infinity amp issues

well...got a problem with a amp...it's been installed for a year and the guy put something into his car one day and broke the center pins off the rca cables....he left it for a couple weeks untill finally his infinity amp went into protect (infinity kappa five)  i took it out and he sent it back under warrenty, got the new one in, so i ran new rca cables to replace the broken ones, hooked everything up and the amp fried within 5 seconds of being turned on. I had checked all the wires going to the speakers to make sure they were still good, rca cables were new, and nothing else had changed in the system except for the amp.  the dudes saying i owe him a new amp, and i'm trying to find out why the amp would have fried like that. it's a pioneer nav unit (with detachable GPS unit and bluetooth) i never changed any of the wiring from the previous install.  and with new rca cables everything should have gone fine.  also, the amp never blew any fuse (on the amp or the main power wire). is it possible that when the amp went into protection it also did something to the head unit that will still be there when another amp is connected? or just my luck he got sent a bad amp.

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Tri County KustomZ
certified installer

only thing i did notice is there was no output on the front speaker outputs from the head unit.. which is what he had running off the amp, and his sub.

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Tri County KustomZ
certified installer

are his woofers ok? I would expect a bad voice coil. Thats the main cause of a protect light, OR possibly poor battery or ground connection to the amp.  I am not even sure an amp will go into protect from a broken rca end.

What does the front speaker outputs have to do with the subs?  I am assuming it is a pioneer avic310? It has an rca output, with subwoofer controls built in to the deck.  That should be what the sub amp is connected to. 

If you didnt see the magic blue smoke escape from the amp, disconnect the woofers and power up the amp. If it does not go into protect, check the subs one at a time.

i'll try and clarify myslef, the speakers are all good (tested them) the way the system was hooked up is the amp power'd the front speakers and the sub, the rear speakers were running off the deck alone.  once i had everything wired i turned the system on to set all the controls, within 5 seconds the amp is blown (smokes comming out, and the output terminals are sparking)  so i shut everything off and make sure everything was good. it was so i tried it once more (figureing what the heck can hurt, the amps already crippled) at this point the amp smoked again for a second then shut itself off completly. (i only had the rca cables connected, not eh speaker wires)  once that was done, they guy really wanted his bluetooth back so i thought i would connect his front speakers up to the deck (rather then running through the amp). and to which i had nothing on the front speaker wires from the deck.  the amp previouse amp was disconnected by myself and just disconnected, (fuses pulled etc) but nothing else had been changed.

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Tri County KustomZ
certified installer

The part where you say the output terminals were sparking concerns me!  Either the amp was bad, but you said it was new, so its not likley. or there IS a problem with the speakers or wires to the speakers.  Check all the wires that go from the amp to the front speakers individually to GROUND ( Each + and each -). They should NOT read anything. If they do, trace them out to find the short.  If you measure ohms betweem the pos and neg wires to the speakers, that WONT always show if one or the other is shorted to the body.

I think thats where your problem is, that may have burned out the front outputs at the deck too. Have you tried a test speaker connected directly to the front speaker output of the deck?  Make sure both left and right are disconnected from the car first.

i thought so to but the speaker wires are fine. as for test speaker for the fronts, I bypassed the amp and went straight to the front speaker in the car with no sound... he's talking about takeing it to the other local shop and having me pay for the amp, i've told him i wont be paying for anything unless i can hook another amp and find out what went wrong....hate to pay for a faulty amp

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Tri County KustomZ
certified installer

My point is there might be a problem in the wires you havent detected.  Take a speaker and 1 foot of wire, connect it to the front out on the deck WITHOUT the wires connected anywhere else.  Pioneer uses One amp to run all four speakers, 90% of the time, if the amp is bad in the deck, it blows the decks fuse, or NO sound from any speakers.  The fact that the rears still work, tells me there is a 90% chance the front wires are grounding somewhere in the car.  Without testing each wire to ground, you do not know if they are ok or not.

You might try to "pop" them with a small battery, or test for 4 ohms across the wires, BUT that is not checking the wires completely!  If everything checks OK, you got a dud replacement amp. BUT that is VERY rare these days!

even with a bad speaker or a ground short on the speaker wires, and amp shouldn't just blow up like that. it should go into protect and stay there. something was wrong with that amp, it probably wasnt new it was probably refurbished or maybe damaged during shipping.

on that note, i have had one amp blow up on me just like that before. it was an mtx thunder elite amp. i was swapping it out because the amp would just cut out for seemingly no reason and when i connected a brand new mtx amp and turned the system on the amp played for a minute and then smoked and almost blew up. so i try a whole nother amp, an infinity amp, and it worked just fine for a long time. it broke eventually because its an infinity amp, but the point remains the same.

i think you just got a bum amp and something happened to backfeed into the radio's internal amp and fried it too. especially if what you say is true and it just smoked without even having the speaker wires connected.

also, if a speaker wire was grounded while hooked straight to the deck then you still would get no sound at all from any speaker.

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