How To Stop an Car Amplifier For Overheating

An car amplifier needs proper ventilation for it to perform correctly. If your performance car parts amplifier overheats, it will randomly go into protect mode. This will shut down the car amplifier from operation until it has cooled down. The best solution is to stop your car amplifier overheating in the first place, as the last thing you want is your music not playing in busy traffic. There are many ways to consider cooling your car amplifier down. The most easiest is to get an PC 120mm fan and attach it directly onto the metal heatsink. This will allow cool fresh air to directly be blown onto it. The more fans you add the better the cooling will be, I usually recommend at least two. If your not too bothered about your car amplifier looking pretty, then the best solution is to drill the screws holes directly into the metal heatsink. Then apply an screw into each corner of the PC fan to mount it in place. 

In terms of powering the fans, you want an 12 volt source that is switched, it is possible to run the cooling fans from the blue remote wire. However, this will only provide 5 volts which is not enough to run the computer fans to there maximum potential. The best way is to use an fuse tap and find an switched fuse circuit in the fuse box, verify this use an test light. You can use the ground of the amplifier for the negative wires from the fans so thats ok. 

If you don't fancy make modifications to your car amplifier, then you perhaps consider were you have mounted the car amplifier? Has it been mounted under the seat? Is it stuffed behind the box with lots of rubbish in the boot? The key to keeping the compare parts amplifier cool and not overheating is to ensure its getting a lot ventilation around it. The best place to mount an car amplifier is directly on the back of the seat and leave at least 5 CM between the enclosure and the amplifier. This will provide enough airflow around the car amp to prevent it getting damaged.

How To Wire Up Your Car Amplifier For The First Time

Without an car amplifier, the car subwoofer will simply not perform to its best ability. The factory car stereo doesn't have enough power to make an car subwoofer function. Car subwoofers have bigger voice coils than traditional car speakers, so they tend to require an huge amount of power to get them moving. You need to find an car amplifier that matches the rms wattage rating of your car subwoofer. You also need an suitable car amp that support the lowest ohm configuration your car subwoofer can handle. For example if your car subwoofer is an 2ohm magnet, you need an amplifier that can be wired down to 2ohms. If you wire an 1ohm speaker to an 4ohm only car amplifier, you will damage the car amp or it will go into protect mode. 

Once you have obtained your car amplifier, you need to obtain an relevant wiring kit. You can get an brand new car amp wiring kit from ebay. This will contains all your cables and parts. The red wire will need to be connected to the 12 constant positive feed from the car battery. The ground wire will be the shorter black cable that goes to an bolt in the trunk area. The blue remote wire will connect to an switched 12 volt source, or if you have an aftermarket headunit directly to the blue wire behind the car radio. The RCA cables will connect from the preouts on the back of the headunit into the inputs on the car amplifier. If you are using an factory headunit, you will need to wire an RCA converter, make sure you use an quality one as cheap ones are prone to make buzzing sounds and engine interference. 

Depending on your car amplifier, you can also bridge the terminals on your car amplifier for more power, if it is an two channel stereo amplifier. To bridge an car amplifier is easy, get some speaker wire and attach to positive on channel one, on channel two attach the other end of the speaker wire to negative. Then insert the other end of the speaker wire into the terminal posts on the car subwoofer enclosure matching the red and black colours. There are two common places to mount your car amplifier. The most common being directly on the back of the subwoofer box, this is an great idea if you are after an simple installation. You can also use an drill to mount it directly onto the back seat, this is more of an job to do but the results are certainly worth it.

How To Fix An Car Amplifier That Wont Turn OFF

The last thing anybody wants is an dead battery. An car amplifier requires 12 volts constant and also an remote wire that provides an signal to turn on and off. If the remote wire is incorrectly connected, then it may cause your car amplifier to always be powered on. This can cause an unexpected drain on your car battery. If your car amplifier has an Power status LED that is always in the ON position, then you need to correct the wiring before it drains your car battery. 

There are two methods to wire an remote wire on your car amplifier. The first method is to wire it to an fuse that is ignition switched with the key, this is common if you are using the factory car stereo and rca converter combination. You can obtain an fuse tap, that will split the existing circuit in the fuse box into two parts, it will retain an original circuit while also adding separate circuit dedicated for the remote wire on your car amplifier. I recommend using an 5 amp fuse for the remote wire and remove the existing fuse from the fuse box and add it into the fuse tap. 

To test which fuse location is ignition switched, an multi meter would be required. Place the black probe onto some metal of the vehicle and place the red probe onto a fuse that you want to test. Turn the ignition on, does it read 12 volts with the key or is it always reading 12 volts. If it is always reading 12 volts, then this means it is an constant fuse. You don't want to use this as this will provide power all the time to the remote wire all the time, making your car amplifier always stay on. You want to find an fuse that provides 12 volts on and off with the car ignition.

If you have an aftermarket headunit, either an branded one such as an pioneer, alpine, jvc or sony or an android Chinese radio, if you look in the back of the ISO wiring loom, you will see an blue and white wire or blue, usually labelled as amp turn on and amplifier. This is an circuit within the headunit that will provide an on an off ignition to your car amplifier. This is the official way to do it. Get an long blue remote wire and attach it to this using solder and heat shrink or PVC insulation tape. Run the blue remote wire all the way to the back of car trunk and insert it into the remote terminal on the car amplifier.

Please help car amplifier not powering on? What should i do to fix it

An car amplifier requires 12 volts to switch on. If your car amplifier is not powering on, then this car audio troubleshooting guide will help you with working out an solution to this car audio problem. The first thing you need to check is the fuse on the main red power wire. You will find an inline fuse holder fitted right next to the positive terminal on the car battery. Remove the plastic cover and inspect the fuse. If you notice the wire inside the fuse is snapped or broken, then the fuse is blown and must be replaced in order to fix your broken car amplifier. There is also an fuse found on the car amplifier itself they can also fail, so inspect them too. 

Once you have verified all the fuses are not blown, then you need to further inspect the car amplifier not turning on scenario. The car amplifier remote wire is responsible for it to switch on and off with the car ignition. Trace back the blue remote wire an locate were it goes either to an fuse box if you have an factory radio or the blue wire on an aftermarket radio. Check all connections make sure they are strong and reliable and also check the fuse for the remote wire in the fuse tap, (if its wired to the fuse box). The fuse could be blown, hence the car amplifier not getting an signal to switch on and off. 

The ground wire is also important. The black wire that goes to an metal part of the chassis. You will need to ensure that the ground connection is making good contact with the metal of the car. Ensure that you find an clean ground location. Use sandpaper to remove any paint around the surface that you are going to mount your ground wire. Also an seat belt bolt is going to be strongest point of an earth in your car.

Thinking of buying an new car? It is always important to obtain an full vehicle history report by conducting an VIN look up. An simple VIN Check can help you determine several information about different vehicles.

How To Wire 6X9 Car speakers to your car audio system.

6X9 car speakers are great for adding more bass into your car without having to take up valuable space by adding an large subwoofer. Subwoofers are of course the better option, if your looking for that deep earth shaking bass, but not everybody has an available boot space. 6X9 car speakers also have tweeters placed in the centre to provide extra clarity for treble. This can create an 3D surround sound effect in your car giving you an better sound depth. 6X9 speakers also have a lot of cone area, making them equivalent to an 8 inch car subwoofer. With the correct level of amplification, they sure can produce some decent bass to get the rear view mirror vibrating that's for sure.

There are two different options to wire 6X9 car speakers, the first being to wire them directly to the rear channels left and right on the back of the stereo. If you are using an aftermarket stereo, these will be the purple and green pairs of speaker wires. The one with the stripe down is negative and the solid colour is positive on the ISO harness. Run two nice quality speaker cables down the side of the car going to each 6x9 car speaker, ensuring that polarity is correct. Make sure the connections are made on the speaker using the correct spade connectors that slip into the speaker terminals. This will ensure an tight an snug fit to give you an reliable sound and performance, loose connections are known to become more apparent overtime with vibrations from the bass. Over to the headunit, you can twist and tape if you know how to do it correctly. However, if you are really crafty, you can use an soldering iron and solder to make durable strong connections that are made to last. 

Powering 6X9 car speakers from the back of the stereo is going to limit how loud they play. Each 6x9 car speaker will have its own RMS rating on the back of it. for example 100 watt rms. This is the number that provides are true rating to how much power an speaker can handle before it goes bang. Adding an two channel amplifier rated at the same RMS as the speaker, will bring the 6x9 car speaker to its true potential. An 8 gauge car amp wiring kit from ebay or amazon will contain everything you need, power, ground and blue remote wire, as well as signal RCA cables. Once you have hooked up the wiring kit, then mount the car amplifier onto the back seat for easy access, allowing you to fine tune the settings. It also helps with ventilation in the summer.

How To Fix Buzzing Noise Come From Car Speakers

An car amplifier is designed to provide extra power to your car speakers or car subwoofer depending on your setup. Sometimes, if unlucky you can experience an buzzing sound coming through when driving and this can increase as you accelerate. When this happens, you are introducing interference into your system, its not going to damage your expensive equipment, however it can become annoying at times. 

The first thing to figure out what might be causing this problem. It can be an issue with an poor ground. As being an ex car audio installer for an bass company, I have seen some very poor installs. Many understand when new to fitting the first car audio amp that grounding your car amplifier is simply finding an screw and attaching the wire onto it. The proper way to do is to find an unused seat belt bolt near the back seat area. This is an solid ground because its direct with the cars chassis and not plate welded metal on metal. Before attaching the ring terminal for the black ground wire, scrape down any excessive paint around the area to provide an good electrical contact. Any paint that gets in the way can cause an poor ground. Re check your ground. Most of the time improving this can get rid of any unwanted buzzing sounds on your car amplifier.

If your ground for your car amplifier is perfect, ensure that you are using good quality RCA cables that have shielding inside. Cheap RCA cables provide functionality yes but they are made from poor materials that can increase the chances of your car audio system getting interference through the car speakers. Thick RCA cables have shielding around the small wires found inside. This blocks out unwanted noise getting into your car audio system. Also another tip is the red 12 volt power and blue remote wire should be ran separately to the opposite side to your car. So for example, RCA cables on right hand side and power and remote on the other. The power wire can leak out unwanted signals. Moving it far away from the RCA cables will reduce potential of any kind of unwanted interference being picked up in your vehicle.

How To Make Your Cheap Car Subwoofer Louder and Have More Bass

If you want your car subwoofer to be heard down the road, then you have come to the right place. This car audio website contains many different articles to get your the most of your system. You don't always have to spend alot of money on an car audio system, to get good loud sound. I have seen several cheap car subwoofers out perform expensive JL audio systems. This is because the enclosure is more important than the car subwoofer itself. The enclosure has the most impact on how your bass sounds and what type of response you get from your car bass speaker. An ported enclosure, also known as vented provides the loudest type of sound, the vent if tuned high around the 35 to 40 hz region will give you an boom type of bass. If you want deep earth shaking bass then and enclosure tuned to 30 HZ would be optimal, making it great for rap songs. Ported enclosure must be designed to the specification of your car subwoofer. The box has to have the correct internal volume in order for the car speaker to perform. Sealed boxes are good for sound quality, but if you want to be loud and still have decent sound quality, an custom ported box is the way to go.

Fine tune the car audio settings on the car stereo and car amplifier. The car stereo itself if aftermarket, will have an bunch of features. Things such such as an car equaliser will allow you to fine tune the bass frequencies to your liking, upping the bass response. Also ensure that the low pass filter is switched on the car amplifier and set to 80 HZ. The gain must be tuned accordingly and not just turned up, slowly turn it up and stop until you hear an drop in sound quality from the sub. You can also bridge the output on your car amplifier if its an two channel amplifier. This will double the power rms output of your car amplifier for more bass. Check the specifications online for the car amplifier make and model you are using to find out what ohm stable your amp is and if it supports bridging. Then depending on your car subwoofer coils, wire to the lowest ohm the car amp supports for the best sound and loudness.

How To Fix Car Subwoofer That Cuts In and Out

It can be annoying when your car subwoofer cuts out randomly when driving, sometimes it goes louder then loses its bass. There are many causes to this, the main culprit being an loose connection which is possible. But sometimes in rear cases, it is an indication that your car battery is going bad and can no longer provide a constant voltage to your car amp. When the voltage drops so can the bass, because the car amplifier will not be making full power at the lower volts, impacting the sound. Before troubleshooting any further, please get your car battery tested and your car alternator. Doing so now to give you peace of mind that your cars electrical system is fine or not or you could be potentially stranded one day when your car randomly fails to start. 

If your car battery and alternator has been tested, and the test has come back as good, then lets troubleshoot further. The first thing you should inspect are all the terminals from the power, ground and remote wires. Is each wire crimped correctly into the metal terminal connector and going into the amp making good contact? To verify this, simply bend the wire slightly, is there any play or loose connection? If so, cut the wire, remove the insulation using wire strippers and add a new connector. If the power connections look fine, move onto the speaker connections on the car amplifier. Do they also look fine? Follow the same procedure for checking for loose connections on your car amp. 

If the connections on the car amplifier look fine, the connections within the car subwoofer enclosure may be loose. This can happen due to vibrations caused by low bass from the car subwoofer.. Get a philips head screwdriver and remove each screw around the car subwoofer, remove the subwoofer from the box. Check the speaker wire connections that go onto the terminal cup inside the box to the car speaker. Are they loose, is there any play when moved with your finger?  The best way to connect the speaker wire to the terminal cup is using a soldering iron to solder them on. This prevents the speaker wire from disconnecting or eventually falling off from vibrations over time.

RCA cables can also be faulty, they can get damaged by being bent by accident when moving your car amplifier in the boot while the RCA input cables had been attached. They may look fine on the outside but inside each RCA plug there are small wires they could be damaged. An new set of RCA cables are not expensive, so its worth swapping them over with shielded ones to get an good signal to your car subwoofer

In most cases, this car audio troubleshooting guide to fixing a car subwoofer cutting in and out should fix the problem. However, in some cases there can be an internal fault with the car amplifier, The solder points for any terminal connected to the PCB including RCA jacks can be loose. This can cause a poor connection with the car amplifier, causing an intermittent sound. Try a different car automotive amplifier, this will help you rule out what the root cause is.

How To Fix Car Amplifier Cutting Out at High Volumes

car amp wiring kit keeps cutting off

 

 

 

 

 

A car amplifier needs a constant supply of voltage to sustain performance. Overtime, the voltage will become weaker, as the stock car battery can only sustain so much extra strain. The more things you can do to reduce voltage drop, the better your car audio system will perform. If your car amplifier is cutting out at high volumes, but plays fine at lower levels it is an electrical issue, either with the power getting to the car amp, or poor wiring. The first thing that you check in this case is the ground location on your car amp. The ground has to be mounted to an surface were only bear metal is exposed, any paint or dirt must be sanded off to provide the best possible connection. Please recheck your ground and make sure its solid. The best grounding point in all cars is the seat belt bolt, try avoid metal over metal that has been plate welded on as that will create a poor ground. 

Once you have checked the ground, you need to ask yourself are you even using the correct car amplifier wiring kit gauge size for the rms your car amplifier is putting out? If you are using too small wire, the car amplifier performance will not be optimal. Generally 8 gauge is good for around 300 rms, 6 gauge for 500 rms, 4 gauge for 1000 rms and anything higher 0 gauge. CCA is cheaper wire, basically silver wire sprayed copper and OFC is pure copper. You can tell the quality of the OFC wire is much better and overall feels more heavier and carries more voltage across to your car amp. When inserting the power wire and ground wires, ensure that you only strip the insulation and not the copper along with it. You need as much copper wire as possible to stay on the wire to provide the best possible connection. If you have an nice big thick cable and you trim it down, in theory you are making it into an smaller cable. Not good.

Upgrading the stock basic car battery to a deep cycle one will provide more bass performance and less voltage drop. Car amplifiers make full power only at 14.4 volts, as soon as the voltage is dropping, the RMS watts power will also be dropping, this is more apparent at higher volumes, resulting in the car amplifier cutting out. Yellow top optima car battery is good for car audio systems if you're in the UK and if you're in the USA, XS power battery is the one to get. You will notice your bass will be much louder simply by upgrading the car battery to an performance branded car battery. Say goodbye to dimming headlights when the bass drops. You can also upgrade the alternator in the car to an higher amp one. The stock alternator really is only made to provide sufficient amp current for the stock electrics, such as wipers and windows, nothing additional really as such. Upgrading the alternator will provide more head room, as more ampage will be free to be dedicated towards the car amplifier.