trying to hook up my first system

Electronically illiterate female here, trying to hook up a system in my 94 Eagle Talon, and eventually one in my Ranger too, but first things first.

I have a 12" RF sub with a 1200 watt Sony amp in a nice homemade box that I tried to hook up, but couldn't get it to work. The standby light comes on green and stays green, but the sub doesn't work.

I had previously run cables for an older system I had, which was a 10" infinity with an brand new 800 watt Xplod amp. I got it too work a little, but it sounded really bad, and would only work sometimes. The deck is a new Pioneer, which I exchanged at Best Buy for another one, cause I thought the deck may have been the problem... but still no dice. The power wire I have is really old and kinda small... would that contribute to the problem? I tried a different set of a/v cables, and that did nothing also.

I really don't know all that much about this kind of thing, so if anyone can help me pinpoint the problem it would be much appreciated. I do have a test light and an ohm meter, if either of those would be useful.

Thanks in advance!

Kerri



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~Kerri

Electonically illiterate female! lol, sounds like a perfect sentence to me!

Just joking, don't take it personally!

The power light on the amp is iluminating which says the amp is receiving power(i assume the protection light isn't iluminating), so, why is the sub not working? Have you connected your rca's from the head unit?, Do you know if your sub is functional?, if you have another speaker lying around you could try disconnecting the sub and temporarily attaching the speaker to test if the amp is outputting audio! Try these suggestions and let me know!

I'm no pro ok, just trying to get your thread off the ground! Cheers, good luck!

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COMMIT YOUR WAY TO JEHOVAH AND HE WILL ACT IN YOUR BEHALF. PSALMS 37:5

use the ohm meter to see if there's a reading on the sub that you have ... should be 3-4 ohms depending on scale you put on the multimeter. I agree that the amp has power, i've recently had a friend's amp quit working I used my iphone and a set of 1/8" headphone jack to rca's to hookup my iphone to the amp then you can isolate the amp if it doesn't play then the amp is fubar'd (as long as the sub plays) you could even take the sub in yer house and play a regular stereo through it. should play something!!! subs sound funny with voices coming through them though :)

maybe crappy ground!! i've had amp's turn on but not play just the power light would come on. definatly glad to see a lady getting her hand's dirty with some boom in the car's :)

Thanks!

To check the sub I was just gonna tap the wires on the battery real quick to see if it 'pops'.. or is that a no-no? If that checks out, can I run the ground directly to the battery just as a test?

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~Kerri

 Is there a remote turn on connected from the head unit to the amp?  Is the subwoofer output on the head unit turned on? Do you have a volt meter for testing?   DO NOT use your car battery for testing a woofer.  If you want to do the battery test, use a standard D-cell or 9-volt battery.

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Oh, ok thanks. See, I'm glad I have you guys, I'm totally clueless! Ok, 9v battery...

I have a test light somewhere, but what do I need to use it on? What about the ground?

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~Kerri

man, im shocked to see only six responses here, usually when we see females in our kind of work is like wow man, chicks, we need more females  installers  too many guys, lol later/

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rocker

i don't blame rocker for that .we do need to have more females doing this

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boxead78