Hey guys, so heres the deal. About two months ago I got a used jl subwoofer. I then installed it to my mono amp. Then about a month later, my subwoofer and amp stopped working completely. The amp wouldn't even power on. I didn't really care about it, since it was cold out for the past few weeks, but however the weather got better so i went to see what the problem was, first I pulled the radio out and everything seemed fine. Then I checked all the fuses, they seemed fine. Then I saw that the 40A fuse on the amp was blown. So I drove all over to find a new fuse. I finally found one and put it into the amp. Then I went to connect the sub, however everytime i try to connect the sub it sparks bigtime. Im talking about the + - inputs. So maybe I thought the sub was bad, so I went and bought a brand new Alpine Type R. Same thing happens with this sub. Im scared to blow the sub or anything, so once I see the spark I pull the wire off right away. Also Im not sure if my amp did this before but the red light blinks slowly. What should i do? This is pissing me off and costing me too much money which I dont have right now. Why does it keep sparking? What could be wrong with the +/- inputs/outputs. They spark both on the amp and sub. Any help would be appreciate. Thanks

 

your talking about the speaker outputs(+ and -) of the amplifier are sparking? In 15 yrs of installing I have never seen this and would suspect your amp is bad. What kind of amp is it?

 

Like the spots where you would connect the +/- on the amp. That sparks whenever I go to connect the sub.

This is my amp

http://www.hookedontronics.com/show_...wood_KAC-8103D

 

its sound like something is messed up with the amp or gain control. your radio is all the way down or off when trying to hook up? Pull the RCAs going to the amp and try it. Does the sub jump when it sparks? Have your tried hooking a meter up to the outputs, with no music you should be near zero both AC and DC. Check all that and let us know.

 

Im going to try that, thanks. I have bestbuy looking at it thurs. Hopefully its nothing major..

 

if you push on the woofer while the radio is off, does it not move or make any bad dragging noises?

 

that sounds like power and ground wires touching or some kind of lead contact. did you put the same size fuse in the amp? if no outside the amp it must be inside where the lead strips on the circuit board made contact with each other.

 

took it to bestbuy and they declared it as fried! soo pissed

 

It's completely normal for the 12V power connections on an amp to spark a bit when first connected... just like a battery or a jumper cable (it's a high amperage connection). As long as it doesn't spark after it's connected, it should be fine.

What seems to be the problem is that your amplifier has gone into protect mode. It could have suffered a failure or it could be protecting against a short in the speaker wiring.

 

Put a voltmeter on the amps speaker outputs, if its putting out DC voltage, internally the power supply is shot.I have seen a lot of amps do this, mainly Ample or Fosgate amps.