Did I get this right? System wiring prob

When I turn the head unit up, the subwoofer cuts out. Why?

Also, should I rewire the sub so that it's at a 2ohm load?

Last, my capacitor only has 2 terminals, a pos and a neg. I was under the impression that you had to wire the cap in series, before the amplifier for it to work properly. Is it okay this way?

Thanks in adv.
Blake

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I'm trying to learn... trying.

Just the sub cuts out, or the amp goes with it? Amp as well, then check grounding for the amp, as well as the pos. connection for integrety. Just the sub.... well, check connection integrety on the woofer/box. The sub amp is a monoblock amp or is it a stereo amp that is 2 ohms stereo stable? (Lots of stereo amps procalaim a 2 ohm stability, however, that is more often than not in stereo only... 4 ohm mono stable.) If it is a monoblock amp... then yes, 2 ohms mono it should be to extract maximum safe power out of the amp.

Caps are meant to be in parallel with the power inputs of the amp... as per your diagram. If wired in series, DC current will not flow through the cap itself, and your amp will not power up.

Gus


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Wherever I go, that is where I end up......

Thank you Gus.

The sub goes, alone. If the connections are good, what else could be the problem?

The amp is a mono subwoofer amp, with left and right channel outputs. This only makes things easier when wiring a DVC or dual woofers, because the outputs merge inside the amp anyways.

Back to the amp/sub. If I turned the gain up too high, or something funky like that, would it cause a problem with the amp shutting down on me, over and over?

When I look at the amp, it stays on when the sub cuts out, but I can tell something is trying, because it will hit one note and then cut again.

Blake

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I'm trying to learn... trying.

Yes, you shoud be fine with wiring separate coils to a mono amp like that.  Usually, it's neater to parallel the coils on the speaker, then run one set of wires to one set of terminals.  But the ground wire from the cap goes directly to chassis, and the ground wires from each amp also go straight to the chassis.  The cap won't have anything to do with the highs amp, so connection to it is not necessary.

In this case, the power wire should come back to a distro block, then split out for the two amps.  The cap is then placed between the distro and the bass amp.  Use a fused distro block.

The gain on an amp might cause the sub to cut out if it is set incorrectly, i.e. too high.  Set the amp gains to match the voltage input from the head unit.  Your wiring is not labelled...is the power and ground wire of the correct gauge for the amp's combined power?  Also, poor grounding will cause such a problem.  Make sure the grounding is done correctly first.

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Build the box so that it performs well in the worst case scenario and, in return, it will reward you at all times.