Did the amp go bad?

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We're dealing w/ a Kicker ZX650.4

So last year we were having trouble with my amp kicking into protection mode. I thought it was getting to hot... anytime you hit 26 on the volume out of 33 it would kick. So today I re-wired EVERYTHING (by the way... I tried yanking all of Tige's factory wiring.... WOW that sucked... I gave up). I put my bow speakers on their own individual channel and I seriesed the 4 main cabin speakers into 2 pairs at ~7.2 Ohms.

STILL THE SAME PROBLEM!!!!!

So I disconnected the seriesed speakers and tried running just the two speakers that are each on their own channel. Figured there's no way it will trip now. Guess what.... BAM... it did.

So my goal tomorrow is wire these speakers into my tower speaker amp and see where that leads me as it's the same type of amp.

To break my system down to help see the whole pic. I've got double sets of 0/1 AWG wire for my power and grounds running from the storage back to the starboard side battery compartment (25 Ft runs). For the Battery's I've got 2 Trojan T-145's that are Fully charged and holding 14.4V's. From the double runs they come into a distribution block and split to 24" runs of 4 guage wire into the amps. The tower speakers and sub amp work flawlessly.

I also disconnected the sub and tower speakers to see if things were fighting for juice, and that wasn't the problem. I'm also gonna check the RCA's tomorrow by pulling the speaker wire and cranking the volume to see if I can isolate it to the RCA's or amp and not the speakers or crossovers.

Could the amp have a malfunction in it somewhere?.... In all my years, I've actually never had one go bad that didn't just stop working.

I was just in stillwater Thurs. night... I don't really wanna make that trip again... might have to though

I'm at a loss... any ideas guys?

Phil???

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One cool thing was I got to see the little light bulb inside the crossover come on while I was trying to work on the amp in the dark.... LOL. Scared the crap out of me at first, as I thought something was catching on fire. Then I realized it was a heat dissipator.

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Isolated the problem. Bad crossover on one of the bow speakers. Luckily I've got 4 of these crossovers laying around.

The crappy part.... I had took the boat to a local stereo stuff to isolate this problem the other day. I specifically told them that I thought it was a bad crossover and to check them all for me. They said they went through and checked them all. I had a blown speaker and I knew it, so I told them to ignore that one blown speaker cause I had it disconnected. They replaced that speaker even though I told them not to. Guess thats all they did.

Now off to concentrate on my 15" sub box that I made to big to fit in the hatch. Time to rip it down.

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Well crap wasn't the crossover.

I recently replaced this particular "woofer", so I'm thinking it must be the tweeter. I'm hoping at least!

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PM Phil or sp, they might be able to help you a little bit more with this. Sorry can't help but did notice that you are talking to yourself in this thread. j/k

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LOL... well believe it or not, I do know what I'm doing here on isolating the issue.... even if I did go about it "back asswards" with the re-wiring before isolating. But figured if I kept an online convo. going, even if by myself it might help some guys that don't know totally what their doing when they go to search. But trust me, I had already been in contact with Phil, and he's "monitoring the situation" (it's an OK inside joke.... Phil should catch it... think Gary England"

As to the re-wiring... I was getting fluctuating readings down to 1.7-1.8 Ohms before I started. So it probably needed to be done anyways and really thought this was my problem as they had already "tested" the crossovers.

What I'm concerned about is I'm getting perfect sound from that tweet and "woofer" when isolated, so I probably need to dig a bit deeper into my wiring and check for knicks or shorts. Luckily the crossover on this one is easily accessible.

But thank you for not making me feel like I'm talking to a brick wall...HAHA. One thing good comes of it though... at least we're not going off topic.... YET!!!!!!!!!!

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lol, not yet. Ops, just went there.

[philwsailz]

Jump Back Loretta!!!!!

Kids get your bicycle helmets on, we have Val on the Gentner....

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So my initial thought was right. It is now 100% the amp.... no doubt about it... I isolated it. It's one particular channel. BUT here's the sad part... I'm pretty sure both my 650.4's are bad, and it's the SAME Channel.

That's why I was getting false signals, making me think it was the one midbass or tweet.... b/c I would hook it up to the same channel on both amps b/c it was the most easily accessible. This is bad news since I'm leaving to Eufaula tomorrow evening O well... leaving the one channel open on the cabin speakers, so I'm ok there. BUTTTT I was gonna bridge my amp for my new 485's. If that channel is bad, and I bridge it... it's gonna trip it... right Phil?

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On a side note..... I Did manage to hook up my WS-420 w/o a single wine or hiss. Although I did start tearing out my wiring at one point, and almost started pulling my hair out. It was working, and then I left to grab some dinner. Came back to play with it and I had NOOOOO sound. I'm talking there was maybe a wisper. I unplugged and re-plugged EVERYTHING.

Can anyone guess what was wrong?

I hit the damn AUX button on the 420 by accident. I was lost on what was wrong. I got there and started turning dials and hitting buttons. Then, WHAM. Everything fixed! Go figure!

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On a side note..... I Did manage to hook up my WS-420 w/o a single wine or hiss. Although I did start tearing out my wiring at one point, and almost started pulling my hair out. It was working, and then I left to grab some dinner. Came back to play with it and I had NOOOOO sound. I'm talking there was maybe a wisper. I unplugged and re-plugged EVERYTHING.

Can anyone guess what was wrong?

I hit the damn AUX button on the 420 by accident. I was lost on what was wrong. I got there and started turning dials and hitting buttons. Then, WHAM. Everything fixed! Go figure!

Did they teach you to start with the easiest fixes and work towards the more difficult one???

Good troubleshooting....

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HaHa... would seem that way huh? Well I didn't know that Aux button would do that. Nor did I know I had hit it.

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Tell me you read the instructions on the 420!!!! he he he

[philwsailz]

So my initial thought was right. It is now 100% the amp.... no doubt about it... I isolated it. It's one particular channel. BUT here's the sad part... I'm pretty sure both my 650.4's are bad, and it's the SAME Channel.

That's why I was getting false signals, making me think it was the one midbass or tweet.... b/c I would hook it up to the same channel on both amps b/c it was the most easily accessible. This is bad news since I'm leaving to Eufaula tomorrow evening O well... leaving the one channel open on the cabin speakers, so I'm ok there. BUTTTT I was gonna bridge my amp for my new 485's. If that channel is bad, and I bridge it... it's gonna trip it... right Phil?

Are you sure??? Anything can happen, but for two four channel amplifers to both have the same problem seems strange. Regardless, if there is a bad channel and you go and bridge the amp(s), yeah they should still pop into protection at higher levels.

Have you completely removed the speakers from the equation? Have you also completely removed the signal from the equation? I doubt bad behavior of the radio would cause this at the speaker output of the amps, but I am curious.

I would recommend getting through the weekend, however you can, (you know it is going to rain all weekend, right?) and then maybe get return authorization and send them in to be looked at.

Keep us posted!


BY the way, I was going to be at the lake already, but am typing from the patio at the house this morning.....

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BY the way, I was going to be at the lake already, but am typing from the patio at the house this morning.....

With a nice cold frosty one close by...