Dr Crash

iTrader: (28)

check your impedance on your speakers. it looks like on ch1 you are trying to wire them in parallel. if this is the case you could be putting a very low load on your amp and causing it to shut down at high volumes. unless those are supposed to be subs, most car audio speakers are 4ohm each and wiring them in parallel like this will bring that down to a 2ohm load that the amp sees. some amps can't handle thise kind of load and will shut down at higher volumes.

with the single speaker (which i am assuming to be your subwoofer), check it's impedance too. if you have a 2ohm voice coil on your ch2 output, that could also be shutting your amp down at higher volumes.

next is the issue of you thinking that one of the speaker outputs might have touched ground. if this happened while the amp was on, that's not good. having an output touch ground is a good way to overheat it and shut it down or blow it completely. on good amps they will have a protection circuit to shut the amp down to prevent the output from frying, which could be why it is shutting down all the time.

with all this said, it is wise to be running a 4ch amp instead of the 2ch depicted here. that way you can devote a channel to each of the speakers currently attached to ch1 and then bridge 3/4 for your sub/other 2 speakers. or use the 2ch for the 2 speakers on ch1 and use a mono block (1ch) amp for your sub. btw, i have a sweet alpine mono amp for sale if you are interested!! hehe had to throw that in!

hope this helps. if you have any other questions/concerns PM me.

SICKdimension

thanks dr. crash. i continued this in another thread (wiring diagrams) you should check it out. the speakers off ch1 are subs. the single is a 15" home speaker. and the other 2 are jenson 6x9's. i bought everything used, so i dont know the impedance or ohms of anything. if all the connections are good, will the way it's set up in diagram 1 work? or is it unsafe to be played at high volumes with the pair of speakers on ch2 switched off.

ChillinEvolved

thats y i get most of my **** installed by people that have done it b4 =P

Dr Crash

iTrader: (28)

if you don't know the impedance then check it with an ohmeter or multi-meter set to check resistance. they should be 2 or 4 or something like that. by the sounds of it though, you are probs loading it down too much causing the shut downs. the 15" home speaker is probs around 8ohms, so i doubt that is the problem. my main concern is the two subs running off ch1. so check it out and if the impedance is too low (2ohms or so) then wire the subs in series instead of parallel and that should help. doing this will result in less power being developed by the amp, but will keep it from shutting down on you.

SICKdimension

i've had the subs runnin no problem for over a year now, so if the big speaker isn't a problem, i'll try wiring it up again, this time not crossing any wires i dont have a meter that you're talking about, and i've never had a prob with the subs, but should i wire them in a series anyway? would that help with anything? thanks a lot for all your help.

cupOZnj

i'm assuming that nothing is bridged there, correct? you should really run bridged to a subwoofer, it should see both channels of the music, and the bridged output is usually stable to 2 ohms. if you want to do it correctly, you should wire the 2 subs in parallel and run them to the amp in bridged mode, OR run the one 15 bridged, but you really shouldn't try running all 3 at once. if the two subs are the same impedance, then everything is good....but when you start messing with speakers of different impedance, that's when you run into trouble. it may have worked fine before, but it's really not the right way to do it. if you want to do it right, get another amp.

SICKdimension

alright cup, got a question for you. i dont know how many watts the subs can handle, but i know the amp is 160rms. if i run it bridged, could it possibly be too much power for the subs and blow them out? or does it provide the same amount of power. also, can you give me a diagram of how to bridge the subs properly, and connected parallel? thanks

i just read your other post, and i'm gonna scrap the 15". seems like too much trouble. it is pretty damn loud though (when it used to work right).

i will only switch the 6x9's on at semi-low volumes and when the car is stopped. (they face out the trunk to listen to music when standin around the car) so is there some way i could use this amp to power them? i would be willing to switch off the subs and just use the speakers if i had to. maybe a toggle switch that selects either subs/speakers??

cupOZnj

usually in order to bridge an amp you have to wire from the positive of one channel and the negative of the other (like left + and right -)

wiring in parallel would be the + terminal of your amp to each + terminal of the sub, same with the -. the best way to connect this is to connect one sub to the other (+ to + and - to -) then one sub to the amp.

8ohm sub is too high for car audio unless you are running 3 subs in parallel, 3 8ohm subs gives you a 2ohm load. otherwise i'd just forget about the 15" like you said.

the amp is 160rms at what ohms and how many channels? if it is 160wx2 into 4 ohms, then it would be 320wx1 (bridged) into 4 ohms. now you have to find out what the impedence of the subs are. if they are each 4ohms, a parallel connection will give you a 2ohm load, and the amp will now be giving them a total of 640wx1, but it's really 320w into each sub. as long as the signal isn't clipped (by clipping i mean that the amp isn't cutting the signal off because the volume or gain is set too high) any sub SHOULD be fine, but you really want to match it up with a 320w rms sub. do some searching on the internet to find out the specs on your system.

as far as those 6x9s, if you want them on all the time with the subs you can get a tri-mode crossover, they are cheap like $30 at crutchfield, and this will only send the 100Hz and under frequencies to the sub and over 100Hz to the speakers. if you want to switch between them, i think the easiest way would be to just wire them up and disconnect the subs when needed. if you want to get fancy, i don't know if this would work, but it would involve 2 2pole switches and 2 3pole switches. i'll post a picture of what i am getting at in the next post.

cupOZnj

here is what i mean...i think this would work with a 3pole switch. anyone else think of something different? maybe some relays...

SICKdimension

hmm. i studied your post. makes sense, but kinda confusing too. i dont think the subs can handle any more power. the way they are set up now they seem maxed out, so here's what i would like to do...

seems pretty simple, but is it safe to play the subs and 6x9's at the same time? or should i switch the subs too, but then is it safe to have so much power running through a little switch?

also, the speakers can't handle much (only 40 watts i think) so is it best to wire them how i have it here? actually, now that i think about it, i could just unplug the rca's out of the amp of the channel i dont want to use at the moment right?

(keep in mind i dont want to use the 6x9's while driving)

SICKdimension

specs on the subs:

10" Subwoofer
2" Voice Coil
50oz Magnet
Polymer Treated Organic Fiber Cone
High Flux Density Magnet Motor Assembly
Vented Pole Piece
150 Watts RMS / 300 Watts Peak
4 Ohm

(not powerful enough to be bridged)

SICKdimension

would it be safe to run 1 sub off each channel, instead of both off 1 channel?? would that sound better? just curious.

Dr Crash

iTrader: (28)

you don't want to run it bridged at 2 ohms if it is a 2ch amp and not a mono or class D amp. this is effectively running 1 ohm per channel and is not good for the amp making it work way too hard and run hot. if everything worked fine before then keep it that way. running the subs parallel like you have it on 1ch is fine since they are 4ohms each and therefore make a 2ohm load. you can run the 15" off ch2 2 as long as it is no lower than 2ohms, which i doubt it is anyway if you are willing to scrap it. as for the 6x9's, go to the radioshack or whatever and buy that speaker selector i was saying in my previous post and it will be fine. relays would work as well. you could have the normally closed attached to the 15" and normally open side attached to the 6x9's. or vica versa.

cupoznj: 3 8ohm loads in parallel does not make a 2ohm load. check your governing laws of electricity before posting incorrect information. impedances in parallel are governed by the equality as follows; (1/impedance of system)=(1/load 1)+(1/load 2)+etc. so then by this equality it is proven that 3 8ohm loads will give a total impedance in the circuit of 2.666666.... or 2.67 for simplicity. next is the issue of mixing speakers of different impedance; no problem doing this. in short all the amp sees is the total circuit impedance, no matter what the individual loads are. however, this being said, power will be routed differently depending on load size and therefore individual speakers would be receiving different amounts of power, which really isn't an issue since you can't hear the difference anyway.

SICKdimension

thank you guys for all your help. now that we know the ohms of the speakers, without getting a speaker selector, could i use the switches i already have and hook everything up like in the first diagram i posted with no problems?

SICKdimension

better yet, what if i got one of those swithes that toggles between 2 speakers and has a center off position. then could i have the 15" and the 6x9's on channel 2 with this switch controlling them?