifier.

Another TiP:

Use a multimeter and check the voltage going the amp at the power, ground and remote turn on. You might have a loose connection somewher and unless you can verify the voltages going to the amp, you will keep replacing things until you finally find the problem.

Is the amp going into protect mode or just turning off?

I am totally guessing, but check the resistance of your fuse too after verifying you have proper voltages going to amps. I have seen bad fuses that will look ok but they are actually bad.

3rd:

Check to make sure the impedance of your speakers matchs the impedance of the amp. If you have them wired as a 2 ohm load and the amp only rated for 4 ohms, that will and can send your amp into protection mode. Also you say your running 5 gauge power to 8 gauge ground. I would recommend you step up to a 2 gauge power, running to a 2/3 way splitter that drops to a 6 gauge wire to your positive lead on your amp, then have a 6 gauge ground wire running from your negative lead on your amp to a spot where you can bolt down your ground and before you bolt it all down make sure that you SAND ALL THE PAINT OFF of the area. Or you can have those strange cut outs as well.

 

When the bass disappears the amp turns off. I started the truck one day and it cut off after like 15 seconds so I hopped out, flipped up the back seat and saw the power LED was off.
I'll have to check the power/ground with the multimeter and remove/sand the ground wire location, it was bare metal, just not shiny.
I've read in a few places that you don't want to change wire gauges on one length of wire and as far as I know an 8ga wire is good to 1000 watts.
There are no burns on the fuses/holders from arcing and the fuses aren't partially blown (I've seen that before too) but I will check them with a multimeter to verify.

The amp is 820w and the speakers are only 200w JBL's (don't know the ohm rating) that were blown when I got them, the wires that go from the cone to the magnet were severed but I patched them with longer wires.

Now that I think of it, The power wire is coated in liquid electric tape to keep corrosion off it, I wonder if there happened to be a little acid on it before I put the goop on it and it corroded since I coated it.

One thing I'm going to try too is I'll toss those 1100 watt Sony subs in there and crank it up to see if the amp will still cut off.

 

Ah, yeah I forgot to mention that you could be underpowering your subs by running such a low watt amp. My friend had the same problem till he got a Hifonix 1500 Watt brutus amp. I highly recommend this sight call sonicelectronix.com for all your audio stuff. They sell all top brand names, for pennies on the dollar man. You can get it there cheaper than anywhere else i know.

 

Well, 410w peak per channel going to 200w peak subs doesn't seem like under powering.
If I were to go out and buy new I would be looking at Kicker L7's along with the best amp I could find, but I got that amp and the two 1100w 12" Sony's for 200$ from a friend that bought them new then got stationed in Hawaii a month later so he sold them to me.

 

Sheriff i will have to look into some things brother, I will give my boy Steve Meade a call this afternoon and see what he has to say. I think you should up your wire game bro. Just MO

 

Sounds like he might need a cap.

 

Some of the older Power Acoustik amplifiers were prone to losing one of their channels after about a year's time. If you have a channel that is gone, the amp should enter a protect mode when heat/voltages spike. Since you claim that the amp is turning fully off, I don't feel that this is your problem. Most of the time when there is an impedance issue, the system will either not work or it will enter protect mode almost instantly.

Before going on, please make sure that the amp is indeed NOT going into protect mode. If my memory serves me, that PA amp's power light will be green when on and system functional, and that very same light will be red if in protect mode.

After you go through your connections and your problem has not been solved, then I feel that your next step is to take the amp to your local audio shop and ask them to perform a bench test on the amplifier. Shouldn't be more than $15.00 or so to have it done. This will check to make sure that the amp is in full working order and will tell you that your gremlin lies elsewhere. Also, have you noticed your voltages dropping when the amp dies out? As in the gauge on the dash? I ask this because you could very easily have an alternator on its way out causing input voltages to drop.

Something else to consider is the fuses. I know you say that they are fine, but you might swap them out. I have seen some of the AT style fuses burn partially through and causing some issues like what you are describing. Very rare that this is the problem, but still something to check into.

Also, a capacitor is not needed on a single amp system. Hell, it's not needed on any system until you start getting into the 3000+ watt range.


I would also like to remind everyone that we have a complete section on the site devoted to audio and visual electronics.

 

Laramie is correct. There is already an audio and electronics section on this forum.