I've got a JL 500/1 pushing a 13w7, It's mounted in a place where it breathes just fine and gets plenty of air. Its got 4awg running to it and as a ground. The problem is, this amp gets hot as hell when I turn my volume up for about 10-15 minutes at a time. The gain on the amp is at about 3/4 of the way up. I have had a couple of times where I play a song with alot of low notes, and it will even clip the amp completely, The first time this happened is when I realized the heat problem, I have kept it down since then untill I can figure out whats going on, any suggestions?

 

get an amp meant to push it, youre shy about 500watts

 

The 13W7 has dual 1.5 Ohm coils. How do you have it wired? If the coils are wired in parallel then there's your problem. The 500/1 isn't rated below a 1.5 Ohm load.

 

This might be a dumb question, but i'm not sure how to tell if there wired in parallel. Its one sub on a mono amp, its done the only way I know how to do it.

 

Does your speaker have two sets of terminals?

 

Honestly, I havent seen MY sub out of the box yet. I bought it from a good friend of mine and it was already in the box and wired up, he had called JL audio about the "correct" way to wire the speaker and for specs on the box and everything, so I'm assuming its wired right inside the box. The guy I got this equipment from was far more intelligent than me with this kind of stuff, so I'll have to check with him. But I do know that this sub has two sets of terminals on it, so who knows how he did it.

 

I'd be willing to bet that he wired the terminals in parallel, creating a 0.75 Ohm load on your amp instead of a 3 Ohm load, had he wired them in series. A 0.75 Ohm load will absolutely make your amp overheat and clip because the speaker is trying to draw too much power from the amp. Stop running that sub until you figure this out!

 

I'm gonna have to call him and ask him that. Thanks for the feedback and info, but yes, that thing is turned WAY down untill I figure it out haha. Thanks man!

 

I just talked to him and he was saying that he definetely wouldnt have wired it to a .75 ohm load on purpose. The only way that he said this would have happened is if he did it on accident. He said its probably because I'm young and I slam that thing for 10-15 minutes at a time, and he only ever had slammed it for like few minutes at a time. I'm gonna run it to his house and let him put it on a meter and make sure thats not my problem, then hopefully have a sigh of relief haha.

 

Yes, let us know how it wired/what he gets for a readin on the DMM.

There is no reason it should shut off after only 15 minutes of wanging if it is set up right, especially a JL amp. You should be able to turn the volume up and leave it there all night without a single problem.

 

I have a Alpine 1K mono wired parallell to 2 Kenwood 10s SVC my amp also gets very hot on the fins after a few min. of hard bass does not shut off.
Is this heat normal amp is in a well vented area on all sides

 

I was reading around some other places, and I was thinking it could be a thermal protection shutdown. When I turn it down after it does that it turns right back on, so it could also be the amp starving for power...who knows?...

 

I just drove for 20min pounding bass and the amp is so hot you cant touch it , thats got to be bad right?

 

Some amps just run hot...I had an older RF Punch and I used to joke that I could grill a steak on it if I wanted too after about 15 minutes of normal use....that's just the way those amps were, no problems with them ever over-heating or crapping out.

I have had amps that I would have running full tilt constantly for 3 hour drives and they wouldnt even get warm to the touch.

Now I dont know if your Alpine amp in particular likes to normally run hot like that or not....but it could just be 'one of those amps'


Deceased...did you find out what your sub is wired at?
Roughly how high do you have your gains on that amp, and what HU are you using?

 

The first amp i ever bought was one of those old audiobahn amps that was completely chrome and shiny...boy did that thing run HOT. you could look at it and see heat waves coming off of it and it would burn your hand to the touch....When i installed it in my friends car a few years back, he also found out the hard way.