Runnng an amp at half it's rated ohm load

[BTL FTW]

I see a lot of you guys running your 1 ohm amps at .5, .25 and even strapping them and running .5 ohms

How are you not killing your amps if your running these daily?

NOTE: Please don't give me the standard "if you have to ask don't do it" answer. This is purely out of curiosity. I run my amps at manufacturers recommendation so I can bump for hours on my long ass commute

[Kranny]

they have sick ass electrical setups. virtually no voltage drop and correct settings can go a long way.

[memphisBred]

I'm sure plenty screw their amps up. Not sure why so many are fascinated with doing it.

My guess is those who ask how or if they can do it, see some of the experienced competitors on here doing it and figure they should/ can do it.

Edited November 5, 2010 by memphisBred

[AMI CUSTOMS]

It depends on the amp as well, some companies put protection circuits on the amp so it won't allow you to do so. But for the most part if you stay above the voltage limit of the power supply on the amp then it will hold together. Hell I ran two 4k size amps strapped at .5 ohm and my voltage dropped to 10.5 volts on burp, no issue with that at all. Now that is about as low as I would want to take it on that particular amp. But there is some things to consider, your electrical demand, and you imp rise. If you are running at 1 ohm and decided to drop to .5 ohm, you current(amps) demand is going to almost double. So if you where pulling 90 amps thru the power wire, now you will be trying to pull 180+. Now this also depends on the efficiency of the amp in question. And you have to remember imp rise, when you are wired at 1 ohm nominal you may actually be at 2 ohms due to imp rise, so if you wire down to .5 nominal, you will now be at 1 ohm due to imp rise, so now the amp is making it's max power. This is what competitions do to get the most out of there equipment. It is exactly what I do with my walled sierra.

[SleeperSierra]

how do you figure out imp rise? a little curious =)

[LT.Smoke]

I see a lot of you guys running your 1 ohm amps at .5, .25 and even strapping them and running .5 ohms

How are you not killing your amps if your running these daily?

NOTE: Please don't give me the standard "if you have to ask don't do it" answer. This is purely out of curiosity. I run my amps at manufacturers recommendation so I can bump for hours on my long ass commute

Most run them at .5,.25.33 and so on as a nominal load

After rise and all is factored in they are usually played into the impedances taht they can handle on a safe daily basis that's how they do that

[BulletInjection]

You can't really measure rise exactly unless you are just doing burps. I can't even clock mine on my DMM it just says overload lol

[kirill007]

Running a amp at 0.5 ohm is just stupid.(don't take the last word too serious)

I know you get more power and blablabla.

But it's not good for the amp or the woofers, even if you have no voltage drop.

Impedance rise isn't gonna save the subs always, sometimes there is no rise at some freqeuncies and then is when the amp goes 'Poof'.

EDIT: i hope NDMstang will join this thread..

Edited November 5, 2010 by kirill007

[skittlesRgood]

lower ohm load increases heat in the amp and thats what causes them to fail, heat. my way around it is putting the amps in an amp rack with a couple fans moving air through the rack. keeps them nice and cool. ive ran strapped at .5ohm and each amp at .5ohm with voltage drops just touching 11v. never burnt an amp.

imp rise wont save the amp during music. it may help, but every time the cone is at rest the amp sees nom. load.

[TeamHT]

Depends on the amp. Some are just made better than others. My AQ and all of my T4000s have all seen below 1ohm daily with 0 issues. All of my setups have pretty overkill electrical and I wire down depending on my setup, equipment, and what I'm trying to accomplish. Efficiency and resistance.

Currently, I'm doing work on the interior of my silverado and took out two of the amps and mayhems. Previous box with the three BTLs are in. Three D1 BTLs hooked up on one T4000. Of course I'm going to wire below 1 ohm.