Amp + Heat = me not beatin the block.

[(S.M.R) 101]

alright dudes.. I installed my new Clarion headunit today and first off.. I freaking love this thing! I was no expecting the better sound that it is giving me but it's pretty damn good.

Now I have my alpine amp under my front seat and the last few rides out to the field the amp has shut off on me.... So I tuned the amp down and it happend again so I tuned it down again.. and it shut off again!

Any Suggestions?

Thanks guys

[myoung84]

Is it a newer alpine amp? I have 2 Alpine amps behind the rear seats and they have never shut down, even when running them for hours straight.

What impedance are your subs wired for? If you are running them at 1 ohm then that would explain your problems...

[(S.M.R) 101]

I bought the amp like 4 months ago... Never had a problem with it until now.. and that bitch gets hot dude

[(S.M.R) 101]

It's not 1 ohm i can tell you that for sure

[myoung84]

That's strange then, there's got to be something wrong with it. My amps get almost no ventilation and after a few hours of playing they are pretty warm but not hot.

What model amp is it?

[(S.M.R) 101]

Mrp m-1000

[(S.M.R) 101]

Just a vid of the color changing.....


http://i1177.photobucket.com/albums/x355/Kyle_Andress/th_MVI_0982.jpg (http://s1177.photobucket.com/albums/x355/Kyle_Andress/?action=view&current=MVI_0982.mp4)

[OklaHemi]

how big is your power and ground wire?

[Matt]

did you go from a factory radio to an aftermarket? are you running your rcas straight to the radio from amp or are you using a line out converter anywhere

[(S.M.R) 101]

I bought the 8 gauge Kicker kit came with everything to install the amp

[(S.M.R) 101]

Yes I was using a factory HU and just put this one in.. I did have a scosche line out converter installed with the Factory HU but when I orderd the aftermarket HU it came with another scosche wiring kit which had another (looked like line out converter) but I had my friend who owns a car audio shop swing by my house and install it while I was working today.

[(S.M.R) 101]

Here are some pic's of the wiring to the amp and subs.. Now when I bought the Box and Subs from a member on another forum I never pulled the subs to check the wiring on the inside to see how the old owner had them wired to the sub.. But I know he was pretty audio smart so I never thought to pull the subs and check.

http://i1177.photobucket.com/albums/x355/Kyle_Andress/IMG_0983.jpg

http://i1177.photobucket.com/albums/x355/Kyle_Andress/IMG_0984.jpg

http://i1177.photobucket.com/albums/x355/Kyle_Andress/IMG_0985.jpg

http://i1177.photobucket.com/albums/x355/Kyle_Andress/IMG_0986.jpg

http://i1177.photobucket.com/albums/x355/Kyle_Andress/IMG_0987.jpg

http://i1177.photobucket.com/albums/x355/Kyle_Andress/IMG_0989.jpg

http://i1177.photobucket.com/albums/x355/Kyle_Andress/IMG_0990.jpg

http://i1177.photobucket.com/albums/x355/Kyle_Andress/IMG_0993.jpg

[Matt]

Yes I was using a factory HU and just put this one in.. I did have a scosche line out converter installed with the Factory HU but when I orderd the aftermarket HU it came with another scosche wiring kit which had another (looked like line out converter) but I had my friend who owns a car audio shop swing by my house and install it while I was working today.

do you remember if your rca's plug directly into your radio or if he re-used the line out converter .. with our trucks we have a can bus system that requires an expensive harness to give the radio a switched 12v source so thats what the scosche piece was that you seen

normally as with anything it's always the most simple things you are over-looking so since it worked fine with no issues and then you changed the radio out that should be the issue ... the only thing i can think of is you are getting a way stronger signal now to the amp and the amp is running harder than it needs to and cutting off (this could be 2 reasons 1 your radio has a higher voltage output than your l.o.c. or 2 he's using both the loc and the radio and that would be way higher) .. your impedance (ohms) shouldn't be an issue as it ran on the stock head unit and nothing else changed

where is your gain and bass boost set on your amp?

[Matt]

Here are some pic's of the wiring to the amp and subs.. Now when I bought the Box and Subs from a member on another forum I never pulled the subs to check the wiring on the inside to see how the old owner had them wired to the sub.. But I know he was pretty audio smart so I never thought to pull the subs and check.


yeah everything looks fine there just running the subs in parallel now that doesn't tell me what impedance you're running bc i don't know how they are wired in the box or what impedance the subs are .. i'm guessing they are single 4 ohm and that would mean you're seeing 2 ohm at the amp which is what that amp is rated for .. however they could be dvc and wired too low for that amp .. only reason i doubt this is you didn't have this issue before ... do you have a multimeter you can check impedance?

btw that looks awfully big for 8 ga i bet that's 4 ga

[(S.M.R) 101]

When the amp started heating up I zero'd the amp out so nothing is turned up right now. Yeah I have a.meter ill check it today.

It might be a 4 but thought it was an 8... Whatever was the most expensive kit is the one I got.. I just looked for the biggest gauge kit they had and bought it

[(S.M.R) 101]

He did not reuse the line out converter that was hooked up to the stock HU, that was sitting in the front seat, so he is using what came in the new wiring kit that I got for the after market HU.

[myoung84]

Everything looks good to me. I still say you need to check the final impedance of the subs. Just unhook the 2 speaker wires from the amp and put an ohm meter across them. Other than the amp being defective, that about the only thing that would cause it to heat up and shut off.

[(S.M.R) 101]

Alright thanks guys

[(S.M.R) 101]

Well I did some more tuning with the amp and HU and I think I have got it now.. I didn't realize that the Bass eq nob was turned up way to damn high on the amp.. I thought I zero'd it out along with the gain and LP filter but I guess it didn't turn..

So I turned it all the way down messed with the HU settings and the amp has not shut off all day today and the amp has not heated up like it was heating up yesterday it still gets warm but not super hot. So i'm going to keep an eye on it for the next few days and see how it does.

I might take it up to my buddy who owns the car audio shop and have him take a look at it. But he his having a hell of a time right now.. When we had that flood here his shop was 12 feet under water... and he did not have flood insurance.. due to the fact his shop has been there 8 years and never even got close to flooding.

I swung by this morning to help him with clean up and he is stressing pretty bad.

[ramthis9501]

Glad it's working out of you, hope it stays that way.

[myoung84]

Good news. Hope it stays cool for you.