Amplifier Problem

[Chamois]

Okay so Im selling my friend my Kicker ZX1000.1 Running an Alpine 15" Dual 2 ohm, I have the sub wired in series to 4ohms, and the amp pushes 500 watts at 4ohms so its pretty loud ..

But before i sell it to him, i wanna trouble shoot a problem ..

Okay, so ill be playing the sub for like 5min, and it will sound good, then after a couple minutes it will start to smell, im assuming this is because i just re-glued the surround to the basket, im not sure if its from that, or from the coils burning up .. I ran this sub at 1000watts and it sounded great, but now im running it at 500 watts and its burning up? It doesnt make sense to me ..

Also After the smell starts to happen, the amplifier goes into protect mode .. I know its the subwoofer smelling, because its very strong inside of the port of the box ..

What could it be? A bad ground? voltage dropping? what could it be?

I know this is confusing, ask questions if i confused anyone lol

Thanks,

Dominic

[Guest]

im 99% sure you're clipping the amp.

[cqtama]

clipping? how are your gains set because if you clip your amp it will eventually send it into protect mode and cause your sub to burn up before that happens. is your amp getting hot too?

[EclipseChris]

clipping? how are your gains set because if you clip your amp it will eventually send it into protect mode and cause your sub to burn up before that happens. is your amp getting hot too?

Clipping sets off protect mode? Never heard of this, please explain...

[cqtama]

no heat sets off protect mode. and clipping causes heat and voltage drop witch also sets off protect mode

edit actually voltage drop causes clipping but you get the idea

Edited September 6, 2010 by cqtama

[Guest jbinn]

Sounds like your amplifier isn't wired right... Recheck all of your wires, you're probably trying to take an ohm load the amplifier can't give. I did this on my AP1500 one of my wires was loose on the woofer and I was running .5ohms instead of 1.

[EclipseChris]

no heat sets off protect mode. and clipping causes heat and voltage drop witch also sets off protect mode

edit actually voltage drop causes clipping but you get the idea

ok, i understand now. but voltage drop alone doesn't cause clipping until it is DRAMATIC... like 10v

[Chamois]

So i switched the sub out with one of my RF P3 15" and it works fine ..

So the sub was clearly blown, and the amp goes into protect mode probably to not start a fire or something right?

Side Note:

So basically im running 1k watts to my P3 which can only handle 500 watts .. But i have the gain on like 3db so am i safe?

[Guest]

So i switched the sub out with one of my RF P3 15" and it works fine ..

So the sub was clearly blown, and the amp goes into protect mode probably to not start a fire or something right?

Side Note:

So basically im running 1k watts to my P3 which can only handle 500 watts .. But i have the gain on like 3db so am i safe?

...uhh gain on 3db? im not too familiar with kicker amps but dont they go from 0 to 11 or something? tune the gains like you should be doing in the first place then you will be fine.

[Chamois]

...uhh gain on 3db? im not too familiar with kicker amps but dont they go from 0 to 11 or something? tune the gains like you should be doing in the first place then you will be fine.

I did tune the gain, i put it to about 3 out of 11 ..

What im asking is if this is safe?

If i have it any lower than 3, then i get virtually NO Bass out of the Amp ..

3db is what sounds good, just dont wanna blow the sub ..