Ok guys and gals.....

So here we are one week after finally getting a little thump-thump going under my seat; I am driving home from work and while sitting in traffic and listening to a lil wayne song, a good bass line came up so I turned it up a little and about 15 seconds later the sub just cut off!!! Keep in mind it has been working fine for the last week and all I have done is some mild tuning and tweaking but otherwise has remained the same for a week. Is it possible that I have already blown my new sub (Alpine SWR-T12)?

I get home and first check fuses .... All ok (main fuse at battery, distro block, and amp) and the strange thing is power light at amp is still coming on, but getting nothing to the sub. So I re-tightened the power and ground connections at the amp (Cadence ZRS C65 Mono) and checked the wires at the sub. Seemed a little loose at the sub due to the crappy banana plug I got so I tightened them down with out the plug onto the screw terminals ..... Nothing!! I then figure to check inside the box and when I opened it there seemed to be some black stuff floating around inside the box but seemed like it might have been paint or something rubbing off the inside of the speaker (or is this somehow tiny fragments of my blown speaker?!?!?!) but other than that it seemed like the connections inside were fine. I also tried looking at the actual wires on the sub itself and to my untrained eye, seemed ok!

I am kinda at a loss here and need some help.... Other notes are the LC6i still has the red power light on, my Cadence ZRS-C9 4-Channel is still working and the RCA connections appear to be ok ..... Oh, and I do not have another speaker to test out, and I do not have a DMM as several other threads suggested .........

Would it have overheated since it was over 100 degrees again today? Have I provided too much power to the sub with that amp? I really thought that they were a good match? Would there be some kind of other explaination here? Do I just need to bring it to a professional to look at (as I am clearly not one!)

 

If you have a multimeter you can measure the impedence, ohms, to see if its toast or not.

Does it make any scratchy noises when you push on the cone?

 

You don't even need a multi meter. Touch a 9 volt battery across the positive and negative terminals. You can use a little jumper of wire, if needed) If the sub is still good, the cone will jump. If not, it won't. BTW, is it a single coil sub, or DVC sub ? Even if you blow one of the two coils on a DVC sub, the other coil will still play, just not as loud. But if yours is a DVC, you would have had to blown them both. Posible, but not very common.

Good luck on that...

Peace,
Fish

 

Melovidov21 - I do not have a multimeter and did not notice any scratchy noise when I gently pushed on the cone.

As for my sub Fish Chris, its a SVC. I will look into the battery thing a little later on this afternoon if I can find a 9v around the house.

 

i would recommend you get a multimeter though...i know sears has some basic craftsman ones for around 25 bucks. good to have for troubleshooting. i looked up the specs on the sub and its a 4 ohm sub....it should be around 3.5 to 4.2 ohms give or take...but around 4 ohms. anything else and the sub is toast. did you check the terminal connections at the box itself? sometimes they come off on the spade terminals inside the box due to the air pressure and vibrations.

 

Grab another speaker of any size and hook it up to your wires.. If you burnt up the amp the protection light should be on or it should have went into protection mode first.. (if your amp has that capability) Gotta run the multimeter test and see if any current is coming through the wires.

You could have burnt up a wire that goes down to the coil on the sub... If you can find it just solder and glue back together... Good as new...

 

So my electrical subcontractor here at work just let me borrow his DMM (or rather, I borrowed HIM and his DMM) and I (he) checked the continuity across the fuses and they are ok. Then I (he) tested the impedance (ohms??) of the sub by leaving it in the box and checking the terminals at the outside of the box…. I guess it read nothing and he said “it looks like your sub is blown”  I also tried bumping the sub with a drill battery (did not have a 9v laying around so I read elsewhere that a drill battery would do the same) and it resulted in absolutely nothing!

Moving forward, I have two questions
1.) What are some common reasons for blowing subs? Trying to trouble shoot if this is something that I may have mis-wired, had the settings on the amp wrong, have too much power, had to little power, too little power, etc??? I am clearly going to be getting another one and do not want to blow it and if there is any chance it was caused by something on my end, I would like to identify it and correct it! I also understand that it could have been a “bad apple” and it was just bound to blow at some point (maybe?!?!)
2.) For anyone who has used sonicelectronix to purchase their equipment; how are they about warranties and returns? I will be looking into my paperwork when I get home to see what I need to do, but maybe one of yall has done this and gone through their process before and maybe you could tell me how it turned out for you in the end (i.e. they fixed it and sent it back, they sent me a brand new one, they told me to pound sand and I ended up having to buy another, etc) Not being an Alpine authorized dealer, I am now nervous about having bought it through them?!?!

 

before it blew how did it sound....cause i am about to install mine into my truck with a rockford fosgate power t600.2 and at 4 ohms bridged its rated at 780 watts

 

Their web site says one year warranty.

About a year ago my brother bought an amp through them, six months later it died. I called them up and they replaced it quickly for free. You will have to pay to ship yours to them first though.

 

Take it out of the box and test it. I know I thought I blew my sub right after I got it but it turned out one of the spade connectors on the inside of the box had come loose. Hooked it back up and viola, sub worked.

 

+1.... My suggestion also.Check your sub wire connection .. One of your wires could have come loose.. You've got a pretty hefty setup.. It should've been alot harder to blow that sub...

 

Hi-rev-
The Alpine sub sounded awesome before it blew! I would recommend it for sure, even though I have not heard very many of the others out there. You will have to let me know how your goes once you get it installed.

ErikShockey-
I actually ended up calling them the other day to see what I could do and they told me that since it had been under 30 days (by exactly 1 day) from the time I purchased it, all I had to do was send it back and they would replace it for free! Sonic Electronix’s return policy seems a bit stringent (as I can understand why), but so far they have made it pretty easy and at least gave me the “warm and fuzzies” about them sending me another one without any problems!

Joh408 & KingRanch4Life-
I did take it out of the box completely and check the internal connections of the box and they were fine and once the multi-meter was hooked up to the sub I still got nothing back on the digital readout so my conclusion is that YES, it is fried!! The set up I have did seem like it was hefty and I thought that the sub could handle all the power that I could throw at it which is why I am now hesitant about putting them same thing back in without identifying the source of the original failure?!?!? I guess we will see when the dust settles and I get a new one back to try it again!

 

What box r u using for the alpine sub where did u find it

 

Mostly at Home Depot and Lowes is where I found it ..... Actually, I designed and built it myself. I may have a few pictures of it in one of my photo albums, and I thought I put some on another one of my threads but after just looking back at it ... I didn't post them of the one I ended up building (other than this one) ...





Anyways, you can check out some of my other threads to get the basics of what I built and if you are up to the challenge, I can send you more info or pics of the one I ended up building.

https://www.f150online.com/forums/sp...screw-yet.html

https://www.f150online.com/forums/sp...01-needed.html

 

You might wanna check your Ohm on your next sub.. You may have it wired wrong and sent to much juice to it... It happens... Happened to me but the speakers were hardcore and handled the beating like a champ... The amp... ALL BURNT UP...