my kickers keep blowin fuses

Did it blow the 150A fuse?

With a 4 guage wire, technically, the 150A fuse is OK.  However, it is a bit excessive for the load you are putting on it.

I would think a 60A fuse would be fine, that is strange.  How often does it blow the fuse?  What are the conditions when the fuse blows?

I would recomend removing the cap and going from there - it's not helping you in any way anyway.

Does the fuse actually blow, or does it just melt the solder off the ends of it and not make a connection anymore?

KPierson wrote:

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I would recomend removing the cap and going from there - it's not helping you in any way anyway.

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speakermakers wrote:

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If your 50 amp fuse (two 25 amp) dose not blow but more than one 60 amp fuse at the battery blows you have a short between your battery and your amp. Inspect the entire run and repair what you find.

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DYohn] wrote:

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Have you checked for shorts in your system using an ohm meter? Have you measured system voltage? How are your speakers wired? How was your gain set? What else is in the circuit? Get rid of the cap and see if that helps.

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i am an idiot wrote:

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Does the fuse actually blow, or does it just melt the solder off the ends of it and not make a connection anymore?

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I disagree about the short.

Fuses arn't created equal.  A 25 amp fuse doesn't necesarrily blow at 25A.  Fuses actually have datasheets that tell you when they will blow.

I would imagine you have to blade type 25A fuses in the amp.

Here is a data sheet for it:

https://production.littelfuse.com/data/en/Data_Sheets/257.pdf

It says that the 25A  fuse will operate at 27.5A for 100 hours before blowing.  That means, together, you have roughly 55A capacity for 100 hours.  If you are pulling 60A you will be at 120% of the load - from the datasheet all you can really tell is that the fuse will blow somewhere between 100 hours and 500mS (they only give values for 10% and 35%, not 20% like we need).

Your glass fuse (I assume that is what you have up front) may be designed to blow right at 60A, with no delay.

So, it is possible to blow a 60A glass fuse before you blow a 50A blade type fuse.

If you had a classic 'short' the fuse would blow right when you installed the new fuse, before you ever installed the fuse.  What happens if you install the fuse and then don't turn the amp on?  Does the fuse still blow?  I'm guessing it doesn't.

The cap also becomes an extra load on the battery, meaning that the front fuse is now feeding the capacitor AND the amp, which would cause the front fuse to have a higher load then the back two fuses.  Again, remove the cap and see if the fuses quit blowing.  It may not help, but it might 'fix' the problem.

The reason I say the cap isn't doing anything for you is because, if anything, it is a band-aid on a bigger problem.  It sounds like your electrical system simply doesn't produce enough power for your added gear, so fix the electrical system.  Beyond that, there are tons of threads on here talking about why caps don't help fix anything. 

But if it doesn't blow the 150A fuse I would say its safe to assume there are no wiring issues.

I can think of only one situation that would cause a 60A to blow but not a 150A fuse - there is more then 60A, but less then 150A on the power line.  If anyone else has a scenario that would cause this let me know, I would like to hear about it.

It, of course, wouldn't hurt to pull the power wire out and inspect it, but I think it would be a waste of time.

Using a meter to measure resistance to ground is one thing, but pulling the entire wire out of the car to visually inspect it is pointless.

If you had some sort of current limited short to ground (which would be impossible) that was causing the front fuse to blow but not the back, that condition would be present at all times.  That means, whatever extra current draw that is cusing his fuse to blow would be present when the car is off.  If that was the case he would be on here asking us why his battery is dead 2 hours after he shuts the car off.

What kind of fuse holder do you have in your car (glass, wafer, etc)?  Try to find a fuse the next size above 60A.  As long as you stay with a 150A fuse or smaller you shouldn't have any major issues, as the 4ga cable you have is rated to carry 150A.

You only have major issues if your fuse is larger then the wire it is protecting is rated at.

I'm sure many, many people on here can tell you it has nothing to do with Chevrolet.  I had a big system in my Chevy and never once blew a fuse.

Kpierson/motocrossrider- I had a 60 amp fuse (glass type) installed when I found my short the hard way. The stereo system was actually installed for several months before I found this short and I was having a problem with the system for the last 3-4 weeks. The funny thing is I never blew a fuse. It melted the carpet and (believe it or not) welded the copper wire to the floor! I know, it seems impossible to weld copper to steel but it did it. There is now a hole where the short happened. It wasn’t a real strong weld, I could pull the wire off the floor with a couple hard tugs. My point is this happened and never blew a 60 amp fuse.