relay for 600 watt sub amp?

Hello (my first post here)

I have a 600 watt Xant6.1 amp for subs. The thin on/of wire no longer turns the amp off, it stays on all the time (the wire behaves correctly, no +12v when ignition is turned off). Strangely, the amp is actually putting out 12v at the on/off terminal. It otherwise works fine though.

Without making a big project out of it (I.E. taking apart the amp), I figured I would just put an off the shelf relay in front of it.

-The amp calls for an 80 amp fuse. Dose this mean I need an 80 am relay? (I seldom really crank it up at all)

-40 amp relays are easy to find and cheap, could one of those work? The only 80 amp relay I found around town is a strange thing for compressors sold at Home Depot...$30

-Do I want to put it on the positive or negative lead.

-Do I need to do something with a capacitor & and resistor as illustrated elsewhere here? If so, what values? Diagram?

Thanks Much, D-

I suppose you could wire in a battery disconnect switch, but those are typically rather large and hard to find a home for in the car.

Take a look at your amp switches and settings. Did the turn on setting get changed from REM to AUTO or DC OFFSET?

Some amps sense the speaker voltage and then put out 12v on the remote terminal to power additional amps if needed.

Switch the remote on/off lead not the mains power.

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Support the12volt.com

If you completely disconnect the remote wire does the amp shut off? Have you verified that there isn't a stray strand from the power wire touching the remote on terminal?

You would want 80A of power handling on the relay(s). You can wire two 40A relays in parallel to get the 80A.

You shouldn't need any other components assuming the source that will be driving the relay(s) can handle the load of the relay(s).

You can interrupt either the power or the ground - you just need to break the circuit.

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Kevin Pierson

If you use a JL 500/1 on signal sensing mode, it looks for audio on the RCA inputs and it also puts 12 volts on the remote terminal to power on other amplifiers.

The only suitable and reliable relay would be a PAC-200. Details available at pac-audio.com

Thanks all for the reply's,

racerjames76;
I looked for alternative methods to turn it on and off, like another amp in the car (kicker), and didn’t find any. Also looked in the Xant manual, no mention of one. It does have an RLC port (more on that below).

-The cars a good size SUV but, the compressor Relay is 6+ odd inches square (cubed(?)). There are some on Amazon and eBay though, of about 1” square. Are they just junk?


DYohn,
The remote wire is switched and works fine on 4 other components.

KPierson;
The amp is on without remote wire. No frayed strand from power wire. This would explain why there's +12v on the amps remote terminal (when remote wire is disconnected).

-Any reasonable chance something like that happening inside, something I could see?

-Parallel relays, Good, easy. I had hoped to use the same switched "remote" wire from HU too work the relay. To weak? If so, how would you do it (amps, wire gauge, relay)?

Regards, D-


FYI:RLC (wired remote, phone jack, etc.); Has a base boost RLC in the dash. It was turned all the way down (no complete off position) when I got this car. No problem with dead batteries. In hind-sight, about the time I found it and turned it up the battery started draining overnight. The Xant amps manual mentions turning the amp up 3db takes twice as much “power”.

-Would turning up the amp via this remote, even with no sound going to it, drain the battery?

-Not really a solution to me as I’ll forget, unless, turning it down (but not actually "off") really reduced the drag on the battery to a negligible amount. Then maybe a little relay on the right wire of this remote would do the trick (??)

For the record, The remote actually goes to RLC port on a thing called a Soundstream Bx-10, “Digital base machine” . RCA’s from HU go here first too. Out put from it go to amp.

I would get the amp fixed.

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DYohn] wrote:

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I would get the amp fixed.

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Wise man, I probably will when I can find someone to do it &, if it's worth it.

For now I think parallel 40 amp relays or an 80 for $10 will give me sound and give my battery charger a break. The only question now is:
- what sort of current is that 80 amp relay going to draw?
- What do I need wire and source wise to drive it(I.E. the remote wire, some other switched source)?

Thanks, D-

There are smallish higher current relays - eg, Jaycar's Automotive Relay 150A SPDT (FRC6BC-1).

IMO that's better than using parallel relays each with its own 40A fuse etc.


PS - sorry, I see you already found a relay....