I have a rather interesting problem. I don’t really understand what is going on and I’m pretty experience with stereo installation and electrical work.
Yesterday I was swapping my battery and the the positive cable and negative cable were bridged by a wrench. I was being careless and rushing the install since I wanted to go home. I have a circuit breaker by Phoenix Gold which flipped. This is between my battery and my power cable. This has happened before. So I reset it. I go to turn on my head unit and it has no power. Just dead.
After pulling my head unit this afternoon, I check the fuse on the back of the head unit and it’s blown. I replace it and the head unit powers on, but there’s no sound coming out. My door speakers and subwoofer are all powered by their own amps. The door speakers are powered by a Clarion and the subwoofer is powered by an Elemental Designs Nine.1
My head unit is powered via the auxiliary 12v location (1 of 4) via the under dash fuse block instead of using the wiring harness. That goes to a relay which has the following hooked up: 12v, ground, remote from the head unit, and then the remote wire heading to the amps. The relay tested ok. I audible heard it click and opened it up to visually inspect that the contacts were bridging. The remote wire is split down by the amps via a 1 -> 2 distribution block.
The amps are also split from via a distribution block by Phoenix Gold (Model LL0311).
I checked every single fuse in the car, under the dash, and under the hood. All of the fuses were good. All of the fuses in the distribution block check out OK as well. All of the fuses on the amps check out OK.
Everything was checked with a multimeter. 12v all around the house. 12 volts coming out of the head unit’s remote wire. 12 volts at the amps’ power and 12 volts at the amp’s remote.
Here is where things get weird. When I use a jumper wire to bridge the 12 volt line on both my amps to the remote wire I get nothing. Someone please offer up some trouble shooting. I spent 6 hours over this today. I have no idea what else to check or to verify. Please. For the love car audio.
I just also wanted to note I have a lot of fuses in place to prevent my amps from getting fried. None of these were blown with the exception of the head unit’s. The circuit breaker was tripped, but tested fine afterwards.
100 amp main circuit breaker on the positive line.
7.5 amp on the 12v auxiliary line to relay (powering the head unit)
Head unit’s 15 amp
30 amp fuse for each distribution of the positive line (to sub amp, component amp, and powered crossover)
25 amp right before the powered crossover
The individual amps’ fuses (4 on my sub amp, 2 on my component amp)
The only thing I have seen so far is that is out of the ordinary is that I’m getting 10.8v off of the remote line coming out of the head unit. This jumps up to 12.1v after it goes through the relay however. This is the only thing I could find.
As far as I can tell no. I get no lights on the amps. I will draw up a diagram to help show how my system is set up tonight and scan it. Maybe that will help also.
[QUOTE=fcm;2294028]Not sure I understand the need for the relay, it is adding a lot of unwanted connections.
The remote output, [amp control] has enough current to trigger both amps without any problem.
If jumping from amp power to amp control, [trigger] does not turn on the amp(s) either the amp power is no good, or the amp ground is no good.
Testing with a multimeter can be deceiving, a 12V test light can be a better tool as it has a load. 94[/QUOTE]
I’ll try testing with a test light tomorrow. I have tried bypassing the relay running the remote line straight to the amps, with no success. I’m guessing my amps are fried. I think I need to start saving for some new gear. For now, I’ll just not enjoy the quiet. I hate driving with out music.
Yeah. I think I’m going to do this on Sunday. I just had a death in the family a few hours ago so everything is haywire right now. Going to put all of this on the back burner for now. Life is too precious and too short to sweat the small stuff.
Just confirmed that my amps are blown. I swapped out my one of amps for an older known working Phoenix Gold amp that I have. Hooked up the power/ground/remote and it powered right up with no problems. This f-ing sucks. More money I don’t have.
What I don’t understand is how out of the 9 fuses I have in circuit on the 12 volt line didn’t blow. Just unbelievable. I’m so pissed.
[QUOTE=Stubbs;2294469]Just confirmed that my amps are blown. I swapped out my one of amps for an older known working Phoenix Gold amp that I have. Hooked up the power/ground/remote and it powered right up with no problems. This f-ing sucks. More money I don’t have.
What I don’t understand is how out of the 9 fuses I have in circuit on the 12 volt line didn’t blow. Just unbelievable. I’m so pissed.[/QUOTE]
I could be wrong but I believe this is because when you shorted your battery you essentially directly shorted your amps to and connected your main power wire directly to the ground wire sending essentially all the current through your amp and the breaker just wasn’t fast enough to stop it. I bet if you opened that amp up there would be some charred electronics.
