Rep Power: 281

Sum1 pleeze help me.... I'm runnin a Scosche HD3002 500 watt amp, and I've got absolutely everything wired, but I am not getting any sound from my sub... I went to check everything, and as I pulled my ground wire conection from the screw connecting it to the chasis, it sparked... Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't a ground wire supposed to be a dead wire???

So what's the deal, why isn't my amp producing enough to power my sub??? And more importantly why isn't my ground a ground line???

Can sum1 please help???? Am I doin sumthin wrong, or should I just go out n buy me a new amp????

Much Thanx...

 
Rep Power: 811

The ground will spark when reattached because of the charge buildup. It's normal and happened to me once. Here are some things to check.

Make sure everything is hooked up. Power, ground, remote turn-on wire from deck, RCA plugs, sub speaker wires.

Does the amp come on? If not you may have a blown fuse, either on the amp or in the car.

Are the amp settings set properly, and is the deck sub out put turned on if you have one?

 
Rep Power: 281

Ok... Everything is connected, and the amp does come on... The green power light will turn on for a few seconds, flicker, then turn off, and then the red protected light turns on, and that is the end of that....

Ok... Going with everything to hopefully clear things up, I tapped my rear speaker wires, connected them to a scosche inline converter (FAI-3A). Power is connected with fuse to positive battery terminal, ground is connected to one of the screws that holds the carpet in place. Added some neon tubing for effect which was converted to run directly from my trunk light... Oh yeah, remote line is connected to the cig. lighter... BTW, there were two lines feeding into the cig lighter does it matter which the remote line is tapped into???

 
Rep Power: 811

YES it does! One is the ground, and the other is power. I don't know the difference, but you want the power wire so the amp turns on with the ignition. That's probably the problem.

 
Rep Power: 281

Does anyone have a wiring schematic? I know that there was a link to the site a couple of months back, but I can't find it anymore...

 
Rep Power: 281

Ok, so the amp has it's 12v power line from the battery, that would be why the amp says protected but does not work right? If I change out the line that the remote is connected to, then theoretically it should work right???

 
Rep Power: 811

I'm pretty sure it would. I think it goes into protection when there is no signal present (like a standby mode). Try switching the wire to the second one on the cig lighter.

 
Rep Power: 281

Tried that, and nothing happened. I'm just gonna go to like Cirucit City or sumthin and buy a longer grounding wire, and just connectit to my negative battery terminal, that way I don't have to deal with any of this...

 
Rep Power: 329

dude if your ground sparked, it's not the ground wire. longer ground is wrong on so many levels, but that's another issue.

your remote line should be tapped into the yellow wire by the cigarette lighter. black is usually ground.

if those are hooked up good, the converter remains a possible problem.

another possible problem is your ground point. it might produce enough current to turn the amp on, but then not enough to run the amp. unlikely if it's sparked, but possible. you want to have a connection with bare metal, sand the hell out of it if it's not already.

 
Rep Power: 281

My remote is connected to the yellow wire, but I don't understand exactly how the converter could be the problem. It has no juice going to it. I a using an inline converter just to convert the speaker lines to RCA to connect to my amp.

What exactly do you mean by" if your ground sparked it is no longer your ground wire"? If it is plugged into the grnd output on my amp, how could it be anything else?

I have heard different sides saying that the ground is not supposed to spark whatsoever, yet others saying that it's ok that it does which is correct?

I am connecting it to one of the screws that holds the trunk carpet down. Is there another place that you would recommend I connect my ground wire to???

Much Thanx

 
Rep Power: 0

To make electronics work, current flows through a circuit ..... down the Positive wire, through the amp, and out the Ground wire. If the amp is working at all ...... it can spark like that (power or ground). Ground in no way means a wire is dead ..... it simply means that it is a return for the thing using power.

Think of a string of lights in a row from left to right. The wire between lights is both power and ground at the same time. The wire is a power wire to the light to the right, but a ground wire to the light to the left ....

If the ground sparked, that would tell me that the amp is on and using power. I would look to the converter. Measure the outputs of the converter w/ a voltmeter to make sure the amps is being fed a signal to amplify.

 
Rep Power: 811

Exactly. Everything ultimately runs from the pos end of your battery to the negative end. Since your battery ground is connected to the chassis, the whole chassis acts as a ground. So make sure the ground is connected tight to the chassis (bare metal, so shave off any paint).

Other that that it has to be the converter, since everything else is hooked up right.

 
Rep Power: 281

The only outputs on the converter are the RCA ports. I don't know of anywhere else to look on that... Any recommendations for a good inline converter. I have a scosche FAI-3A mainly because that was the only thing that I could immidiatly find.

That would be this monstrosity...

If you know of anything better, please let me know and I will see wat I can find...

 
Rep Power: 328

Your going into protection, so I would check and see what OHM level your subs are wired at, you could be too low for your amp. Also, is your LOC set correctly? The gains and other settings on that need to be tuned with the amp to get the correct output. However, I doubt it's the LOC since you are going into protection. As far as grounding, the bolts that hold your carpet on are not a good choice. If you are not getting enough ground contact, the amp will go into protection because you are not fully completing the circuit. Sand a spot in the trunk and bolt it to the actual body of the car. You can also use the bolt that holds the bottom of the back seat down.

 
Rep Power: 0

And we can't stress enough. Where the ground connects must be as clean as possible and tight. Use sandpaper, a dremel, file, etc. No paint!!!

 
Rep Power: 281

How exactly do I do that??? Sorry... I'm seriously a nooB when it comes to this... I'll try changing the grounding location, and then take things from there...

 
Rep Power: 328

Well, how do you have the sub wired?

 
Rep Power: 281

They are wired directly from the amp outputs. There is nothing in between. Is that wrong? My wiring is set up just like this... Rear speakers to LOC to amp to sub. As for power, powerline from pos. terminal to power input on amp, remote connected to yellow cig. lighter wire, and ground was connected to one of the screws that holds down the carpeting (still connects to metal assumed it would make a good ground)

That's it... And then I put 2 neon tubes which are attatched to my trunk light, but other than that, I thought everything should be normal...

 
Rep Power: 328

No, I mean how is the sub wired. Is it dual voice coil, single voice coil, what ohm are the voice coils, and how did you wire the sub inside the box. The ohm and if it is single voice coil (SVC) or dual (DVC) should be listed on the packaging that came with your sub.

Also, what type of sub is it?

 
Rep Power: 0

The ohms is a huge deal.

Ohms is resistance. Electrical equations go like this P=IV, V=IR, etc... So basically as resistance goes down, current goes up. As current goes up electronics can get fried. Most 4 channel amps are 2 ohm stable, but only 4 ohm stable when bridged. Most monoblock amps are 2 ohm stable.

If you have two DVC 4 ohm subs, wired in all parallel, that gives you a 1 ohm load. Thats too low for a 2 ohm stable amp. Most likely this would cause the amp to go into protection.

Look here at some wiring tutorials to see what I am getting at.
JL Audio Wiring Tutorials

What exact amp and subs do you have? We need make, model, DVC or SVC, ohms, etc.