jdubu420

Well at least your cutting down on possible things that could be wrong. Though I know, it's frustrating. II don't understand why the manual states that either. Soldering every connection is a good rule of thumb, that's why I do it. Not for conductivity. Though it's nice to know the connection is not going to come un-done. I've noticed it could be pretty easy to damage these when mounting or configuring the sensitivty on the meter. Perhaps thats the problem... Maybe the grey wire came lose from the circuit board? Or maybe it has a cold-joint? I don't know if these are hand-made or not, but if they are, there is a tiny possibility of this. In that case you could send it in for warranty... A cold joint is easy to fix, just re-heat the solder where the grey wire connects to the board. Don't over-heat it, just quickly heat till liquid then let it cool again. If you can measure with a DMM and see AC signal at the terminal the grey wire is connected to on the amp... then unless the wire isn't connected at the meter, there is no other point of possible failure.

Cannot figure out how to delete double-post...

Now to address your issue... I believe your not getting a good signal transfer for one reason or another. I didn't use speaker wire, I used cheap wire I picked up at my local auto-parts store! It llooked like it was the same gauge, and I inspected the actual copper inside each. They seemed to be an equal match. I tested the output on all 4 "slots" Mono amp. They give the EXACT same reading. + or - seems to make no difference. Neither does which slot you pick. Once calibrated, you can move it from one slot to the other without changing the readings. Unless the amp is SUPER close to being burnt or the amp is actually damaged already, your not going to hurt anything. (DISCLAIMER: I don't believe, and in the manual it says it's safe for 2 channels, and I tried it without damage on a MONO, so I'm living proof that it is only POSSIBLE not to damage anything.) Did you solder the grey wire or use some sort of clip to attach the wire? I solder all my connections. Clips always came loose or didn't make good contact when I tried them. If that doesn't fix things... Try new gauge/brand/type of wire from the amp to the grey wire. Bigger or smaller won't hurt anything. Just don't go smaller than what the grey wire itself is. (Haven't checked, just eye-balled it.) Like I said, I only used regular cheap power wire for car accessories. I expected needing to upgrade to speaker wire... but apparently not. Hope this helps, if not let me know if you have any other questions This thing sure was a hassle for me... I think for $100 SMD should have included the 10uF 200v Bi-Polar Capicator I needed to install this.... Hunting around at radio-shack for a $1.50 part is no fun lol...

In the troubleshooting section of the manual it states that DC Current Offset at the amplifier outputs can cause a false reading. I believe this is what was throwing things off. In the guide it said to wire a 10uF 200v Capacitor inline with the grey wire to fix the DC Offset issue. (And I could find no other solutions on the net or otherwise.) I managed to find a 10uF 50v Cap and it worked just fine. Problem solved, works perfectly, seems to be VERY accurate and VERY fast. Drops down to 0 INSTANTLY when I turn off the music as it should. The meter has this cool "Peak Save" effect, where it illuminates the highest peak, then slowly drops around 1 second at a time. This way you know if it ever hits the "Red" or "Danger Zone!" I calibrated the Output Meter to turn to red at 49.5v. The amp is rated at 49v. I can now relax and enjoy the peace of mind that I have so desperately needed... I am way too OCD to spend $3,000, when I only make $8,000 a year, and not knowing if I'm pushing my system too hard. Oh, and the cause of the DC Offset being a little higher may just be because I had (very unintentionally) abused my amp and had to have it sent into JL Audio for repair. I read somewhere else on the net that after an amp has been repaired it's normal for it to have a little higher DC Offset. Slightly harder on crappy subs, probably totally fine on my X12. However, as we found out in this scenario, AC devices do not enjoy DC current and react to it violently even in small amounts.

I am having a similiar problem with an OM-1 I ordered directly from SMD. I'm getting a strong reading from my 1200w JL Audio G-Max. However, as soon as I turn on my deck... even with the volume all the way down, the meter sits at a constant-3dB. It does not move and adjust with the music as it should. It will never drop below -3dB. I adjusted the meter to just barely display red at the amps max output of 49v. It does display red when there are powerful peaks with the volume/output about where I'd expect it to be. HOWEVER.... The ground is wired into a distribution block which goes straight to the battery for all my meters. <-- thinking this could be the problem. The constant power is wired into my smaller 200w amp's power terminal. The Remote wire is wired into a distribution block for all my gauges connected to an empty 20Amp slot in the fusebox. The grey wire I've tried at both the + and - speaker outputs on my amp with the exact same readings. Both readings were obviously still useful as I've stated... but I doubt the accuracy on such a small scale. Without it displaying as it should, how can we trust the accuracy? I'm very stressed out about this. I'm pretty broke at the moment and picked one of these up on sale for $92.00 with shipping over black friday. Really want to figure this out... In the troublshooting section of the manual it states that you may need to wire a capicator inline with the grey (Speaker signal) and white (Remote Wire) to reduce engine noise. I'd really like to avoid all that if possible. Engine noise is a possibility as I have a very powerful alternator. And it is grounded with 0 gauge wire straight to the battery negative terminal. Perhaps giving it it's own seperate ground away from any other devices would be best? Perhaps the ground is not good enough? It should be... but you never know. I could run another ground wire straight to the battery for it, or I could mount it somewhere on the frame that reads good on my DMM. Any advice is extremely helpful. I'm fairly experienced with these sort of things and thought this would be a piece of cake. The most confusing part about all this, is that the white wire (remote) should have zero effect on the readings.... Only the grey should matter as that is all that it is measuring correct?