I installed a 4 channel amp and when playing my HU with the new amp, the HU gets real hot. The detachable face is so hot its hard to hold when detaching it. Is this normal or is something wired incorrectly? Its a sony HU. mdel cdxf7700. Doesn't the HU amp turn off while the amp is running so that the HU stays cool? Is there a HU setting that could be set wrong? Do amps usually make head units run hot?
The HU is probably hot because its LCD display. Those can get hot. The amp shouldnt effect the HU because the AMP isnt putting any INPUT. The HU OUTPUTS to the amp.
That makes sense, but you can melt cheese on this face. Hard to believe they would manufacture a face that gets so hot. Seems like it would be bad for the electronics. I will check the HU body and see if that gets hot too. If not, then it's likely the LCD. Does anyone have an LCD face Specifically a sony that gets real hot.
The head unit's amp doesn't automatically turn off, this is only available on select head units such as the V-drive Alpines and certain others, and turning off the amp is optional. Yours doesn't, and if you're driving the external amp hard, the head unit's amp will still get hot even though it has no load across it, this is because of the transistors within, they still get current, and they will still get hot even without a load. It doesn't make sense for it to get any hotter than it would (or did) before you started using the external amp, or for it to be the faceplate since a head unit's amp is in the back of the unit usually. You may want to have that checked out, and yes, Sony's tend to have heat problems among others.
Thanks for the input Jonathan. I checked the HU body and it was also very hot. To give you an idea of how hot the face gets, when i push the tiny sized seek ff button on the CD player i can only hold it in for about 4 seconds before I can't tolerate the pain any more. I bought the extended warranty at Best Buy so maybe I will have it looked at. I wish I would have saved the box so I can just exchange it for another unit that can be powered down.