JumpyRoo

The set up (to clarify for the problems):

Three amps-one for front speakers, one for subs, one for rear speakers-all mounted in the hatch. They are grounded and powered very well. Powered by an Optima Yellow Top deep cycle battery, also mounted and grounded in the hatch, that is exclusive to the amps right now. This battery supposedly charges itself, and it is *not*, at this time, connected to the alternator. When I get a bigger alternator and a battery isolator, it will be. There is a Pioneer liquid animation head unit, a seperate Pioneer EQ, and a Pioneer twelve disc changer. These three units are powered by the car's primary battery: An Optima Red Top starter battery. There are twelve speakers total in the car: Two subs, four front speakers, and six back speakers. The front amp is 300watts, the back amp and the sub amp are both 600watts. The 300watt front amp and the 600watt rear amp are both Pioneer. The 600watt sub amp is Kenwood. For the amps and the yellow top, there is a Rockford Fostgate 1 Farad digital capacitor that also has a digital meter on it--though it is power linked to the battery, it has not yet been charged, and I have its remote turn on disconnected for right now. The amps all use the same ground distribution block and the same power distribution block, and the same remote control distribution; and all connections are sound.

As far as I can tell, all connections are really good. I did in the past find that I could use a remote wire to turn on the capacitor, and that the heavy power cables had enough static in them to get it to turn on, light up, and display "0.0volts", but I have not used it yet to test what happens when the amps themselves are powered. And when something goes wrong.

What goes wrong (Number 1): The front speaker amp, and the sub amp, both work. They work well--the front speakers get very loud, and clear, and the subs get loud too. For the life of me, I can not get the rear amp to activate. Since they are both Pioneer, I can compare the working front amp and the nonworking rear amp--the front amp has this little red light that goes on when the amp is turned on. The rear amp is not displaying this light. So six speakers of my twelve speaker set up aren't working. I set the EQ to rear speakers, and I hear nothing. The amp isn't even turning on. I tried a different remote control wire for a working amp, I tested the power and the ground... no change.

What goes wrong (Number 2): The silence. Listening to a CD, suddenly, the sound just goes blank. No static, no hiss, no pop. Just nothing. It's as if a CD were skipping, and in fact, if I rewind the CD, the silence stops and ends in the same spot. I thought for a moment or two that it was a scratched spot. Then I noticed two things: The animation on the EQ, for the music, continues through the silent period. (This means that the processor was still getting audio info from the CD changer) And the silence gets worse. The "holes" become longer, and they become more frequent. Total time running sound through the speakers: Half an hour. High volume, yes. (However, it may be of note that the subs don't seem *that* loud, and that I can't hear them from outside the car. Perhaps they aren't getting power, or perhaps that's just as loud as the amp and subs will get right now.) But could it really be so taxing on this incredible, self charging battery that is supposed to be able to handle massive fog light displays and is marketed to ambulances? On the EQ, I really can't tell if it happens at peak moments or not. The song was loud (NIN-Wish) to begin with. Perhaps over all, there were so many loud spots, that's why there became more silence. The longest duration of stereo use was in the early morning, and the silent spots developed much later tonight, after a seven hour shift at work. Plenty of time to recharge, right? Grr.

seveninphilly

iTrader: (7)

first off what are the specifics for the amps you are running
1-rear-Pioneer-how many channel amp
2-front-Pioneer-how many channel amp
3-Kenwood-how many channel amp

What gauge wire are you using for the connections
1-battery to cap to distribution block
2-distribution block to amps

What speakers are you running series, parallel
many amps can not tolerate less than a 4ohm load and will blow very easy due to overheating a possibility for the rear amp connected to six speakers if wired wrong

Are all of the amps connected to the distribution block

JumpyRoo

Rear-two channels
Front-two channels
Ken-two channels

Bat to cap to DB - 4 gauge
Distribution block to amps - 8 gauge

Front speakers in parallel, rear speakers in series, subs bridged.

Everything is wired into the distribution block. All fuses are intact. The ground block has no fuses, and is wired right.

NZConvertible

Can you elaborate on that? It sorta breaks the laws of physics...

JumpyRoo

A deep cycle spiral cell gell type battery, supposedly, uses two seperate areas inside itself. One sector retains electricity, but an area below it contains an activity center of chemicals that produces a charge that transverses vertically, into the retention area of the battery. Something like that. That is how the "deep gell cycle" works, I'm told.

Icemark

There is no such thing as a self charging battery. You are running low on a charge.

I have used the optima yellow top and it always requires charging by the car's electrical system.

You may have engine noise from ground loops as well, but we can cover that when you get the battery installed correctly to the car's electrical system.

Who was smoking crack and told you that it was a self charging battery?

Icemark

Also what amp brand are you using for the rear amp? Most amps will not run under 9 volts DC, because of the pre-amp stage.

JumpyRoo

A bunch of hayseeds at Murray's gave me this story about it charging itself. Now I must kill, or edit that out of my post... no, I voluntarily leave my morass up for all to see. Eh! I was wary of the self charging thing, but that's not why I bought the battery.

Do you think it could have been drained in just a half hour's worth of use? What's your opinion of the battery?

I'm using Pioneer as the rear amp... Know much about those?

Icemark

Drained in 15-20 minutes I would estimate... the yellow tops on have about 700 amp capacity fully charged, I doubt that it was even half charged when you got it.

You have 1500 watt peak draw at 12 volts that is around 120 amps. So if you had it (the volumn) up there yep, maybe 15 or 20 minutes. I personally prefer the red optimas (800 amp ) but it sounds like for your application the yellow top is a better choice (with its deep cycle abilities). You won't be burning batteries up as often. The red tops as most conventional batteries don't like to be drained flat, but the yellows have no problems with it (well, not major problems).

I have only worked with the smaller Pioneer chip amps, so I can't say if their mosfet amps are good or not.

JumpyRoo

Would you suggest a battery isolator with a larger alternator for powering both batteries? Or does the deep cycle dislike alternators? I know about the solar cell stuff, but it's *slow*.

I would like to see the dial settings on my Pioneer amps, to see how they're different. I'll check that in the morning.

JumpyRoo

Other info: Primary battery cabling to distribution block: four gauge. Primary ground: six gauge from each amp to the ground block, four gauge out to the frame of the car. There is a 60amp fuse in line to the distribution block, and three 30amp fuses in the block itself. Remote control wires are all sixteen gauge. Capacitor's got four gauge wire in and out. The battery ground to the frame is two gauge.

Icemark

As far as the alt or isolater it will depend on your budget.

If you can afford it a dual wound alt would be the way to go and have the least amount of problems, but they are pricey. Last one a looked at for a Toyota 22R motor was around $700 for the small case.

The other end of the budget would be possibly a larger alt and a dual battery isolater. I have used this type in tons of systems. It works well, but there are sometimes ground referance issues unless the entire stereo is completely grounded to only one battery.

Sounds like you wire size is fine. You may want to run an additional 10 AWG or 8AWG wire from the radio body itself to the same ground block in the rear. This will help prevent the dreaded ground loops, that your system is prime for.

A 18 AWG or even 22 AWG wire is more than sufficent to run for the turn on leads although you may wish to add a relay as most head units only have a 300 MA turn on output. If you add any additional components like a active crossover, EQ, or sound stage/time alignment device you may be taxing that turn on output.

PlayinW/Wankel

Do you have any pics of your set up? I would like to see how you managed to fit all that stuff in there.

JumpyRoo

I think I'm gonna have to do the dual isolator and the large alternator. Autozone, it turns out, does not have the FD alternator for a reasonable price. Any suggestions? I can get a SurePower 200amp isolator for fifty bucks. I was going to ground to just about any place I could, but if you could explain "ground loops" in detail, that would be great, and also tell me how the system could be suseptible to them, or especially where. The EQ and the CD head each have their own turn on leads, so between the two, that isn't strained right now.

I'm looking for webspace to post pictures too... I had to take out my backseat for the subs, and some carpeting in the hatch. Well, you'll see eventually. It looks pretty ghetto, but I retained a fair amount of trunk space.

Icemark

Ground loops are caused by different ground potentials in the cars body.

For example if you checked the ground potential on the rear shock tower, you would find a different resistance than on the front shock tower.

Or the ground at the dash have a different resistance than the ground at the trunk.

Often times with amps it is the same way. For example the ground path through the kenwood amp may be different than through the Pioneer amps.

Any place where there is a difference between two (or more) different grounds can cause a Ground Loop.

The whole idea is that the signal ground from the radio/CD is reaching the amps faster than the body ground. This causes the problem.

This is often expressed in a car audio system by engine noise, and audible tachometer of the engine speed through the system, or pops and clicks. Sometimes even spark plug echo (although spark echo is more common on the radio rather than CD and when only on the radio is something entirely different).

So if all the components are grounded to the same spot the Ground loop potential is minimzed down to just the components.

But if the radio is grounded in the front, and the amps in the rear there is often enough difference in the resistance to the battery that you will have that engine noise from a ground loop.

The last couple BMW 7 series were horrible for this as BMW used a adhesive between the body panels then spot welded them together. Well residue from that adhesive would change the resistance the further back you went in the car. so by the time you got to the trunk sometimes you saw as much as 100 Ohms of resistance differential to the front. The simplest solution was often just to run a 8 awg wire to the back of the car, grounding it to each section.

JumpyRoo

Wow, that's brilliant. It makes perfect sense... actually I do have one more eight gauge port open on the grounding block, so that's where the radio ground is going now. So far, I have heard nothing like that in my car, but my cousin's engine can be heard oh so clearly in his Accord.

What about that one amp that doesn't turn on, though?

seveninphilly

iTrader: (7)

Check the connections at the speakers if they are in a series one missed connection could cause it not to work. Worst case something could have been wired wrong and fried the amp in the half hour you had it on.

Pics would be good

RETed

This is typical for Hondas as well as Acuras...
Back in the day (early 90's), when I was heavily into the car audio scene, we had a field day trying to supress all the engine noise that was abundant in all these Hondas.&nbsp Rumor had it that Honda has some kinda voltage feedback loop to the ECU that got all screwed up when adding big car audio systems to the vehicle - go figure.&nbsp We threw all kinds of engine supression capacitors and noise inductors to kill all the engine noise, but we could never kill ALL of the noise.&nbsp This hurt in competitions, nothing short of a noise gate would get rid of the noise at "zero input".&nbsp Setting a noise gate to trigger properly is a headache in itself!



-Ted

Samps

You really should check out the non-working amp before you do anything. Try switching it with the front stage amp and see if it works. If it does then something along the rears is causing the problem. If it doesn't then you have a bad amp.

I used to have a comp stereo in my 89' 626. I was running two autotek 44s for front and rear and an autotek 222 running to two custom chrome basket kicker 18s that came out of one of thier show trucks (connections baby!). Well anyways; I has this whole system running off of my stock alternator. It dimmed the lights at night, but only when turned up. Once it actualy shut my car down for what reason I do not know, maybe extreme voltage drop. But I think with your set-up you could get away with just the stock alt and a good battery which you seem to already have. Running the isolator and two batteries is sometimes overkill on a everyday consumer stereo. If I were you I would try running the system off of your stock equipment and see how it works. You might need to keep the volume down a lil at night, but not much. I have a few friends that are running HUGE stereos off of thier stock equipment with no troubles. I'm not sure how the 7 will hold up, but with your set-up I think it will do.

vnova94

How are you connecting your remote wires? Are you drawing off the stock remote? If you are, this is not enough to power all of the electronics.... and can intermittently cause some of them to work and not work.

Matt

JumpyRoo

Well, I know the alternator can't handle the system... I disconnected the battery after starting the car, and the CD player itself (along with lots of in cabin electronics that were stock in the car dimming) only came on when the car was above 1500rpm. In nuetral, it all turned off.

There is a stock remote on the CD head, and another on the EQ, and I'm using the two of them, and they seem to work out all right. But if anyone knows how to amplify this, please tell me. I need it for a few more electronics down the road.

I will test the amp next week, when I come back from central Illinois. So check this post then.

It appears that all speaker connections in the series are good. Stay tuned for a genuine continuiuty test.

How quickly could that amp have burned out? It seemed to not even come on in the first place.

vnova94

What i do is use a relay hooked up to the battery. Send your stock remote wire to the relay. When the remote lead turns on, it will turn on the relay and all your equipment will be powered directly from the battery. Jumper the remote and the +12V leads on the amplifiers. This will also eliminate battery drainage when the car is off.

I have a 4-channel Adcom amplifier, a 2-channel Nakamichi amp, electronic crossover, balanced inputs..... all this was too much for the stock remote..... occasionally, my Nak would not work. You can read 12V at the remote, but there isn't enough current to operate. Having the remote pull directly from the battery solved the problem.

JumpyRoo

I really like that relay idea. How do you suggest making the relay? Cuz I don't think Radio Shack carries them anymore... Maybe my power antenna will finally come on, too

vnova94

Im pretty sure you can still get them at Radio Shack... its a simple SPDT relay switch.... i used two of them in since they were only rated at 25A each....

One is also required to operate the power antenna. It is used in the oposite way i think.... as the antenna operates when it is grounded.... not when it is powered.

JumpyRoo

Two in series, you mean? Can I branch one of these things out to several different amps?