Heat Issue
 

Alright, I have a RF T3002 running my 12" Kicker L7 DVC 4ohm, wired to 2ohm's bridged on the amp. and it gets retarded hot, though not going into thermal mode, after running for about 25min at a decent volume. its mounted under the rear seats of my Grand Cherokee on an angle, the bottom doesnt touch anything. Good air flow under there. and its teh bottom and corner of teh amp that are actually HOT, like i mean hot that u cant hold your hand there for longer than a few seconds. the top and sides of teh amp are warm, but nothing excessive. i have 4ga wire power and ground wires goin to the amp, power wire has 150A inline fuse. gain isn't retarded either, about maybe 1/3.

Like I said its hasn't gone thermal or shut off yet, but its really hot. I've had this setup for about a week now. I just wondering if anyone out there has a similar setup, or use a RF T3002 and find that it gets pretty hot, and if so, do you use anything special to cool it down.

also, i used to have it mounted on the sub box for a few days, and it got just as hot up there too, so its not a matter of being mounted under the seats, as there is lik 6-8" of clearance room under them.

This is a class AB amp. You are running it at it's maximum. It is going to get hot, real hot. The longer and louder you play the system, the hotter it is going to get. The more air that is restricted from getting to it, the sooner the air around it gets heated and the amp heats up even more before going into thermal protection. Get the amp out from under anything, get it out in the open, mounted horizontally so that the heat has a chance to escape. This amp cools by convection, this means that the amp needs to be able to let the hot air rise away from the amp. You might want to consider mounting a 12v cooling fan to blow some air across the amp as well to try and help keep it cool. Not the best choice of an amp for your sub but it is what you have to work with. Good to see that you have the proper wiring for it.

ic, by 12v fans, are there specific ones for car audio, or would a pc 12v fan work?

It will work fine.

question of curiosity, I know my science and that heat rises.....but with amp teh heat seems to be on the bottom, instead of the top.

therefore, if I were to attach a heatsink to the bottom via thermal paste, would it effectively draw heat away from the amp....the amp is mounted on an angle, about a 30-40 degree angle, so if i were to attach a heatsink to the bottom and also a fan to blow away that heat, would that work better than just a setup of fans...?

any input would be great

what is a good source to use as a 12v source to power the fan......don;t want to use the remote wire since it will suck all teh current....

how much current does your remote wire need????

tap off either the power to the amp or the remote will be fine as well.
if the amp has thermal protect and it hasn't shut off, then all is well. I'd never put an amp under a seat without a fan though.

Most decks only supply .5 amp on the remote on lead. Attaching a fan to it is almost going to cause certain death. Use a relay to trigger the fan from the remote on.

What's the problem?, you are working the amp hard and it is getting hot. If you don't want it to run as hot get a larger amp or raise your load impedence. Believe me, if the Rockford is running so hot you can only hold your hand on it for a few seconds, the actual output transistors are probably only at 60% of their temperature extreme. I have done extensive measuring of home and car amplifiers and do my research on the output devices and most people think that when you can fry an egg on an amplifer it is a bad thing when it is not. You should check out how hot my class A Pass Labs amp runs.

I'm just going to throw this out there, but would't a class D amp be a better for power a sub? A class A/B would be cleaner, but it has to work harder than a dedicated sub amp.