amplifier heating up gradually
 

Can someone please point me in the right direction. Below ive described my compete setup and I would appreciate any help in diagnosis of the above mentioned problem.

Setup:

Power - + 4ga. wire hooked up to battery through side post extender connection. Fused less than 2 feet from battery with 100A inline. 10ft line ran directly into capacitor then routed directly to Amplifier via 2ga. loop connector which has been ground down and drilled out to fit amplifier terminals.

Ground - Grounded to rear deck lid at ground point for another wire linked to airbag system via 4ga. wire and 2 ga. loop connectors. routed directly to Amplifier via 2ga. loop connector which has been ground down and drilled out to fit amplifier terminals.

Pcon - 14ga. wire ran directly off Pcon wire @ back of head unit.

Rca - connected to head unit indirectly via scosche inline noise reduction box. Both sides are connected correctly. Ran to rear input on amp.

Speaker wires - 14ga. wire bridged from rear output of amp ran to +/- in correct order on ONE voice coil of a dual voice coil sub.

Capacitor ground - 2ga. wire grounded to rear deck lid at ground point for another wire.

SUB - dub audio 200 series dual 4 voice coil

AMP - xplod 600w max 4 channel 2 - 4 ohm stable. Gain set at .6.

HEAD UNIT - xplod 55x4

CAPACITOR - scosche .5k farad



ALL connections are solid. Heating occurs gradually during use. I have absolutely no clue if I am running the correct ohms which would be helpful in determining this problem. Id also like to add, this amp design has hardly any ventilation and no cooling fan.

nature of the beast. Unless the amp get's to the point where it hurts to touch it, then you've go no problems.

Id say the heat this amp is generating is, after a half hour or so of use anyhow, more than it should be throwing off. The previous owner of this amp who is a friend of mine said he never had the thing heat up for him as much as it is for me.

Do you think I should use bigger speaker wires into the sub? Also, how do I know what im running for ohms? Should I be using both voice coils of my sub?

since ur using only 1 coil on the sub ur just running 4ohms and if u are using that amp bridge for the sub its working at 2ohms.. AND its sony.. they do get hot.. had 2 600w 2channel runing a sub each for my 2nd system and it got so hot that it burnt me and shuts down once in a while.. but the amps are still running strong today in my buddies car..

now what you can do is change that ground to the floor chassis of the car.. better where theres a weld. change the speaker wire to 12gauge.. start with that

Just took a trip and had the system pumping almost continuously for about a half hour. within the last 5 minutes of the trip I started to smell a burning which I verified was coming from the amp. It was so hot after a half hour it burnt within 2 seconds of touching it.

I will try re grounding it to a better location and upping the gauge on the speaker wire but is there anything else I can do? perhaps installing a fan? I dont mind modifying it / cutting into the amp for ventilation holes if this will help.

It's in Sonys nature to be garbage, buy another one or a different one, I bet they're cheap enough on ebay. My Visonik 1500w@1ohm could be cranked all day without getting warm. "The previous owner of this amp who is a friend of mine said he never had the thing heat up for him as much as it is for me". The previous owner is going to deny any heating issues, as soon as you hint a problem, or he never listened to music cranked. The Dub 200 series is 400w RMS, if this is your amp than it could be that the amp doesn't have the balls to push the small sub and is overworked. I've had Sony amps & subs and they were quiet, they sound like they're falling apart.


•4 x 65W RMS at 2Ohm
•1 x 130W RMS at 4Ohm - Bridged
$59.95 SONY XPLOD XM-554Z 600W 4 CH CAR AMPLIFIER!
SONY! XPLOD XM-554Z XM554Z ~ 600W ~ 4 CH CAR AMPLIFIER! - eBay (item 300366833319 end time Nov-23-09 11:16:57 PST)

no i have the xm-554zr which from what i can see only has one difference. Its 130wx2 bridged @ 4 ohms

# 4-Channel Class AB Car Amplifier
# RMS Power Rating:

* 4 ohms: 55 watts x 4 chan.
* 2 ohms: 65 watts x 4 chan.
* Bridged, 4 ohms: 130 watts x 2 chan.

# Max power output: 150 watts x 4 chan.
# MOSFET power supply
# LED power and protection indicators
# Bridgeable operation
# Speaker-level inputs with signal sensing for automatic turn-on
# Toroidal transformer
# Chrome-plated RCA level inputs
# Chrome-plated screw terminals
# Fixed high-pass filter (80 Hz, 12 dB/octave)
# Fixed low-pass filter (80 Hz, 12 dB/octave)
# CEA-2006 compliant amplifier
# Frequency response: 5-50000 Hz
# Dimensions: 18.5"L x 13.5"W x 4.5"H
# 8-gauge power and ground leads recommended

either way rather than frying this since its all I have at the moment, if I re grounded it to a better location, put bigger gauge speaker wire on, installed a cpu cooling fan and perhaps cut some cooling slots do you think it would prevent anything from melting?

I'm sorry but that is total bullshit. Your 1500watt amp, even at 70% efficiency is processing over 2100watts of power. The extra 600watts goes to heat plain and simple. Even at a 50% duty cycle, the amp is going to heat up.

Amps get hot. That's the way it is. Like wasted911 says, it's the nature of the beast. Most amps have thermal cutoffs at 180F. That's really hot from a 'touch and see' perspective.

How/where is the amp mounted? And certainly reconsider that grounding point.

the amp is mounted to the back seat and has some but not much breathing room between it and the sub box. even with the back seat folded down giving it plenty of breathing room its getting hot enough to cut out and kick the protection on after a half hour of pushing it @ 25 - 28 volume with a 34 max volume control.

Would cutting vents into the casing and installing some cpu fans running off the pcon help at all?