Okay so today I went to install dynamat in my trunk and so i had to disconnect my sub and sub amp so that i could dynamat my whole trunk and all went well with that!
Anyways once I got everything back together I now have a REALLY loud interference noise that increases and decreases in pitch with my rpms, hence the igntion interference reference.
I dont know whats wrong I've never had any interference problems before.
The only thing I can think of is I think I hooked up the sub amp's RCA cables before I hooked the ground back up?
Everything sounds great other then that, much improved bass freqs with the dynamat
Could the rca cables for the sub amp shorted in being hooked up first? or would that make my sub not work at all if that were the case?
Also my other 2 sets of RCAs to my regular speakers wouldnt be affected by that mistake right since I never had to mess with the ground for that amp?
Absolutely Spencer, Your diagnosis is more than likely correct. The amp has capacitors inside that will draw a large amount of current in a short amount of time, more than the grounding sheild of the rca's is capable of handling. A more likely scenario is the rca's touched the postive lead in turn burning out the ground trace on the circuit board of the head unit.
Either way, heres the most simple way to fix it.
Pull your head unit out, take a 8 to 10" piece of wire and strip it back 2" and wrap it around the outside of the rca that is coming out of the deck. Twist it up real tight, then tape it. Now connect the other end of the wire to the head unit's chasis, not the ground wire, but the chasis itself.
I can almost guarantee this will solve your problem.
Yea so replacing the sub rca cable didnt improve it any but adding a ground loop isolator to the new rca cable at the sub amp did help some and i also noticed that if the little isolator box was near the ground the noise becomes more apparent the nearer to the ground it is
But now also today after i added that isolator to only the sub's rca cable my main 4ch amp started acting up as well it shut off while i was out listening to music and when i stopped to check on it it was flashing: "CUR" and that means excessive current is happening and my Alpine F345 amp automatically shuts down when this occurs.
But this has never happened before either and it did it twice today, and it also sounds as if my sub is going out so something is definitely wrong and am not sure what to address as far as finding the excessive current any ideas? my grounding has never an issue before but maybe its not good enough?
Or when i hooked the RCA cable to the sub amp before the ground it messed up somethin in the sub amp and since both amps are running from same positive line the messed up sub amp is causing my main amp to notice too much current draw?
I have ground for both amps drilled directly into a metal area of my trunk.
Anyways its very frustrating that now my audio is really messing up
Yes the wires are ran the same side but it was never an issue before and that was back since December of any interference noises so i know something happened to the amp or somethin when i mistakenly hooked the rca cables back to the amp before the ground and im dumb for having disconnected and reconnected all the sub amp's connections without disconnecting the car battery's ground in the first place.
I did scrape some paint off when i added the ground for the sub amp and the main amp was already installed when i got the car
Just weird that i had no interference issues before i just worked on it or with the main amp switching off saying too much current, i mustve messed something up in not having removed the battery ground before working back there
Also if I think my sub is blowing out and since I ran a single 4gauge positive back for both amps to feed off via 8gauge each, could that sub blowing out cause a weird impedance and also tell the other amp that the current draw is too high thus making my main amp cut off when theres really nothing wrong with my main amp and that part of my setup?
Ok I guess you didnt want to try what I said. I've done this literally 50 times over the years for customers. The proper way is to disassemble the HU and re-solder the burned out trace, but like i had mentioned before...just wrap a wire around the outside of the rca(the rca ground) on the deck and connect the other end to the chasis of the HU, TRUST ME!!!!!!!!!!!!
and take that isolator out of there. Just try this. you can call my store if you need any further help zac davis 608-365-3500
Zac, why don't you do it for him instead. Sounds like he's not too confident. Spender, you can test each component separately to isolate the problem. Not very hard at all. You can use a portable cd player as the input source, and feed it to the sub amp. If you don't hear alternator noise/subs "blowing out" then the amp is good. Do the same with your 4 channel amp.
Okay so for wrapping the wire I just take 8-10 inches of wire and strip only one side like 2inches and then just back out a screw on the the radio chassis and get it to get ground from the chassis and do nothing with the other end of the wire? well other then wrap it tightly around the messed up pair of RCAs, correct?
I just havent done this because of my newly found problems with this "CUR" issue coming up in my main amp which has never given me any problems
After re-reading some info, Try changing the RCA's. If you plugged them in before the ground, then the rca's became the ground.. And Zacs tip is a solid advice. But try new rcas first. If that doesnt do it, the problem may lie in the HU trying to handle all that ground. So regrounding the RCA's to HU may work. Also recheck HU ground.
Noise is usually bad ground or rca like said. Not that it could not happen but I've never seen something get messed up just by pulling the wiring and reinstallng it while it was turned off. I would rate that as junk equipment IMO, if that is really what happened. Or are you guys saying the ground was bad and the amp was run with only the rca grounding?
What exactly does the "cur" warning mean, too low of impedance or not enough power?
well stated by Alpine the CUR flashing means the amp recognized there was excessive current and it made amp go into protection mode where it flashes that "CUR" and shuts off.
Did already try new RCA cable so as Zac said I need to either resolder in HU or try the wire wrapping method.
I just hope I didnt mess up my sub in the day I was tryin to figure out while there was bad RCA ground to sub amp.
Turn it off and unhook sub wires at amp, test those wires to the sub. It is often a little below rated, like a 4 ohm might be 3.8 on a meter. The ohms go up as the speaker is played...is what the amp sees. But if it is say half then you may have a problem. I have not run 2 ohm subs so have not metered any. Also check sub wire to ground if your wiring is near the car body, to see if it is grounded by chance. That can look like a short to the amp.
yea it ran it fine up until I like a dummy decided not to unhook car ground just to make sure while installing dynamat in my trunk, so will never make that mistake again.
Also Alpine even in the amp model names try to show approx wattage off even tho thats only if u actually run it in 2ohm.
Also ground I added was right next to the existing ground from the main amp that was installed in the car before i got it. Which is just to some metal in the trunk kinda the area where it raises up for right wheel well, so not the floor of the trunk where theres always a chance given a long enough screw to create a hole into the gas tank which wouldnt be any good.
I dont think ground should be a prob since it was all working together great since last December, and also my 1farad cap was always reading 13.8 and up voltage at the cap
Also had added optima yellowtop even before i added sub package and then also increased ground from battery to frame with 4gauge cable, and car had High Output 140amp alternator option from the factory.
So i think once i do as Zac suggests hopefully i wont have issues at least with main amp and the going into protection mode thing, since i was thinking maybe all that noise coming into the speakers is also creating more load on the amp and thats enough to trip the excess current in the main amp.
If my bass is still messed up I will test its ohms and hopefully its @ 2ohms give or take a few tenths, and test the sub as Isaac suggested with cd player and RCA to headphone jack cable. Is it possible the sub could read fine ohms-wise and then when i play just sub it still is all "sub blowing out" sounding and that means sub amp got messed up?
Once I have the noise taken care of and if the sub is still sounding bad, I'm just trying to be able to narrow down whether the sub or sub's amp is messed up