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I need HELP with my STEREO soon!!!

 
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jwat142
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PostPosted: Jan 22, 2003 4:51 pm    Post subject: I need HELP with my STEREO soon!!! Reply with quote

I have been trying to hook up a single 200w amp that will be running 4 6 1/2" speakers in my boat. Nothing big, just one amp. Anyways, I have hooked everything up the way it says and every single time I go to turn on the power, it blows the fuse that is on the wire that runs directly to the positive side of the battery. Does anybody have any idea what I am doing wrong. The cd player turns on fine and everything, it's just the amp and it's always the fuse that is on the direct line to the battery. HELP!
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*chris*
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PostPosted: Jan 22, 2003 5:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

yeah, its very simple. get a bigger fuse for the direct batter connection. what size fuse do u have in there right now? id say get at least a 60 amp fuse.
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jwat142
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PostPosted: Jan 22, 2003 6:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Would that be safe for the amp? I am running a 20 amp fuse right now because that is what the amp pulls at 4 ohms. I don't want to burn anything up by using too big of a fuse.
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Alan Whitaker
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PostPosted: Jan 22, 2003 7:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Where do you have it grounded?
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jwat142
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PostPosted: Jan 22, 2003 7:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, I'm not exactly sure. I just put in a new cd player too, and when I took the old tape deck out, it was grounded to a wire that went somewhere that I can't see. I grounded both the cd player and the amp to the same wire. The cd player works fine, it's just that amp that won't work. I also tried to ground the amp to a seperate place on the boat and the fuse still blew.
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Alan Whitaker
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PostPosted: Jan 22, 2003 7:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Run your ground wire to the neg. side of the battery!!!!! Let us know.
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*chris*
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PostPosted: Jan 22, 2003 7:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

seriously...get a bigger fuse. it is completely safe for the amp. in fact getting a bigger fuse will never hurt your amp, by blowing the fuse it shows that your amp is drawing more power than they say it should. so yeah, get a 40-amp or higher. id say 60-amp just to make sure.
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*chris*
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PostPosted: Jan 22, 2003 7:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

omg...dont run your ground wire to the neg-side of the battery. dont even think about doing that...thatll destroy the battery. leave the ground wire where it is and just get a bigger fuse for the power cable.
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Alan Whitaker
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PostPosted: Jan 22, 2003 7:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Why will it destroy the battery? That's where mine has been all year.
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*chris*
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PostPosted: Jan 22, 2003 7:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

d00d, how has it been there all year and not done anything to your battery or wiring system? is your amp tiny or do u have some kind of circuit breaker system on your boat? cause theres a reason they say hook the ground cable to a piece of metal, ive never heard of someone put it on the battery and not have anything happen
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JamesP
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PostPosted: Jan 22, 2003 7:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Running the ground to the negative side of the battery is perfectly safe and won't ruin your battery. If you have a 20amp fuse in there now I wouldn't put a 60amp in there. You could try a 30amp but that's as far as I would go.
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PostPosted: Jan 22, 2003 7:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I run my amp directly of the battery both + & - Cuts a lot of the engine noise out, make sure you use decent sized wires. I would stay well clear of fitting a bigger than recommended fuse.
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JamesP
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PostPosted: Jan 22, 2003 7:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

*chris* - I have all these amps running directly off of the battery on both the negative and the positive. Take it from a 14 year mechanic, "It's perfectly fine to run directly off your battery!"
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Alan Whitaker
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PostPosted: Jan 22, 2003 7:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

A ground is a ground they all go to the same place, the battery. If they don't go to the battery then it's not a ground.
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PostPosted: Jan 22, 2003 7:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Chris, I'd like to hear from these people that you know that have had problems with grounding directly to your battery. I'va had mine there for about six months and I know of tons of people that have it grounded to the battery without any problems
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Alan Whitaker
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PostPosted: Jan 22, 2003 8:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Electricity travels from the least path of resistance to ground.
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PostPosted: Jan 22, 2003 8:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

ok ok ok....i c it works fine then. those people that have told me they destroy batteries, arent exactly 100% credible about stereos...but ive never seen the battery thing and it only seemed logical. as far as the fuse goes, ive never seen a bigger fuse hurt, my friend at a 200-amp fuse and his amp was only supposedly drawing around 50-amps.
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jedsterr
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PostPosted: Jan 22, 2003 8:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ever follow any of the cables which come off of the negative terminal on the battery? I bet they to straight to a big chunk of metal, i.e. engine block. Therefore, grounding to the NEG terminal would be the same as grounding to the block. No harm done to the battery.

-Jed
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PostPosted: Jan 22, 2003 8:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yes, a ground is a ground is a ground. But your ground wire from any piece of equip should be of equal or greater size than the positive wire. the same amount of current (amps) traveling through the positive wire has to return to the battery through the ground wire. if you ground to the block it will be ok. most boat mfgs provide somewhere under the dash a grounding stud for all of their factory inst equip. this is where i grounded my amps. Exclamation DO NOT replace the fuse with any higher amperage than the manual for your amp calls for Exclamation there is a reason that they want that size fuse. the mfg has done the math for you and figured out how many amps the amp needs to operate at full capacity safely. if something shorts inside or in the positive cable this creates a amperage spike which blows the fuse and saves your ass and the amp. if the fuse is blowing, somethings wrong. check the pos cable all the way to the battery to make sure its not shorted. then run and aux ground from the case of the amp to the ground source you end up using-- dont trust that anyone had it hooked up correctly before! if the fuse continues to blow i would say youve got a prob with the amp. hope this long winded answer helps.

and p.s. do not listen to chris!
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jwat142
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PostPosted: Jan 23, 2003 5:12 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

How big of a fuse is everyone else using on their amps?
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Bo Coppinger
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PostPosted: Jan 23, 2003 6:36 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I would try the new ground, before you move up in fuse size. I would not go higher than a 30 amp fuse. If you blow that one you may have an amp problem. Here is a pic of the amps in my boat. All my connections go to the battery terminals.
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PostPosted: Jan 23, 2003 6:42 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Don't listen to Chris at all. Grounding to the negative terminal on your battery is good. Don't use a 60 amp fuse. The size fuse you use should depend on how many watts your pulling. The amount of power something is drawing is the voltage times the current. Therefore, for your 200 watt amp, it should draw a max of 200/12=16.67 Amps. This is when it is running all out, you can see how the manufactor came up with a 20 amp fuse. Amp's usually have three connections relating to power, the ground, positive, and the power on signal wire, which should get +12V when the amp is supposed to be on. I'd check these connections and try the amp without anything else connected, if the connections are right and the fuse blows, there's something wrong with your amp.

Nick

Also, electicity will travel through all possible ways to ground, not just the path of least resistance. The path of least resistance will have the most current though.
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Last edited by OttoNP on Feb 26, 2011 7:26 am; edited 1 time in total
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PostPosted: Jan 23, 2003 6:51 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Also, fuses aren't required, everything would run fine without them as long as everything was ok; however, if you ever have a problem or short, you're screwed. For example, whoever has a 200 amp fuse is probably defeating the purpose of having a fuse. If there ever is a short, up to 200 amps can come through that wire and unless the wire gauge is 2 or less it is likely to melt the wire and possibly start a fire. A 200 amp fuse would be appropriate if you were running around 2400 watts off that one power cable and were using gauge 2 or preferably less.

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Last edited by OttoNP on Feb 26, 2011 7:26 am; edited 1 time in total
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PostPosted: Jan 23, 2003 7:24 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Jwat,

Check all your speaker connections and make sure they are not shorting out...Ex. Red wire touching the black wire. One way you could test this is disconnect all the speakers then just run one wire to one speaker...If it works then you must have a short some where. If not, I'd have to say it is an amp problem (if you have exhausted all other ideas)...

I'm not sure if this has any relevance but I know on my home theater amp if this happens it will blow the fuse for the power supply. Worth looking into if you are running out of ideas.

Good Luck Buddy
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PostPosted: Jan 23, 2003 7:39 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I would look for a short. Typically if its blowing fuses like that, something is gone. Check your speakers too. When my sub melted interanally, it would cause the fuse to blow as soon as the power is turned on. Typically if the speaker is blown, the internals have fried and could cause a short. As for fuses in the amps, leave what comes in them. If you have one lead coming from the battery , then splitting off to multiple amps, you could but a high capicity fuse on the line to protect it and then each amp has a fuse to protect it individually. Typically you place the high amp fuse near the battery so if the power line gets shorted before the distribution block, the fuse blows and you do not have the power line arching or melting at the short.
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PostPosted: Jan 23, 2003 7:41 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I would look for a short. Typically if its blowing fuses like that, something is gone. Check your speakers too. When my sub melted interanally, it would cause the fuse to blow as soon as the power is turned on. Typically if the speaker is blown, the internals have fried and could cause a short. As for fuses in the amps, leave what comes in them. If you have one lead coming from the battery , then splitting off to multiple amps, you could but a high capicity fuse on the line to protect it and then each amp has a fuse to protect it individually. Typically you place the high amp fuse near the battery so if the power line gets shorted before the distribution block, the fuse blows and you do not have the power line arching or melting at the short.
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jwat142
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PostPosted: Jan 23, 2003 4:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, I think I found out that my amp was bad. I un-hooked everything and then just hooked the power wire up to the + on the battery and the ground wire to the - on the battery and it still blew the fuse. So, now I am getting a new amp. Now my question is, what is the best way to test the amp first to see if it is good or not? Should I hook up my new amp just to the battery first to see if it blows the fuse? Thanks for any help.
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PostPosted: Jan 23, 2003 5:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

What kind of amp is it? Most manufacturers test every amp that goes out of their factory and include it's birth cirtificate with it's output wattage in the box. I think you can trust a manufacturers quality test...
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PostPosted: Jan 24, 2003 12:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

On cars I have always used seperate grounds, boats its hard to find good grounds. use the battery, just to save hard ach check your pos wire sounds like you have a short to ground, make sure you are not touching anything that it shouldn't on the hook up side. The only way I know to test an amp it to hook it up. Make sure you have good clean ends. I have never ran a bigger fuse than what they give me unless it is a multi amp set up. I really wouldn't go bigger. if that fuse is popping before sound goes through something is wrong, and it is not the fuse side. Buy a new amp friendly priced amp that are reliable rockford and mtx, plus they are american made.
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jwat142
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PostPosted: Jan 24, 2003 7:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks for all your help. It ended up that the amp was bad. I got a new one hooked up tonight and it works great. Thanks again!
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