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Inline fuse keeps blowing..

T

TK95Contour

CEG'er
Joined
Mar 15, 2009
Messages
182
Location
Central VA
Ive searched and came up epmty handed but yesterday while i was driving listening to my stereo the inline amp fuse blew.. I put another one in there and that instantly blew as soon as bass hit on the speakers... The amp is a 1100watt Crunch 2channel amp and the speakers are 2 12inch DVC kicker CVRs wired in a 8ohm load so when bridged produces a 4ohm load.. I thought this was all right, untill today.. The amp has never been hooked up to any speakers and is less than a year old.. The amp kit was for a 1500watt amp, and the fuse is a 30 watt.. Again ive never had any trouble at all out of this combo and any insight would be greatly appreciated!!! Thanks!!

Edit : and oh yeah , ever since it started blowing fuses the lights dim very badly when i put a jumper wire in the fuse holder and turn it up...
 
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Alot of folks are at SZ and the site is a little more difficult to navigate, so relax...maybe 30amps is too small...my inline fuse is rated at 60amps. What gauge wire did you use for your power and ground?
 
eh sorry... little frustarted considering this amp is 6 months old and the speakers arnt that old...so im thinking its the amp itself considering it just shut down while riding down the road and despite all my efforts today regrounding and checking all the wires completely nothing worked..Is there any way to test certain parts of a amp after its out?? Thanks again
 
99 red SVT said:
maybe 30amps is too small...my inline fuse is rated at 60amps. What gauge wire did you use for your power and ground?
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X2 1100w/12v = 91 A. This would be absolute peak. Try 40A then 50A etc... Damn. my 280w amp has a 30A on it.!!..G.
 
Check for any bare wires.

I never had any problems with my system, but when i wired my fan up to a switch(lol) i kept on blowing fuses like crazy..like every time i would get in my car. It came to be some wire that was pinching, and the bare wire was touching the metal surface.
 
TK95Contour said:
Edit : and oh yeah , ever since it started blowing fuses the lights dim very badly when i put a jumper wire in the fuse holder and turn it up...
Click to expand...

Please don't jumper the fuse. You will start a fire if there is in fact a fault. Fortunately for you it sounds like your fuse is too small. What fuses does the amp have? There should be one per channel hanging out where the terminal connections are.

Add those up then find the nearest fuse.
 
well... After going over everything over and over i was ready to send the amp back... So i brought my 12s inside and took my amp out , and while looking at my speakers i tapped one and it sounded deep, but when i tapped the other it sounded like i was tapping plastic... So i hooked everything back up and unhooked the broken sounding speaker and no more blown fuses... Yea i know the fuses seem small, its a cheaper amp i got for $100 (sounds good as hell too) , it has 2 30 watt fuses in it and a 1000watt amp kit with a 30watt fuse too.. Who wouldda thought a cheap amp would blow a Kicker CVR?? But at least i still got one speaker hooked up, thought my amp was fried... Thanks for all the input , and hope this helped somebody that was in my shoes!!
 
You clipped the sub by an improperly adjusted amp. I just did the same thing and fried my new sub. The fuse in the in line can be less than what is on the amp. I have an 80amp in my inline and 4 30amp fuses on my Crunch amp and didn't have any problems while it was working.

edit- When I blew the sub, everytime it went to hit the amp would go into protect mode but it never blew fuses. Also sounds like you blew the voice coil (same thing I just did)
 
TK95Contour said:
Yea i know the fuses seem small, its a cheaper amp i got for $100 (sounds good as hell too) , it has 2 30 watt fuses in it and a 1000watt amp kit with a 30watt fuse too..
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what this is telling you is the REAL power of your amp and not the peak figures often quoted on the box. Look at the lowest distortion figure quoted, to get an idea of true power..G. btw fuses are rated in (A) amps not (W) watts...big difference.
 
I've melted two voice coils over 2 years. Both came from underpowering because i was given the wrong specs on my prior amp. When played at low volume, the speakers would sound like the bottom of a snare drum.

Go for a 60 amp fuse. Just my .02 cents
 
What exactly is clipping?? And is there a "proper" way to adjust this amp? I just adjusted it by ear..and putting a 60amp fuse in my smaller(8 gauge?) amp wire is not a good idea right?? Im going to replace my CVR and get a better amp kit (at least 4 ga.) Hopefully this wont happen again...What can be done to prevent it?? Thanks again!
 
Think of it this way, audio is a sine wave, representing A/C current. Usually those waves are nice curves top to bottom, when clipping happens, imagine the peaks being straight instead of curved (plateaus if you will).... The signal is "clipped" on the top and bottom of the arcs.

If you look at this pic, you'll see the dark blue and light blue are normal sine waves, but the red and orange are clipped signals, they are missing their curve. In the audio world, clipping is bad for speakers and SQ. Usually an installer can tune by ear, but if you want to go way in-depth, you can use an O-scope to really see what's going on.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipping_(audio)

clipping.jpg
 
The reason it's bad is because that flat section is essentially a DC bias at that point. It's the same as applying a large DC voltage to your speaker (albeit for only a fraction of a second). Do that too many times and the voice coil will heat up and prematurely fail.

In reliability testing of loudspeakers, the absolute worst signal you can apply to a loudspeaker is a square wave.
 
iBrent said:
The reason it's bad is because that flat section is essentially a DC bias at that point. It's the same as applying a large DC voltage to your speaker (albeit for only a fraction of a second). Do that too many times and the voice coil will heat up and prematurely fail.
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He hit it square on the head, exactly. Usually happens when gains are turned to high, lots of time people just want to boom boom down the street. There is a difference in doing it right, and doing it wrong. I'm sure you could take your system to a car shop close and have them tune it for a very small price. I know we charge $20/15 min, and something like an amp tune doesn't really take more than that to do, as long as the amp(s) are easy to get at.
 
^^cool graph...I've only used a db meter when I've tuned my home stereo, never even thought about an o-scope...but then again, I don't know how to use one...

I don't know about you guys, but my gain is hardly turned up after I've tuned it...usually only around 1, maybe a little higher on the sub amp.
 
Whats an O-scope?? Id really like to learn to properly tune a system...My CD player has a lot of different settings and the amp only has the basic stuff...Thanks
 
TK95Contour said:
Whats an O-scope?? Id really like to learn to properly tune a system...My CD player has a lot of different settings and the amp only has the basic stuff...Thanks
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Oscilloscope.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscilloscope

You can only really use it to set gain levels. To properly tune a system you'd need a real-time spectrum analyzer and function/noise generator.
 
Need something like a JL Clean sweep I believe or an Alpine Imprint system if you want to be really hardcore SQ and tune.... Rockford makes a 360.2 piece for tuning as well...
 
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