mothra

amps have several electrical components in them that can fail. don't you think it's kind of unfair to come on a forum and blame test equipment on your equipment failure? I'm not just telling you this to take sides. you can see that I've had my own personal issues with SMD devices through a simple search. Even though my situation was different, I still had my issues which I look back on and were a bit premature with some of the things I said. Even to this day the issue has not been resolved to my satisfaction so I'm not taking the side of the device or the brand, i'm just stating that it's test equipment and it cannot be at fault especially for an amp frying. I'm an installer and see amps fail right out the box from a brand new shipment several times. try contacting the manufacturer to see if they offer any type of repair service, if not than you might want to open it up and shoot a couple pictures of the board.

you do know that's not how it works right? saying a DD1 "fried" an amp is the same as saying that a DMM "fried" an amp. just the same as a DMM shows numbers when connected the DD1 lights up LEDs when connected.

Patiently waiting for an alt for a Ford focus :] What year and engine? Thanks, Chris 2001, and 2.0l. all first gen focus cars are 2.0L, the alt is different on the 2.0L SOHC and the 2.0L DOHC. DOHC here.

no love for us Focus owners especially first gen. there have been alt relocate kits to accommodate a supercharger but never seen anyone utilize the knowledge of a relocation alt kit for a dual alt kit. seems to be plenty of room to do 2 alt setup.

please google or youtube. this has been gone over extensively by Steve and several members. there's tons of videos and there's also an instruction manual you can read too.

sounds like fun but i have (again) a 300lb sound system and a 235 lb body....i probably wouldn't do as good as someone who is at the strip every week and serious about it. It would be fun to try a few times but i really am not much into racing. It's fun to hit the NOS though and feel the kick once in a while. it's usually +100lbs = -.1second on the quarter. so you'll only be around a half second slower than the same car with no driver and no sound system. as a nitrous user, i'd recommend not going to the track. you'll get nitrous happy. i started with a 50 shot on a focus. within a matter of months I was putting a 200 shot on it. i had about 5 hours of dyno time to get a true 200 shot and get the ECU flashed/tuned correctly for it. it did last me a while on the 200 shot. thankfully I only blew the head gasket but have since dropped down to a 125 shot after blowing the head gasket 4 times. having a high 12 sec low 13 sec 1/4 car is enough to surprise 11 second cars with a not so good driver or a driver who misses a gear. if you decide to get some track time, don't bring the bottle. 200 shot is no joke. was it single stage or 2 stage.. did it add 200hp to the wheels or at the crank? a 200hp gain no matter how you get it is a lot and with nitrous it just kicks single, @wheels. truthfully I'm surprised I didn't shoot a piston through the hood. i saw several guys getting over 400 whp with boost on the stock bottom end so i figured why not with laughing gas. i made several passes at the track and on the street. I knew something was going to blow I just didn't know what or when. i'm just thankful it was just the head gasket. either way the motor is in the process of being rebuild for turbo and nitrous this time only a 100 shot but i'll have around 14psi of boost too.

sounds like fun but i have (again) a 300lb sound system and a 235 lb body....i probably wouldn't do as good as someone who is at the strip every week and serious about it. It would be fun to try a few times but i really am not much into racing. It's fun to hit the NOS though and feel the kick once in a while. it's usually +100lbs = -.1second on the quarter. so you'll only be around a half second slower than the same car with no driver and no sound system. as a nitrous user, i'd recommend not going to the track. you'll get nitrous happy. i started with a 50 shot on a focus. within a matter of months I was putting a 200 shot on it. i had about 5 hours of dyno time to get a true 200 shot and get the ECU flashed/tuned correctly for it. it did last me a while on the 200 shot. thankfully I only blew the head gasket but have since dropped down to a 125 shot after blowing the head gasket 4 times. having a high 12 sec low 13 sec 1/4 car is enough to surprise 11 second cars with a not so good driver or a driver who misses a gear. if you decide to get some track time, don't bring the bottle.

i've been doing things wrong, so it's just the right box that makes hair tricks.

sorry rolex, i was not attempting to call you out or anything of the sort. I was just using your post as reference to opposition of charging full price. in no way, shape, or form was it meant to do anything other than give a reference to my opposing statement.

I explained this in my reply earlier that no one is going to rent having to put up more than the rental fee. If I have the money to buy one than why would I not just buy it for $150, than sell it for the going rate of $100-125 and I don't have to worry about how long I have it for? or I can buy a used one for $100-125 use it than sell it for about what I paid for it. the point of renting is to not pay full price just imagine if Redbox charged you $15 to rent a DVD than gave you back the difference of rental fee and payment when you returned the DVD. seriously I hope it works out for you but being someone that has walked this path, i'm just saying.

i'll give my run down of rental when I did it just so you can test the waters with previous renters. i started out with just 1 DD1, i wound up with 12 DD1s and 5 CC1s before stopping. It was a simple process of trust b/c I tried to do a hold for the cost of device and no one, i mean no one wanted to rent and it was up for atlas 4 months and I was a reputable seller on that forum with over 100 transaction since 2010. one device was $30 for 1 week (not including shipping time to and from), two devices were $50 for 1 week (not including shipping time to and from). the price including USPS priority shipping to the renter and from the renter back to me. i packaged up the device(s) into a USPS Flat Rate priority bubble mailer with the return shipping label already on it than put that into a USPS Flat Rate priority envelope. this was simple, you pay me for rental, i shipped device to you (you received in 2 days), use the device within a week, put device back in the bubble mailer, than put it in the mail box. I used USPS for 2 reasons. 1, it was 2 day shipping for a good price. 2, it was free shipping materials. I thought it was going to be this big thing since so many people said they would do it. I spend over $1500 on devices. my expectation was to have at least 2 devices out a week. it was barely 1 device out a month sometimes, other times I had a waiting list. Several times I had to go through astronomical means to get a hold of someone who didn't return the device. Keep in mind, you don't know these people no matter how their internet personality makes them seem. I had several people who were considered to be reputable or trustworthy no return the devices for months. I created a spread sheet that kept track of person's name and address, ship out date with tracking, expected ship back date with tracking number, actual ship back date, device received or device still out. Every night I would jump on USPS' website to enter tracking info of devices still out and devices expected to ship. if it wasn't shown as received or scanned by USPS than I would send out an e-mail and a PM simply stating "I checked tracking and USPS doesn't have device, please place device into mail box with pre-paid return shipping package or if you know it will be out on a future date please let me know". If the device needed extra time with the renter, all the renter had to do was pay me an additional $5 for 1 more week of time. if the renter lost or threw away the original return shipping label and package, it was $5 to cover the cost of shipping the new one to them. I always kept an extra print out of the return shipping label until I received the device back from the person with that return label. The reason I even started was b/c I had an original list of people that committed to rent of nearly 300. i thought that would be a good business since so many people were interested. that 300 was just for the DD1, I had another 100+ for the CC1. I planned on expanding to the IM-SG, AMM-1, HPS140i. I rented out a total of just under 100 in a little over a year b/c most of those that committed backed out. I made about $15 on each rental, so lets say I rented out 100 units@$15 margin thats $1500 in about a year. I spent that on devices. after about 15 months I looked at the numbers both financial and time wise. It was not worth the time and effort for the money. I sold off the devices than bought an AMM1 so I have a DD1, CC1, AMM1, and HPS140i. maybe if you got a really good deal on some used ones should you really consider it. for the time and money, it's not worth the hassle and there are not that many people out there that would rent these devices as you'll be lead to believe especially if you plan on charging more than $30 for a week long rental or have a way of charging the renter for the cost of device.

i did this on another forum and its not as common as you'd be lead on to think. grant it, it did pay for me to get my dd1, cc1, and amm1. i've since stopped renting out devices b/c the effort to track device out and those expected to come back was just too much. my pricing and time was fair but i still ran into issues of devices not being returned on time and people saying it was returned when it never was even dropped at the post office. it's way more trouble than its worth.

Actually, the units work great with normal Duracell or Energizer batteries. On the Serial number thing, i really don't know anything about that. I have had returns from Sonic (who ARE AUTHORIZED Dealers) and they all have serial numbers. This tells me they don't pull them off. If you got 2 without a number on them then you should probably start playing the lottery with your luck. FYI: Every return from Sonic that has ever came back to my shop has worked fine with the exception of maybe 1. People use stuff and then return it or they don't use it right and return it. None the less 99% of all our complaints or returns have been unfounded or user error. as for you saying "if you say anything negative you will get flamed"....what is that all about? I don't care if i own this forum or the product, i will tell you flat out that is BULLSHIT. I can't count how many times someone bitched about the product not working and within 3 pages of posts said "oh, it works now i just had to do this". Problem solved. But no flaming that i ever saw. If a product fails for no good reason, i will be on it like flies on dog poop but first i need to know it is actually failing. I can't count how many times someone sent me in a unit that was "not working" and i open it to find their cheap chinese 9v battery (that looks like it came directly out of their old Furby toy and into the unit.) A good Alkeline battery is essential. We have had probes fail (a few manufacturer defects) or people flat out ripping them out of the socket. Stuff happens. Even when it is user error to this day i haven't charged anyone for harnesses or scratched CD's and usually ship on MY dime. Even when people email me saying they bought it 2nd hand from a friend. These products are a first of their kind and problems WILL happen...and we expect it. But failure rate is low. Now whether D'Amore returns phone calls or Emails, i don't fully know any of the situation with that. They are not the same company as SMD. They are fully separate from me. So if you have had trouble contacting them in the past, that is something i cannot control. for the batteries working for you, that has not been my experience. I own a DD1 (have owned , CC1 (have owned 5), AMM1. I have never put anything other than an Energizer or Duracell battery in any of them. I pulled a Duracell from my DD1 to put into my AMM1 when I got the first one. it wasn't reading power output consistently. i figured it was a little used so I put a fresh one in and it did the same thing. I sent that one back and got a new one. I put the new Duracell in and it wouldn't stay on. I try an Energizer battery and it wouldn't even start the power up. I changed to a higher end Energizer and than it powered on. All of the AMM1s i received from SonicElectronics don't have a serial number including the last one that I still have. I have had the DD1s and CC1s not detect signals with new batteries from either Duracell or Energizer. For the flaming. i get why you would call BS but the truth is that outside of your forum the masses look at the SMD forum mods as communist rulers. I'm not going to say they are but they are over eager. there is even a rule that you can't question a mod. i replied to a WTB thread and got 2 warning even though i wasn't selling anything. i PM'd the mod and got a response of "read the rules". I personally asked for help in a previous thread and have had the mob mentality attack me b/c I said some displeasing words about my POV. This was all after I asked for help and no one stepped up. than it turned into my fault b/c I didn't e-mail D'Amore about my question as opposed to me asking on the D'Amore Forum section. Your forum is meant to be a point of contact community gathering of baseheads. If dealers/businesses are paying for their own section than they should be pro-active in their section. Obviously their activity has nothing to do with you but the OP posted his findings with SMDs most expensive handheld unit. Everyones re-action is "you shouldn't have done that" "you voided your warranty". if it would have been any other product and he cracked it open to see what was wrong, it would have been okay. as for the failure rate, i'm not saying it's rampant at all. I am just saying that putting out additional money to send an item back will skew those numbers to be lower b/c a lot of people would rather just call it a loss than put money out to send the item in. SonicElectronics has paid for me to send my AMM1s back, so I sent them back only to still get a replacement with no serial number. D'Amore wants me to send it in to get a serial number and test it b/c it's the one that is temperamental with the batteries but I'm paying to package it and send it to them. I still haven't sent it in. I'm sure other have been faced with this same option and have opted to not send it in, I know a few that are local to me. I have not had trouble getting a response when I e-mail either SMD/WCC, D'Amore, or SonicElectronics. The problem is response is when someone post their question or issue on the forum.

i got 2 units from Sonic Electronics and both of them had no serial number. I had a similar issue with mine powering up than immediately turning off even though it was a fresh battery. I tried a few brand new batteries before it finally worked with one. seems to me that these units are very temperamental b/c my only works with the higher end Energizer battery. it does not work with regular Energizer or Duracell. BTW you'll get no where on posting on here b/c everyone is going to say it's your fault why it doesn't work and that you bought from an unauthorized dealer even though you didn't. If you have praise to be said about the units than you can post whatever you want, if you have anything neutral or negative to post than you'll get flamed. The one I have still doesn't have a serial number. If you contact D'Amore directly you'll be given a solution of sending the unit in on your dime. which is going to be the only route that will actually yield a result. I bought mine from SonicElectronics and the solutions was always to send it back and than after they process the return, they'll send you another one if they have it in stock.

its my crack. clan is Dat Music

Modifying PS boards?

i'll give you the advice I wasn't given until my thread got all heated. e-mail D'Amore directly with you question, you'll get a faster response than you will from the forum.

i more than any one hope and wished it was user error on the first one. that's why i was asking, as seen in the first post hoping that it was user error and Tony could chime in and say something along the lines of "make sure you are doing steps ABC" and "about the serial number, if you can send me a pic of the front and back without the serial I can send you one". yet no one chimed in from D'Amore or SMD camps and no one in the community said "maybe you should shoot a message to D'Amore no matter what dealer you got it from". As for the battery being used, it's from a pack of Duracell 9V that I have at the shop for the other SMD tools that I use. I put my DMM to the battery and it reads 9.2V. I'll be going to the store to get some Energizer batteries to see see if my AMM1 is being picky about the brand. Steve, I'm never said that no one on your side of things or Tony's side "don't care" or "don't give a shit". I said that "I am now doubting" b/c of the fact that I now have a second unit, of what would be considered your flagship handheld tool, with an issue and no one on the SMD forum has offered any input of what I can do to resolve the issue(s) that I was having. I've dealt with you in the past as well as Tony, all the communication has been here on the forum either on a thread or PM. In the past I have received communication via a response in the thread or a PM about the thread in regard to an issue especially about an SMD tool. It's not like this thread just popped up this morning and I started a rant just 20 minutes later about no getting advise or help. this thread has been up for going on 2 weeks now and no one offered anything until guys started acting like I called their wife a whore b/c I commented about how I felt about the whole situation. As for the dealer. If Sonic Electronics is an authorized dealer and the solution is that the unit needs to go to D'Amore than there needs to be communication about that to Sonic. Sonic has been par for the course. When the first unit had issues, they sent me a pre-paid return shipping label. They put the only AMM1 they had in stock on hold for me, once they received my first unit they sent out the replacement. Now there's an issue with this one they are offering another pre-paid shipping label and for me to wait till it becomes an in stock item again. when there's an issue with a product, the solution is not always to send it back and swap it out. Sonic also specifically said that all warranty issues need to go through them not D'Amore. That's why I even started a thread as I was asking for advice/help for what was going on. everything in this thread could have easily been avoided if the forum members would try to be more helpful when someone is asking for help nicely. As opposed to what they did in offering no help at all, than me write about the situation i was having and how i was feeling about it. Only to have those forum member point the finger at me and say it's all my fault and that SMD and D'Amore are infallible. Amazing how I asked for help nicely and no one replies at all, than the I post about the negative experience I am having than the thread goes HOT from people trying to stand up for said brand and than start attacking me for what's going on. Than the thread gets the attention of both Steve and Tony. Tomorrow morning I'll be doing as Tony has directed with trying a "better" battery than the Duracell that is being used. I hope by all means that an Energizer brand battery gets the device to work so I don't have to send it in again. let's just say it does the trick, what do I do about the fact it still doesn't have a serial number? Maybe there should be an AMM1 topics section. Thanks to Cleansierra, Steve, and Tony for chiming in an offering some sort of direction for a solution.

Guess I am the luckiest person in the world to get back to back defective products of a rarely sold item. That's like buying a Ferrari and it becomes a lemon. Than get another Ferrari and its a lemon too. The odds??? I posted this thread about 2 weeks ago for some direction and no one had anything to say. Now I call out a brand and now everyone has something to say about the kind of person I am. Amazing that you guys are blaming me but when I was being nice asking for advice, you guys were all quiet. Now my asking for advice has turned into me causing my own issues and making accusations, you guys all want to start pointing the finger at me. Really guys? How many SMD products do you own? I am in no way a hater. I am an installer and always looking to get any edge I can over other installers in my area. I use my SMD tools on the regular. Hell if Steve came out with a fkn screw driver, I'd probably buy that too. A forum is open dialog for people to connect. Last time I had an issue I posted a thread and Tony responded later the same day. I was pretty much expecting a similar interaction since he still is a partner in here.

Not shit guys. Glad to see the support for victim blaming. I just sent an email. They also have an SMD forum account too to have live dialog with their customer base.

SonicElectronix.

i received my second AMM1 from an SMD dealer. it still doesn't have a serial number. now this unit refuses to turn on. if it happens to turn on, it'll shut off after it shows that the battery is good. What gives? I've been more than patient about this whole ordeal, now it's getting ridiculous. I thought SMD products are suppose to be made with the highest quality. I am now doubting that anyone that is part of making SMD products or putting their name on it gives a shit about customer service and that it's all about the brand. first it's the unit not having a serial number, not that big of an issue if it works like it suppose too. second it doesn't work as it suppose to, it won't read live power or do any other functions as it suppose to. I send that unit back than receive the replacement unit a week later. now this this unit doesn't have a serial number either, no biggie if it works like it suppose too. sure enough it doesn't even power up. now that dealer is now out of stock of AMM1s b/c they only had 2 in stock, i bought one and it didn't work so they sent me the other one as it's replacement. now I've been out $400 for an AMM1 for 2 weeks with only having the product in my hands for 2 days out of that 2 weeks. during the 2 days that I've had the product in my hand, it hasn't even worked. now would be the time for someone to step up to the plate to make things right. does a video need to posted to youtube that shows that the product doesn't work.

i have contacted the dealer i bought it from and they are going to swap out the unit I have. hopefully the next has a serial number and works properly.

I just got my AMM1 in this morning. tried it out and it doesn't read Live power or Dyno power when selected, consistently. it'll read it just not every time. I have to turn the unit off than on several times before it registers any numbers. next thing I noticed is that on the back of the device I don't have a sticker with a serial number. What to do?

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