Amp problem... need some help from you gurus.

[felony]

Hey guys...

Here is my problem - recently my amp has been stuttering to turn on. It will show volt protection then flicker on for less then a second, then turns itself off. It will continue like this (when the car is on) for a varrying amount of time. Sometimes it will take a few minutes until it is fully on, other times it will take up to a half hour.

Once it has been on for a while and I turn of the car for a few minutes/hours it will start right back up when i start the car up.

I have just replaced my battery with a new die hard that has more power then my OEM battery.

Here is what I am running

Kicker 600.1 amp
2 10" Kicker Comp VRs
pioneer 6400

Not sure what else is needed for my information. The system has been running great for 2+ years, and never have had this problem. I thought it was the battery so I took it in and they said the battery was about to die so I picked up a new battery and hoped that it would fix my amp problems, but it hasnt.

I thought one of my wires may be lose (remote,power,ground) but "symptoms" dont show a wire is lose. It is too predictable in failure/working to be a faulty connection.

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Hit my up on [email protected] or howtoeatmuffins (AIM ) if you got a few minutes to talk.

Thannks again
Dan H.

[gimp]

Wait, I'm confused. Did it have the same problem with the old battery? Or did it start when you put the new battery in.
If it' started after you put the new battery in then here is my guess. I don't really know much about car audio, but this is the first thing that popped into my head. The capacitors in your amp are degraded or something from using the old battery, your new battery has more power, and the capacitors charge up all the way, but there is still some power coming from the battery that has to go somewhere, so the protection shuts the unit off. Then all sorts of crazy magic happens. That's just a guess. I have no idea what actually is going on.

[felony]

happened with both batterys

i ran fine for two years +/-, then the problem began. Two weeks after the problem started I picked up a new battery, and still have the problem.

dan

[MarkM]

Remove your amp from wherever it is fixed and take it apart and clean the heck out of it, the Amp is tripping from an over current feed (not too likely since the older battery did it too) or over heating...the Amp itself is probably just about shot so the capaciters will get worn (bad term but close enough) the Mosfets could also be on their way. Since you do get it to run ok when you have been running the car for a while it points to the capaciters eventually holding a sufficient charge. This is one reason that people buy those huge capaciters to feed the power to the amp so the amp gets the right amount of juice constantly. The internal capacitors are tiny and only have a limited life and since also most people just tuck the amp under seats etc with very poor airflow the internal parts fail earlier than with a well ventilated system.

[felony]

Would a cap fix my current problem or is there no way to tell?

I dont want/need a new amp unless this one is shot... but i dont know how to figure that out if that is the case.

I much rather just spend a $100 on a cap compared to 450 for a new amp

dan

[MarkM]

An external one you mean? Well sort of but then you could still be spending $100 on something that the $1 cap inside the amp could be fixed by. This said you wouldn't pay just $1 for the cap (in the amp) from a repair centre...I am generalizing here since not all the caps inside the amp will be that cheap but in relative terms they will be.
It will depend on if you have a car hi-fi place that take amps etc in for repair. Car amps tend to be very basic in their layout and are reasonably easy to work on but to test the caps on the board properly you need to find the values and then compare the charge and discharge rates they show on a meter and since they are surface mounted it isn't so simple to do..I know I said the board layouts was easy but the metering part that easy. You have to have the board out of the case, a meter on one side with the board at an angle and really 3 hands.
$450 doesn't sound too much for an amp so maybe it would be time to replace anyhow...but just for piece of mind wiring wise see if you have a buddy you can swap with to see that it isn't any other issue.

[felony]

Seems the problem has fixed itself.

The only thing I can think of is the amp was getting low voltage from the dying battery and it got used to not turning on right away or having low voltage. now it just turns right up and pounds like a machine.

i may get a cap anyway.. have a nice spot for one in my setup.. any suggestions.

dan