Amp Shuts Off When Vol Turned Up

I finally (but temporarily) got everything up and running with my amp and sub, but while setting it up if I turn the volume on the HU above 5 bars the amp shuts off. It will flicker on and off, but if I turn the vol back down it goes back on.

I checked my connections, so I don't think that is what it is, but it does seem like that would be the problem...

Sounds like the amp is overheating. You should run some cooling fans on it. Also, if your amp has a decorative, removable cover, take that off unless you plan on showing the car. You can find some cheap computer cooling fans at Radio Shack or something similar.

Unless I mounted it wrong, there is no way it is overheating. By mounting it wrong I mean "is it ok to mount it right on a board, or does there need to be a gap between the bottom of the amp and the board its mounted to?

Its 40 degrees outside, my trunk is open, and it doesn't matter if it has been playing a while or just turned on. As soon as I go over 5 bars its off.

I got to go to work for the night, so I'm not gonna get a chance to look at it again tonight, but here is some info:

I am running a low voltage trigger that grounds with the amp and gets its 12v power from the amp's power cable. It splices the speaker wire going into the amp and then the other wire runs from the trigger to the remote turn on.

I unplugged the LOC's from the amp and turned the volume up and it still did it.

Not sure why this is...

that description you just gave is kinda confusing man...you should have your speaker wires, you only mentioned one sub in the other thread so im assuming thats all you have for your speaker outputs.......you should have a ground wire grounding to the body somewhere, you should have your heavy battery cable, and then a remote turn on, your running a stock deck so where are you getting your remote turn on from? whats the gain set to on the amp?

double check and make sure nothing is being shorted out

when you are under 5 on the volume is the protection light on?

just double check all your connections, double check the LOC's, maybe the gain is turned up too high......

I would have to agree with Bigd then, I would say that your gain is turned up too high. It could also possibly be a bad ground.

[BLK03GXS]

Check all your fuses, it may be trying to ground thru some other source then your ground wire, or fuse because its bad... what guage of wireing are you runing? dont use the remote turn on stuff just for troubble shooting get a wire and loop it from the 12v power on the amp to the remote... and see if it does it...

[mikegett]

I am not familiar with the triggers. Could you describe them? Give a part number we can look up as well as the directions for installation. From what I am getting, it allows the speaker wire to activate the amp. If so, I wander if you have the power and speaker wires switched on them. It will probably have a sensing connection that goes on your speaker wire to activate. There will probaly be a 12 volt supply like you stated and one 12 volt going to the amp to turn it on. I would be curious if you have the 12 volt supply and the 12 turn on switched. Just a guess. In order to tell if your amp is the problem, look at your power light. There will always be a light that stays on with power. Sometimes, there is a light that activates when the amp goes into thermal protection like bigd was saying. If the volume increase turns off the amp and power light then look at your connections or trigger. If the power light stays on but the amp shuts down then it is internal in the amp or a bad LOC. The little light is used in this manor for diagnosing potential problems.
Since you stated that the LOC was unplugged with the same results, I doubt it is at fault. My guess is in the trigger. A quick way to check this out would be running a 12volt wire straight off your amps 12 power source. If the amp stays on then the trigger is at fault.

[Screamin eagle]

I had an amp that had a loose connection inside the amp on the circuit board on the 12+ lead. When the bass would hit, it would rattle and lose connection briefly. I opened it up and soldered it solid. I know it sounds stupid but it took me forever to figure it out.

thats crazy screamin eagle......but the fact that it happens as soon as he hits a predetermined level and im sure the bass isnt hitting the same at the exact moment each time the volume reaches 5 i think it shows its not that........its gotta be some sort of overload......

i agree with what blk03gxs, loop your 12+ constant over to your remote turn on, with no other wire other than that one on the remote turn on the amp, and play with your volume.....if it goes away then your trigger is the problem.......the fact you are doing all this, the things you have bought, you could have almost found a head unit on ebay for a few bucks more and had hardly as much trouble as you have had....

a couple options you could do would be a relay, or a constant that you put on a switch that you activate whenever you want to......

[BLK03GXS]

yea... forgot about that bigd... a relay would be the way to go... much easyer then f***in with aftermarket junk... plus they are free at junkyards.. haha

Ok, thanks for the replies so far. I've got some mroe time now so I will go into more detail and answer the questions that have been rasied.

The amp is not going into protect mode, nor is it overheating The green power light will go out once the volume reaches 6, but it will flicker back on and off never long enough to get a sub beat. The protect light NEVER comes on. The light on the low voltage trigger also blinks with the power light.

I disconnected my rear speakers and used those wires as an input into my amp using an LOC. I disconnected the LOC from the amp so no signal was going into the amp, turned the volume up and it still shut off, so its nothing shaking loose.

I used a PAC TR-7 low voltage trigger ($15) which was the only thing I needed to buy so that I could keep RAP. Everything else was stuff that I would have needed even with an aftermarket deck (the LOC's were included with the amp). Even with an aftermarket HU, I would have needed something to keep RAP. All the trigger does is sense any voltage as low as .8 volts through one wire and sends out 12v through another, therefor you hook it to a speaker and the remote turn on and voila your amp is on whenever the radio is on (including durring the RAP phase).

Now, this low voltage trigger needs to be hooked up to a 12v source, grounded, and then another wire is spliced into the rear speaker wire that goes into the amp. The last wire goes into the amp's remote turn on. I hooked up the 12v on the trigger to the amp's 12v power cable and grounded it also using the amps ground, so going into my amp I have the amps power cable + the 12v wire for the trigger and the amp's ground wire plus the trigger wire.

The amp is grounded to a bolt I found when I folded down the drivers side passenger seat.

Tell me if this is the correct way to loop the 12v. Do I just simply run a wire from the amp's power wire connection into the remote trigger connection? Let me know before I do it, but I can do that tomorrow.

I can't remember if I checked if the amp shut off with the gain at 0, but right now the gain is really close to 1/2 way and it shuts off. Infact, I am running the stock 4x6's off of the HU and I need to have the bass on the HU turned to 5 to get the sub to balance with the door speakers. It should be at 0, btu when it is I can barely hear the sub. Also, I have the crossover for the sub set at 100hz.

Thanks for the help everyone.

i get what the low voltage trigger does but ive never heard of one of those........what you need to do is temporarily hook up a piece of remote wire and go from your power cable to your remote turn on your amp, tie them together and only them 2........hook up your LOC, run all your speaker wire and get it set up without the low voltage trigger.......if the amp works and nothing sounds bad than your trigger is bad......if it does the same thing you got another problem and a meter helps to diagnosis........but first try what blk03gxs originally said........thats a sure way to test if its working or not......

Ok, the problem is definitely the trigger.

I have it hooked up properly and even tried to change the ground for it just incase, but no luck. When I looped the remote turn on it worked perfect, but when I went back to the trigger it kept cutting out.

I don't know if that means the trigger is bad, or if there is something with how its setup (it's done like the instructions say) or what else could be wrong.

New suggestions?

[jamcllw]

Yeah tap into your radio fuse on the driver side fuse panel and run a remote wire to the back.

Hmm...wouldn't that mean I don't need any low voltage trigger and that I would just run the one wire?

I'm not sure offhand how easy it would be to conceal going from the fusebox to the floor, but other than that this seems like the best solution for a remote turn on yet.

Why would anyone pull the radio to get to ignition wires when you could just use that fuse? I'm gonna go give that a shot, and if it works out ok that would mean I could return the trigger and save $15.

[jamcllw]

I've used that wire since I've had an amp in my car. It start when I used the stock deck and it's still my remote wire after everything has been changed. I don't use the amp turn on wire from my headunit.

As far as concealing goes it's a lot easier to hide than a 4 gauge main power wire.
If yu do this get a meter and test which side is protected by the fuse and tap into that side. Pull the fuse test both sides and whichever side doesn't have power is your protected side.

Well, the fuse would be a good idea, but there is no fuse that only gets power when RAP is running, which was the point of the low voltage trigger.

I checked a bunch of fuses hooked to the remote wire, and there are definitely ones that work (like the sunroof) but I don't know which is the protected side at the moment, and besides the amp shuts off when the car is off, even if the radio is still on.

Right now that isn't a huge concern, but if and when I replace my door speakers and amp those too, that would mean I wouldn't be able to get any sound durring the RAP phase.

I called tech support on the trigger, but they were on the phone and will be calling me back.

Also, as far as concealing, I just meant running it from the fuse box to the trim along the door. Once I got out there I saw how easily that could be hidden though.

[BLK03GXS]

will some one please post the PAC website.. im having issues locating their site..

Bah.

I just got off the phone with the guys at PAC and they had some bad news for me.

Turns out on the new GM cars (like our Aleros) have a voltage drop in the speaker wires when the volume reaches a certain point. This drop falls below the .8V that low voltage triggers pick up.

So, unless I can find a relay that will boost a very very low (not sure how low the voltage drops to) voltage to above .8, I'm SOL.

The whole thing with me wanting the trigger and the speaker wire was to keep RAP. Now, unless I can find a relay that will boost that voltage looks like I'm going to loose RAP.



Anyone know of a relay that will do this?