Power Troubles

eag182 · 04-19-2005, 06:02 PM

My friends was driving along the other day and he heard a thump from his trunk (amp fallen over) and now his 5 channel amp in his 91 Nissan Maxima isnt working, so he's hearing nothing out of his speakers or sub. I checked the voltage to the rem wire and that ran about 5-6volts, his amp manual said this was fine. The voltage tester said the power wire was running about 7-8 volts. The manual didn't say anything about that and the amp we figure isnt turning on (no status leds to work with here-> old amp). What do you think the problem is??

BLK03GXS · 04-19-2005, 09:10 PM

The amp will need about 10 volts to turn on... so should check that agen... if its a direct battery connection, then you should have 11+ volts, not 6 volts...

eag182 · 04-19-2005, 09:18 PM

I know but why!? What could be reducing the voltage?

AftermathAlero · 04-19-2005, 09:37 PM

maybe when the amp fell.. it may shorted out a ground or power wire but not long enough for the fuse to blow under the hood (if they did put one under there) . look for discolored wire or insulation. That might may the resistance causing the voltage drop.

BLK03GXS · 04-19-2005, 11:06 PM

i was going to say that in my orginal post aftermath but i forgot.. haha yea change fuses.. and try agen

eag182 · 04-19-2005, 11:11 PM

Here's the amp (or its closest twin):
http://shop.store.yahoo.com/discountsonlin...nvib5chanf.html
(Its huge, weights 19 pounds)

Both the 30A fuses and fuse next to the battery were in-tact. I will have another look at the wire in the future.

mike2002 · 04-21-2005, 01:07 AM

is the amp lighting up? if the led's arn't turning on, and its completly dead, hardwire it strait to the battery, if it lights up then, you'll know somthing is up with the wiring.

mikegett · 04-21-2005, 04:41 AM

Good suggestion. Sometimes we forget about the obvious and attempt to overthink the situation.
Do as mike suggested and test the amp straight from the battery. Most likely, I would say that the amp is at fault. It takes very little current to turn on the amp. In many cases you can even unhook the ground and still get it to power up and run small amounts of wattage. Electricity is always searching for ground. Screws holding the amp may make contact with metal. I compleately spaced out one day after changing my battery. I forgot to hook up my ground cable to the amp (I run all grounds back to my battery) and the radio worked. Luckily, I noticed that the volume was quite low and fixed the problem before something serious could happen.
Did your power wire come loose when the amp fell? If so, it may have arched on the amps outer casing (ground) and fried the powersupply. You would think that the fuse would blow, but sometimes this is not the case. If your wires didn't come loose, then the positive terminal may have been pulled loose on the inside. A good jolt may break the solder joint.

eag182 · 04-21-2005, 04:51 PM

The ground wire did disconnect after the fall.

The power/ ground cables are hardwired about 2 feet out theres no terminals on the thing 'cept for the speakers and rem.

His amp has a "protective" LED. I don't know what that means, but whatever it was it wouldn't turn on.