Melted my distribution block, and lots of other questions
 

I melted my distribution block. Anyone know what the problem may have been?? As for wire gauge I have more than sufficient in and out.

A sound shop around here told me it was probably because I didn't upgrade my ground/chassis wire from the battery, its still stock. It made sense to me, but I just wanted to get a second opinion on it.

2 months ago my in line fuse holder right behind the battery melted too. It continued to work perfectly so I don't know exactly when it went. But my car had overheated one day and blew the rad, so I was in there replacing it when I noticed the fuse holder was melted, could it melt just from the heat under the hood (like I say it was hot enough to burst my rad)??

Last question, are Tsunami distribution blocks any good? I was looking at a "TLWFDB4-AGU" or "FDBM-3MANL"?? And what amperage fuses should I be using in the dist. block? My amps are Clarion:

APX1300 (300 watts RMS each) X2
APX4240 (240 watts RMS)


Thanks for your help

To be short, Yes - the shop gave you a good explanation . . . for a longer discussion on this very topic, check out this link here (and try to ignore the silly banter in it)

Thanks,

I had been told about the big 3 upgrade before, but I was cheap and tried to get around it. I guess I'm lucky it wasn't worse...

Big 3 might not be necessary - but at the minimum you need to upgrade the wire from the chassis to the battery ground. This will at least open up the electrical flow reducing the heat that caused your fuse to melt.

The other 2 wires will make sure that the alt gives all of its juice to the battery

I saw something almost exactly like this lately. It turned out that the previous installer had under-fused the system by quite a bit. If the fuse doesn't see a 'spike' it can literally cook itself - as this one did - completely black, melting the entire fuse holder and making quite a stench. It ended up he was in the range where he was better suited with a cirquit breaker.

Not necceccarily the issue, but I just thought I'd chip in.

Yup, typical bus fuses won't blow if the current draw is very close to the fuse rating. Instead, since the fuse is the thinnest conductor in the line, it creates a bottle neck for the current to go through - not a problem if the current is 80% of the fuse's capacity or less. But when it gets close to a 100% match, it gets hot. Heat increases resistance. Higher resistance creates more heat. The vicious cycle continues until there is so much heat that the whole thing melts from the heat.

did the plastic melt or did the plastic deform or was it the metal? Many plastics start to fail somewhere around 180F the metal melting temp for a block made of aluminum is around 800F. Temperatures under the hood get toasty but shouldn't affect PVC insulation on an aftermarket wire. Things under hood get so hot you can not bear touching them and the point for that kind of pain is at least 140F

Thats interesting, that does sound like exactly what happened with my fuse holder, same result anyways. I wouldn't be suprised if the fuse was the wrong size because on my distribution I had a 60, 80 and 100 amp fuses, and 2 of my three amps are the exact same model??? This was done by a "professional" installer - but since at the time everything worked I couldn't be bothered to mention it. But it wouldn't suprise me if they goofed on the fuse holder fuse as well.

I don't know what else could have caused the fuse holder to melt, I'm assuming my insufficient ground couldn't affect it could it?? And other then that the only thing I can think of is when my engine overheated - unfortunately I don't know what temperature it would have gotten too... but the wire insulation is fine, it was just the holder (and it deformed by the way, and I think the metal stayed more or less the way it was supposed too)...

An insufficient ground would have you running problems with your amps, and more than likely not a problem at the fuse holder. In the case I was speaking of above, the previous installer had actually fused a 160 amp system with a 20 amp ANL fuse. This big oopsie led to the fuse welding itself shut, and what I think was sparking from one end of the fuse to the fuseholder connector. When I pulled the fuse out of the melted wreckage (And part of the wire insulation had gone as well) one end of the fuse was still shiny bronze, and the other end (and most of the glass) was black. The fuse itself was intact.

On the installer note, everyone makes mistakes. Check the fuses on your actual gear and go by that. I find it a lot more suiting than guesstimating by the RMS or peak powers presented.

The fact that your dist block melted and not your small ground wire leads me to believe the problem was in your dist block. Perhaps the installer did not screw something in tightly enough? Heat happens when you try to get too much current through too small of a wire, so if the ground wire was the problem, why did it not melt? The distribution block melted because there was a point within the block where there was a bottleneck, could have been because of a fuse within the block, was it a fused distribution block? Fuses will cause terrible heat just before they blow because of this very reason.

Well, to me it seems all your problems started when you started using glass fuses. They are pure crap. I believe they only go up to 80A, and if you try running amperage through them close to their limitation, they simply melt slowly and as their composition changes the resistance starts to build in that fuse, and it becomes the weakest link in your current flow, meanwhile due to resistance heat builds up, which starts to melt the crappy quality metal around it which is your distribution block. That is most likely your problem. I do not buy crappy ground for a minute. People who use glass fuses, and run them hard, should replace them regularly as maintenance. I refuse to use that crap, period. Once you go into a little bit more power, and start pushing your system, these fuses do not hold up. Try something different. I've melted a good share of those fuses years ago, until I learned not to use them at all, and my problems vanished. I have been using a capacitor as a distribution block for years now. Some people use breakers back there. Fuses do not even blow when their rated current is going through them. Depending on how much over, they hold up anywhere from minutes to hours, in the meantime deteriorating as it happens. For example, and do not quote me on technicality, they even deteriorate when there is 60 amps going through 80A fuse, and as their physical composition changes over time, you're slowly getting yourself into what you're describing, and if you got good ears, and know what to listen for, and know how your system should sound, you will know that the sound is night and day different, especially bass will be lacking and will have more distortion. And when you put a fresh fuse and distribution block in there, your system will sound as if it had a tune-up, until this crap happens again, and you're back where you started with melted garbage. Do not use this stuff. You will keep replacing it.

So, the problem could be that you were using a low amperage fuse for what your amps were pulling, and it was very close in fact, which is a big problem for glass type fuses. This is my guess, cause I do not have the info of all the digits. People do that when they falsely assume, that the fuse should be close to what amp is pulling. It has nothing to do with that. The fuse is there to protect the wire, not the amp, and most people use 4 gauge back there, and should be using 125-150A fuse back there, if thats the case, unless you know for a fact, you will no way be pulling amperage close to the fuse's rating, as you will be killing that fuse slowly. ANL by design has no such flaws, only the crappy glass.

^^^ Oh and when that happens, distribution blocks suffer the same demise, and become more resistive, so even if the fuse is melted, but there is no visible damage to the block, you can bet your ass, the block had suffered internal composition damage, and is not longer the same conductor. The whole distribution block with glass fusing is a bad idea, unless like I said you're not running the system hard enough to get yourself into the danger area. So, if your block suffered damage before, and you kept loading it with bigger fuses, the block is the one causing most heat at this time, and in turn assists in melting your newer bigger fuse, and it does not blow, but just melts away, and goes bad. So, as you can see nothing but vicious circle of problems.

like sasha said, the problem lies in your fusing, or lack there of.

That was my question too, it seems if it was the ground wire, I would have had a problem near there, or at least not in the dist. block. Yes it is (was) a fused block, it had been installed, untouched for a year and 8 months and it was fine, nothing was different when it went. So maybe the fuses just rattled there way loose until they were loose enough to create resistance??

Sasha, I didn't have glass fuses before, sorry if I implied that by accident in some way. However before reading your post I just bought a new block on eBay which uses glass fuses (TLWFDB4-AGU) so that sucks. I'm doubting the ground wire now too because as Rrrrolla mentioned earlier, shouldn't it have melted at the ground wire or somewhere near there if that was the issue??

My previous block did have ANL fuses, and the block had been there for a year and 8 months untouched/unchanged with out any problem, and nothing was new when it melted. So I'm wondering if maybe over the time the fuses just rattled loose (or something rattled loose) enough to create resistance?

You mentioned hearing a difference in the sound, I thought it was just me, but in the last 3-4 months it seemed like my speakers would distort at lower volume then usual. Could be the speakers too I guess (they are nothing special Clarions), but maybe it was this. My sub box has a leak in the seam so I wouldn't be able to tell if the bass was distorted or not because the box makes it sound like it is anyways.

So now that I've bought this pos dist. block, what can I do to maximize its life/quality? I don't mind replacing fuses every so often, they are alot cheaper then a new block. Anything else, and what size fuses would you recommend then?? My fuses on my amps add up to 60 each...

I would recommend what I do. Drop the distribution block idea, and get yourself a cap, and run unfused wires from it to amps if they come with own fusing. Works for me. Some people of course will say caps are useless, but I disagree, and you'll be killing more than one bird here with one stone.

I do have a 1 Farad Phoenix Gold Cap setup right now close to the amps so I could do that, I'm glad to hear theres at least one other person out there that agrees caps are worthwhile :). So that would be just as safe as using a dist. block (The amps do have their own fuses)??

You're good to go!!! :D

caps suck:p
try it that way, I agree glass fuses are !

It is still wise to upgrade your ground. If the fuse is under-rated, it could be the more significant bottle neck, however, if your ground is under-rated also, it too will be a bottle neck.
Are you certain that your ground was not damaged in some way that you can't see?
Go to crappy tire - you can get pre-assembled ground wires with the battery terminal and ground ring in sizes up to 18" of 0 awg wire. For $20ish everything is ready to roll for you.

Check your wiring, and grounds. Upgrage if you havent yet the negative battery to chassis, and do a nice ground in the back. Do a good job.

I did want to upgrade the ground still, thanks for the info on CT, I didn't know that but it makes things a lot easier, and worth it...

Just an update:

I re-did the ground, and used my cap as dist. block. It worked great, and to my suprise it sounds way better then ever before. It is noticeably cleaner sounding and seems to go to a higher volume without distorting. So thanks Sasha for the advice.

Also I noticed while I was doing it that the stereo shop that installed the cap (Madman McKay in Nanaimo) did a terrbile job at connecting the main power wire to the connectors to and from the cap. They attempted to solder the wire to connectors but did such a poor job, literally none of the wire touched the solder. Therefore the wire fell strait out of the connectors as soon as I touched it. Theres no way this could have caused the block to melt is there? Long story short - stay away from madman mckay!

I will try to post pics of the block tomorrow.

I am glad it sounds better. Why someone would try to solder wires to cap is beyond me...and that prolly just fell apart on its own lol