[lemongopher]

Hey guys.....i have a question about my amp overheating. Is there a way to cool the amp (fan, or such)....OR moving the amp somewhere else....right now it is sitting vertical on the back of my box just behind the seats...How would i go about putting a fan in my car also...thanks guys...

 

[Stage36]

you mean its between the seats and the box?

 

[lemongopher]

yes

 

[EF MAX]

Amps get very hot, especially in warm weather. They are designed to be laid flat so that the heat can rise away from the heat sink.

If you put an amp upright, it might overheat.
If you block the heat sinks airway, it might overheat.

If you want to use a fan, then get a 12v computer fan of about 80mm - 120mm.. But it needs to blow the air across the heat sink to be affective.

You can connect this to the remote wire on your amp only if your amp does not have a special connection point for a fan. These fans draw very little current.

Air movement is the key, I have my amps in an amp rack and have 4 fans in there to try and keep things cool.. Be warned though, some electrical systems do not like fans, in as much as they generate a bit of a high frequency buzz in your audio system.

In the future more amps will have built in fans and or speed/heat sensitive connection points for fans.

 

[LandoLakes]

DO NOT connect straight to the remote wire, I highly suggest the use a of a relay .

 

[VooDoo]

I agree dont connect to the remote wire to power the fan/fans.

Use a relay and I think the best thing to do is work on an average of 2 fans per amp...

Use decent sized fans...dont go tight on small CPU fans they dont do much on the outside of the AMP heatsinks.

You can also try water cooling, something different but thats only if you want to be creative.

 

[Stage36]

These fans draw very little current.

But the remote lead on most head units is 0.5A max. too little for any effective fans.


Umm... VooDoo... care to explain the watter cooling theory...

 

[VooDoo]

Water Cooling....There are a few different ways you can do this.
1st Method:
One way is to have Poly tube attached to a very small tank with water in it, the poly tubing runs along the heat sing grooves and with a water pump the water flows throught the tubing in turn taking away the heat from the heatsink.....

Ive seen clear tubing used with different colored water for effect.

2nd Method:
The same as above without the heatsink itself but rather a perspects replica cover water filled with a pump and water tank...

There are so many different types, but from what Ive seen you can go crazy with creativity adapting it to be unique.

 

[Nayr]

Well, my first amp burnt up 3 days after i bought it when it reached 100+ outside... after that i bought a second amp from a pawn shop and they make fans that can fit over the amp... but still paranoid from burning up 1 amp I started folding down the back seats on days when it was 90+ outside.. Refrained from turning the amp on until the cab was cool, havent burnt up this one, I will replace it soon with a more powerfull one. there are a few inches between either side of my box, Im thinking of securing my box from moving arround at all and then puting 3 or so fans on the driver side blowing forward and 3 or so fans on the passanger side blowing backwards.. this should keep the circulation of air ideal but if i invest any more money in amps I think I will figure out some way to blow some AC into the trunk with the seats up =)

good luck, espicaly if you live in a hot area

 

[VooDoo]

Ill tell you what blowing up amps takes a big task to do, after doing competition sound for years, the only way Ive know people to blow amps from overheating is by putting them behind perspecs in small enclosures with not enough air flow.

It takes alot to get it to the stage to blow them. Especially since as an amp overheats the quality of sound that comes out at the high heat level is so SH!T its not funny...Alot of sound destortion is present prior it getting to the point of blowing.

When using the amp for sub Powering when it overheats the sound that comes out of the sub sounds splattered or muffled with added destorion, if your good at noticing these things you can detect that your amp is overheating.

Also people try not to put the Gain all the way up on your amps, more gain does not give more sound or bass...rather than more distortion and more heat.

Your more likely to blow your Subs/Speakers before blowing the amp.

 

[Stage36]

that liquid cooling is a good idea except... its not really liquid cooling. the water absorbs the heat from the air that the heat sink puts off. its a good idea and im sure its pretty effective but, technically, its not "water cooling"

and wait a minute...

Also people try not to put the Gain all the way up on your amps, more gain does not give more sound or bass...rather than more distortion and more heat.

then what does the gain knob do?

and you guys should really be tuning your amps with a meter...

 

[94mx6]

it will not matter if you put a 3 foot fan on it or run 100 gallons of water per sec. over it ......................




please first thing is first the amp must be able to run the ohm loads you are tring to run alot of amps out there can run very good at 4 ohms some get hot at 2 ohms if you try a 1 ohm load get a new amp every time or try a class d amp



note: take the ohm load of the back of the speaker divide it by the number of subs this is your ohm load if you wired pos. to pos. neg. to neg. and bridged your amp


example: ( 2 ) 4 ohm subs = 2 ohms

( 4 ) 4 ohm subs = 1 ohm:smokin: :smokin: :smokin: :smokin: :smokin:


trust me i am a certified installer for 12 yrs.

 

[scubasteve]

i also sell and install A/V equipment, and to add to what "94mx6" said is, That even though any amplifier will generate heat, people use them all over the world and when they are made, the engineers take into stride hot weather when desiging the heat sink , so no amp should immediatly blow in 3 days (unless defective in the begining)

the problem here is definatly the ohm load, what kind of speakers do you have and what kind of amp (didnt see it in the thread)

to acquire the ohm load its not simply dividing, its really an equation, but 4 4ohm driver in parallel does equal 1 ohm, however 5, 4 ohm driver in parralell is 1.66 ( not the assumable 1.5)

anyway good luck

-Scuba-

 

[daac]

scubasteve you must of missed sometin in a/v school. speaking as an electrician heres the deal

5, 4ohm speakers in parallel does not equal 1.66omhs. the equation is 1/Rtotal = 1/r+1/r+1/r. r being the value of ohms of the connected loads. continue the 1/r for every ohms value you are connecting in parallel. the answer would be 0.8ohm. a good rule of thumb for ONLY if you are connecting resistances of the SAME value in parallel is to devide the ohms value of the connected loads by the number of loads. in this case 4omhs devided by 5 speakers = 0.8ohms. otherwise use that equation if the loads are different values.

 

[mxmissile]

Forget his math - I'm just glad to see him posting again! What's up, Scuba?!

There has been no mention or question regarding which amplifiers we're talking about here, lol! That has a lot to do with it. Also, low resistance is OK - if the electrical system can handle it - whether or not the amp is capable of sustaining those loads, if the electrical system ain't up to the demand, that amps gonna get HOT, as in far hotter than a low load would normally cause.

That said - everything here has been good advice. A fan helps - I prefer the crossflow types to the regular styles - lower profile and they move a TON of air. But before we get into fans and placement, several posts above are asking the right question - what kind of woofers, with how many and what resistance voicecoils, and what kind of amp?

 

[bignlow]

Forget his math - I'm just glad to see him posting again! What's up, Scuba?!

uhhh....scuba's post is from 2001!

...Also, low resistance is OK - if the electrical system can handle it - whether or not the amp is capable of sustaining those loads, if the electrical system ain't up to the demand, that amps gonna get HOT, as in far hotter than a low load would normally cause.

i'm going to have to respectfully disagree. i understand the point you were trying to make, but the way it's worded is misleading.

the load at which an amplifier outputs its maximum power is NOT directly related to the current it will consume in doing so. let's assume you have an amp that outputs 1000 watts rms @ 4 ohms and another amp that outputs 1000 watts rms @ 1 ohm. both amps are operating in a system with identical input voltage. as long as the efficiency of the two amps is identical they will consume the same amount of current. and by definition this means they would also burn off the same amount of energy as heat!:smokin:

 

[mxmissile]

Wow - I didn't realise this was a resurrected thread, lol!

Well, while we're respectfully disagreeing....

When any amplifier sees a lower impedance - although this is ESPECIALLY true of amps with stiffly regulated power supplies - it lowers rail voltage, increases current draw, and runs a LOT hotter. When voltage drops (as it will unless you have a helluva charging system) as a result, the amp draws MORE current in response. Try this with a JL slash series. They make almost identical power into any load between 1.5 and 4 ohms - but they sure get a lot warmer at 2 than at 4!!

 

[bignlow]

the r.i.p.s. system on the jl audio slash series amplifiers is far from the norm, but even so it is still not an example of what you alluded to in your initial post.

the slash amps run hotter when loaded with lower impedances because they are operating less efficiently at those loads. the load optimization circuit requires more current for these loads and still outputs the same amount of power so of course the excess input power is bled off as heat.

but this does not imply that an amp that makes max power at 1 ohm will necessarily run hotter than another amp that makes the same amount of max power at 4 ohms, and this is how your post can be interpreted. in order to scientifically support this claim you MUST hold all other variables constant, particularly operation efficiency.

finally, this is a mute point as the engineers designing any amplifer would certainly consider the thermal capacity of the heatsink at the product's lowest stable loads.

 

[big rayz]

if all else fail i seen a set up where some one drilled two 2inch holes, one for intake and one for exhaust in the bay where the spare tire goes fabricated a filter so no dust could get in used 2inch hose and small fan that fit in the tube, not sure of wiring relay or not but since it comes up vertical and with the filters on both the inlet and exhaust holes no water could get in. Looked like a cool setup. Sorry if my description is less than spectacular. I loved the thought of continuous fresh air flowing over the amps. Maybe someone will try this and let us all know how it works.

 

[mxmissile]

It works well. I've used vasriations of that setup in several cars.

If one looks at the total amplifier as a component in a cuircuit that starts at the battery and ends at the transducer, it acts as a transformer and as a resistor. The closer you get to a short, the more current is drawn. Also, amplifier efficiency drops significantly as resistance drops, regardless of design. So where I see your point as valid - that you draw the same amount of current to make a given wattage regardless of load, and that the same amount of heat will be generated accordingly - from a strictly scientific/theory standpoint, I will say that in the "real world", where charging systems have a limited supply of power and transistors run less efficiently when they're warm, etc, the amplifier running at the lower resistance to make the same power will run measurably warmer. I do see your point, I do understand it, I'm going by real world experience. :shrug: