Car amp dead -- any suggestions?

[sinistar]

I was driving to work the other day listening to a cd in the stereo when I heard a couple pops then all audio went completely out. The power to the deck was still on though, just no sound, not even hiss from speakers when turned up.

I have a pioneer deck that is wired to a 500 watt "Rampage" (cheap) amp and a 4 channel crossover. I checked the 30amp fuse on the amp and it has not blown out, nor has the one in the crossover, nor has the main fuse on the 12AWG (or it's 10 I forget) near the battery. Both the amp and the crossover have a "power-on" lead to the deck, which turns on the devices when the iginition is turned on. The Crossover power light still comes on, but not the amp.

I cleaned up the battery terminals with a wire brush as well as the power connectors for the amp and crossover and retightened everything pretty good, and still no dice.

Could the amp have died without blowing the fuse? the ground for the amp, which is the same AWG as the power to the batter (10 or 12) is solidly in place and connections are tight. I also doubled checked the power-on lead connection on the amp too.

All the truck's (4runner) main fuses are in good shape also. I have some long commutes coming up...
Does anyone have any suggestions??

I really don't want to bother replacing the amp cos I was planning on selling the truck soon. hoping there is a fix i'm overlooking.

[llbbl]

Can you check the output plugs on the amp with a volt meter to tell if it is at least operating or not?

[sinistar]

Hm, don't have a volt meter at this time :(
btw, also have 6 speakers total, and there is no sound in any of them... everything has been working fine for almost 2 years

[openbsd-flipp]

One thing that I would check is to grab a screw driver and crack the amp open. Look for blown resistors and also check for the dead electronics smell that accompanies blown components. Ranmpage amps are known to pop with the fuse staying good. Annother thing to check is to make sure the amp aux(key on) wire is good. If you can get behind the radio try to hook up a known good speaker directly to the radio and test it. If the radio is good then you will have sound. If not the amp <i>might</i> still be good. When you get a new amp/car do yourself the favor by running a thicker guage wire to the amp in BOTH directions. The newer cars have whats called a body computer that controls the power locks, windows, alarm(factory equiped), and other goodies. New cars can have that computer by a slight spike coming out of the amp so do not risk that problem. For car amps I do not use anything smaller then a 4 guage if I have to go that small. For my new amp I am going to run atleast a 0 guage and a capacitor just to keep problems then this at bay. Also Rampage amps are cheep for a reason. I have never had problems with Pioneer or Alpine amps even when I was over powering them. They would over heat and shutdown in the event that I was beating on them to hard but they never failed to turn back on once they cooled down.

[Ioman]

Sounds like the amp did go bad. I have used the Alpine V12 amps in the past (I swear the best ever made) and they worked rock solid and almost never overheated, even in the middle of the summer.

[openbsd-flipp]

The Alpine V12 amps are damn good but I have recently started to work with custom boxes and placing the amps in the box itself. Quick connects on the box makes it 1000% faster to remove the whole system if I need the room. So far I have not been able to torture test the v12 althogh at full load the temp probe starts to get abit to high for my liking. Over the weekend I am going to play with cooling systems for the box because if the thing gets to 100 degrees inside an air conditioned room I do not want to know how high it will spike durring a hot summer day.

[sinistar]

YEah I suppose i'm gonna tear everything down again and crack the amp open, but I'm sure it must be blown inside, like you said. ACtually, I finally checked the wire and I have 8AWG for power and ground on the amp... I think it was plenty for it. All the other connections were really solid.. whoever put it together did a damn good job... ;) but went too cheap on the amp itself hehe... It's been through some harsh conditions lately, driving around in over 100 degree heat (with AC on, but still probably toasty in the hidden location) and played loud on freeway...

the timing is just bad though.. I am hoping to sell the car in the next 6-8 months and I dont' wanna put more money into it, yet don't wanna drive around with only my evil thoughts swarming in my head either hehe. Maybe i'll put another rampage in there just to last long enough till it's sold, then it won't be my worry and won't cost much in the meantime. Otherwise, I'd probably go with an Alpine like you all have mentioned.

[openbsd-flipp]

Hidden location and no cooling? I am suprised that the amp lasted 2 years in those conditions. Back when I started installing stereos I used to put a small chunk of plywood under the amp to help the circulation but now I just use 1/2" of washers between the amp and the surface to help heat movement all arround. Also a small dc fan(read old working computer case fan) works well in tight area to help with the heat.

[sinistar]

yea no cooling.. well it's mounted on a piece of wood and there's like a 6x6 "window" into the area that I never closed up. whjen I was shopping around before installing everything, I didn't see any amps with built-in fans.. have they started doing this yet as a commonality? seems to make sense... amps may not have to crunch a bunch of numbers like a cpu, but they need as much cooling if not more! I posted pics of my customer hidden amp mount for a 1st gen 4runner on the toyota forum a long time ago in case anyone is interested.. wonder if it's still there...

[llbbl]

moved =)