My amp is blowing fuses...

NYSpeed Automotive
1

I have a Best Buy amp (Orion brand, 300 watts) I bought about 10 years ago running 2 10" JBL subs…and it keeps popping the 25 amp fuse that plugs into the case. I seriously haven’t even looked at this amp in like 3 years until I noticed the subs not working. What’s going on with this thing? Thanks

2

Sounds like a wire might be exposed.

This happened to me before. I popped a fuse in my amp, so I just popped a new one in. This fried the amp. Turned out I had a pointy piece of solder poke through the shrink wrap and touching metal.

3

check double check and triple check your wiring

4

sounds like some wire is grounding out on metal or another wire, does it do it no matter what or only when u turn it up real loud?

5

I’ll check the wiring agian, but everything was hooked up alright as far as I could tell.

6

were u overloading the subs? sometime the amp will click out or blow a fuse if your on the verge of blowing the subs

7

if you have a alternate power source, test the amp with it, it could be toast

8

thanks for that, we are now all dumber. that is the stupidist shit ive ever heard. :bloated:

9

yo, u still at UA?

10

+1

11

have the amp tested… xeon did it for me at Circuit city or just check it yourself with a multimeter… i dunno what caused my old amp to blow, but it did… and it kept blowing fuses as a result, that and white smoke lol

12

Exposed wire, or not grounded due to a wire that came loose and has some travel to it.

13

huh? how is that stupid?

He is partially accurate…

Anyways, the amp is 10 years old!? ive never heard of someone using a amp that long and it still working. id say the amp is trashed. The capacitors inside gradually loose capacitance, and after time, the amp might not work right, or at all… There is a mechanical life, you could be nearing that if your constantly abusing the amp every day for 10 years.

And if its blowing the internal fuse, the amp is likely shot, and there is something going wrong thats causing it to draw more power than it should, and its nowhere near cost effective to repair it…

14

now thats the dumbest thing ive heard in a long time … amps just dont take a shit over time … I have plenty 20+ year old amps that still work just as good as they did when new

15

hows it stupid? we had the issue i posted on my friends car a while back so shhhh if you dont know

16

because a sub is either blown or its not. theres no in between. the only way that makes any sense is if the sub loses a coil and its running at a lower impedence than the amp can handle.

17

who the fuck are you to tell me i dont know??

18

what im saying is on my friends car he had 2 cheap 300 watt a piece subs and a nice kicker amp and when he would overload the subs the amp would click off and sometimes blow the fuse if the fuse didnt blow the amp would go back on when you turned the stereo down or the bass so the subs werent being overloaded, i said this could be a possibility

19

the amp could have gone into thermal protection, or have a overload protection. It would blow the fuse if it is constantly being abused, and the woofers your driving are a lower impedence than the amp is rated to handle, it would attempt to put out more power, and would likely blow the internal fuse, due to the fuses most people put along the transmission line being way overrated…

Yes, they can. It depends on the design, but most car amps rely heavily on the capacitance in order to keep them in check. theyre very crude, and without the capacitors working the way they should, they can go into a oscillation, and essentially blow themselves up. Most components are rated at 50,000 hours, wich is about 6 years continuously on. If you were abusing the amp, it very well could extremely decrease the life. And im sure the components used were about a year old or more by the time he bought the amp. But, something could have come loose, or low voltage could have damaged the amp. And its only a 300w amp, so im sure it was constantly clipping wich is the main cause of amps blowing up.

Unfortunately, that is not quite so true also… There is. If a sub were to loose a coil, it would run at a higher impedence, and the amp wouldnt be able to put out as much power. If a sub is abused for a while, the coating around the wire used for the voice coil can crack, or get burned off from heat, or rubbing. If this happens, the sub would appear fine, but every once in a while it would short, and if the amp dosent have short portection, it would blow the fuse.

20

you really ahve no clue what you are talking about do you? you copied exactly what i said in my post and replied to speedped with it and then told me i was wrong at the end of your post. tell me, if i have dual one ohm coils and i wire them in series to a 2 ohm load and i lose one of those coils, what would my final load end up being?