Sound System

[Dusstbuster]

Every morning when I go to school my subs don't work. Then when school gets out and I get out to my car they work. Some days Ive gotten pissed enough to sit outside and wiggle wires and **** and they'll suddenly work and other days i can wiggle as much stuff and check as many connections/fuses as possible and they still won't go til after school. Any ideas as to what would be causing this?

And yes I know there is a sound/shine forum and yes nobody ever reads those

 

[RedDaemon]

check your ground(s)

 

[tomustang]

and tighten the wires

 

[VPStang]

sounds like cold solder joints -- which wires do you have to wiggle

 

[Jinx]

check your ground(s)

And all other connections. Sounds to me like you might have a loose connection somewhere. Your interior may be heating up during the day, just enough to cause the metal to expand and make contact, then cooling down over night, contracting, and not making contact in the morning. Also, if you're running your subs off an aftermarket amp, check to make sure the RCA sockets on the amp are solid. My moms had the same symptoms as yours and it turned out that the RCA ports on the amp were poorly soldered on the inside of the amp.

 

[VPStang]

...cold solder joints

And all other connections. Sounds to me like you might have a loose connection somewhere. Your interior may be heating up during the day, just enough to cause the metal to expand and make contact, then cooling down over night, contracting, and not making contact in the morning. Also, if you're running your subs off an aftermarket amp, check to make sure the RCA sockets on the amp are solid. My moms had the same symptoms as yours and it turned out that the RCA ports on the amp were poorly soldered on the inside of the amp.

 

[BlackArtemis]

or even snapped solder joints. I pounded my kicker L7's so bad we had to resolder the subs, check the connections on the sub itself.

 

[Dusstbuster]

Alright well i have the amp inside my house right now im going to tear that down and have me and my dad take a look at it, he's an electrical engineer so hopefully he'll be able to tell if anything's messed up. All the wiring should be fine ive changed the speaker wire and when i was taking everything apart i could tell everything was connected tight. Nothing could be pulled out without major loosening of the hex screws holding the wires in. Ill get back to you guys on what we find out. I'm pretty sure it's nothing to do with the subs themselves though. The amp and subs are both less than 2 weeks old and the problems always been fixed by moving/messing with wires/hitting the amp/waiting til its after school. Another thing that is supporting the theory that something is expanding and making contact is that today it never really warmed up well and the subs never really worked today, i hit the amp a couple times and the subs started working for a bit then it stopped again. I have pictures of what I believe you guys are talking about possibly having cold solder joints.

 

[xspwr stang]

I don't know if you have done this but you can use a circuit tester to see if you are getting power from the wires that come from the radio and battery. You can test it out w/the car off but the radio must be on. If both those wires have juice coming from them then you eliminated the possibility that it might be your head unit and now you will know it has to do w/the wires in the amp, the jacks, or the subs. I really don't think it has to do w/the subs. Last month I had to hunt for a problem on my bro's F-150 system and it turned out the RCA jacks were messed up so I had to replace them.

 

[Dusstbuster]

I don't know if you have done this but you can use a circuit tester to see if you are getting power from the wires that come from the radio and battery. You can test it out w/the car off but the radio must be on. If both those wires have juice coming from them then you eliminated the possibility that it might be your head unit and now you will know it has to do w/the wires in the amp, the jacks, or the subs. I really don't think it has to do w/the subs. Last month I had to hunt for a problem on my bro's F-150 system and it turned out the RCA jacks were messed up so I had to replace them.

Alright good plan Ill check them when my dad gets home from work today. I'm pretty dang sure the power cable isn't the problem being as it sparks/snaps every time you put it in or pull it out, so there is obviously juice flowing from there. The remote start i don't know. How much power should the headunit be sending through the remote startup cable? He actually has a digital reader that measures voltage, ohms, etc etc. so i can check to see if its bad jacks or anything basically.

 

[VPStang]

it could even be a minor little hairline crack in the signal paths on the board--which can also come on and off from expansion due to heat...

 

[Dusstbuster]

Weird thing today, it's not hot out it's probably like.....45 out? Anyways i soldered all the tips that go into the amp before i left for school this morning. I powered it all up and when i connected the Positive terminal to the battery the subs went "thump" really fast it sounded like and so i was thinking "yes they might work." Power it up and they dont. I just said f-it for now and left for school and halfway there they suddenly started working. This is confusing the crap out of me that's for sure.

 

[VPStang]

chances are it's signal leads, not your power leads.

if your power light comes on..then it's probably signal. Did you say you replaced your RCA wires?

Weird thing today, it's not hot out it's probably like.....45 out? Anyways i soldered all the tips that go into the amp before i left for school this morning. I powered it all up and when i connected the Positive terminal to the battery the subs went "thump" really fast it sounded like and so i was thinking "yes they might work." Power it up and they dont. I just said f-it for now and left for school and halfway there they suddenly started working. This is confusing the crap out of me that's for sure.

 

[2002GreyGT]

Someone installed a timer switch so you can't play lound music before 10am....heheh

Check the RCA's connecting from your HU to your AMP.

If the ends are bent a little they may not be working right, and as they heat up they make contact.

You can check how good your RCA's are working by disconnecting them from the amp and using a Multi meter to see how many VOLTS you are getting. Should be between 2v and 4v, depends on what HU is powering it.

If you have 2v on your RCA's from the HU and your power light is on, on the amp, and you are not getting any sound out of the amp, its one of a few things.

1. Bad Amp - try to replace with a friends or something
2. Bad connections to the subs.
3. Subs are bad or have loose connections themselves.

You can take a 9v battery and connect the + and - to the wires that lead to the subs, if it makes a small POP, I would say the subs are ok.

Alot depends on if the subs are Single or Dual VC's, how they are wired, mono / bridged, etc.

~K
~K

 

[Dusstbuster]

alright well we're gunna go out and check as many things as possible with the reader and whatnot. My setup is a 2channel MA Audio HK398
with 2 Single VC 12" Coustic BP124 400W(200RMS)

Everything is less than 2 weeks old except the head unit

Update: Checked with the meter which isnt built for reading audio signals and what we found is indecisive. The power/ground/remote are all fine, sending what they should be. The RCA's are sending nothing, checking all sets of RCA's read nothing on the meter, although being as it's not meant for audio we arent 100% sure thats the problem.......still.......you'd think it have read something. Next up we tried a different set of RCA's i have in the car that are waiting to power a 2nd amp, nothing on those either. Then we tested the strength of just a regular speaker wire going from the head unit to a speaker and it read probably .1 or so volts on average. Then we took a portable CD player, plugged in old headphone wires that were frayed and connected the positive/negative to the corresponding speaker wire and got the regular non-sub speaker to play, so we then connected that to the RCA cable connected to the amp/sub and got nothing. What we want to try do is catch it when the subs ARE working to see what can be found, otherwise it might sound like its either the amp or the head unit. When we tested the RCA's while connected to the amp but not the headunit there was some measured voltage feedback. As of right now we're both stumped though.