Amp overheating

Thikness of the wire.

The lower the number tha thicker.

for example, on my speakres i have a 14awg wire, and the power to my amps is basically 4awg.

the smaller the numebr the thicker the wire.

goes down to 0 awg, then 0/1 awg.

i guess it goes lower to.

What sub do you have? what is the impedance? measure in Ohms? It'll say on the spec sheet for the sub somwehres

[xsavyor1]

I would use the wire you have and put a 2nd battery in the trunk. that will fix voltage probs. then make suree your subs are the right imp. buy a meter at radio shack for 10$. make sure your subs are 4 ohms. if they are lower change subs or change amp ti go with the subs you have. and it will play for hours with the 2 nd battery and right ohm load on the amp.

adding a second battery will do absolutely nothing except let you play your music for longer after the car is turned off.

the system will always run at 13-14.4v area. Its the current that changes. I think that has little to do with the amp overheating Its most likely that the subs are wired to the amp incorrectly, or the amp may just be in a bad spot.

[mikegett]

You can have a few problems causing the overheating. First, how high is your gain. The higher the gain, the harder the amp must work.
It would also be wise to take a picture of your speaker wires on the amp. That will let us see how you have the amp wired. Let us know if you have a dual voice coil sub as well. I believe that you stated that the amp was in 2 ohm load. I only see one set of wires coming from your amp. If you do have the amp bridged and in 2 ohm then your are asking for trouble.
I doubt that your wiring is the issue here. It is always best to have a larger wire than needed. The larger the wire, the more amps that can pass through to your amp. The same goes for your speakers. The larger the wire, the more wattage that can pass to your sub or speaker. The difference is that if you are running wires that are not large enough to supply your amp the proper amperage then the wire will overheat. It is not as likely the amp will. The same goes for your ground. You want the ground to be the same size as your power wire. If it is not, then you will not get the full amperage going to your amp. In this case your amp ill only be able to produe a fraction of its wattage. Example: It may be a four hundred watt amp, but require 50 amps to run it. If your wires are only letting it pass 40 amps then it will probably cut out 90 to 100 watts that it can produce. So check your wires. Do they get hot as well? If so then go to a lager cable. Otherwise, the most damage you will do is to make your amp inefficient.
Another thing to concider is how good that the amp realy is. Have you ever wandered as to how one manufacturer may rate a amp at 500 watts and ony require a 35 amp fuse, while another manufacturer has a 500 watt amp with a 50 amp fuse? Some manufacturers over rate the product. The easiest way to tell this is by the amp rating. Wattage is in direct proportion with amps. My eclipse amplifier is rated four channels at 85 watts rms. Your amp is rating 2 channels at 100 watts rms. Bridged, your amp is rating 400 watts rms at 4 ohms. The eclipse is rated for 240 watts rms at 4 ohms. The rockford fosgate requires 40 amps to power it. The eclipse requires 80 watts (20 per channel) to power it. It is more than likely that you are poducing around 280 to 300 watts rms. Your gain and head unit pre-outs will affect this as well. The lower your head unit pre-outs voltage is, the higher you must raise your gain. The higher your gain is the more distortion the amp produces. Normaly, anything over 3/4 gain on a amp wil produce clipping at high volumes. If you have a head unit that produces over 2 volts at the pre-out then you can safely lower your gain below the half way margin. IF it is five to eight you can probably turn it to nearly off.

[alero168]

ok i'll take some pics of the wiring and stuff and post it later

[BLK03GXS]

Good post mikegett...

I think steve03tropical failed to take into account that some amps require differant ammounts of current, you should also tell us (allthou i could look it up...) wut class your amp is... a/b or D...
I wouldnt personally run anything less than 4awg for 450-500wrms.... you can do w.e you want, but from personal experance you get better results and cooler runing amps
Besides if you ever want to upgrade 4awg is good enuff for 1000wrms plus... in most instances... saves you time and bunnyin around....

[alero168]

sorry just been kinda lazy with the pics ill try and get some up before the weekend and then you guys can talk again and i can be confused again :P

i completely agree that for the extra cost it doesnt hurt to use 4awg. I had 4awg running about 500wrms awhile ago, But 8awg will probably do unless u have a real good efficient amp.. which that Rockford, while a good amp, should really require more than 8awg.

basically. i have no damn i dea why ur amp is overheating!!

[BLK03GXS]

Yea... lookin at the pics agen... those wires are really pinner.... what i would like to know is what guage/size they are should say the awg of the wire on it... or on your kit if you still have it...

[mikegett]

I agree that you should double check your wire size. This will help us to be certain that we are not dismissing the real issue. Just take some good shots of the amp wires, sub wires and anything else you can think of. The more information the better we can help you. To state it simply, none of us know what is causing the problem until we fix it. So until then, bear with us and we will try our best.

[alero168]

^been kinda lazy and had some bad weather and i dont have a garage so i'll try and get some today, thanks guys.

[xsavyor1]

If your amp is pulling to much amperace over the corse of a small gauge wire. and a long run of the wire, your amp will over heat. If you have a battery in the trunk it will only pull power from 3 feet away. less voltage drop and lower gauge of wire can be used.

nice little article on what an extra battery does and does not do for you.

http://www.caraudiohelp.com/car_audio_wiri...audio_batteries