Wayne Smith

Now ... Fingers crossed!!!

Did you wire it for on always? Or thermal activated?

larrysb

Hope it helps, I'm pretty sure the fan only runs as necessary, just judging by the behavior in my car.

I suspect it isn't a "commanded" thermal shutdown, but the circuit becoming non-functional because some component(s) has become marginal so it works sometimes, and not others.

Bruce In Philly

OK.... stupid mystery. Just for laughs, I plugged the old fan into the same 9 volt battery I did a few weeks ago..... NOTHING. It won't spin. I tried another battery. Tried all combinations of red / back / blue. I spun the fan thinking maybe it was on a dead spot.

Nothing. WTF?

Peace
Bruce in Philly

doclouie

That is weird. When it cuts out again see if the new fan is running or not.

Bruce In Philly

Never Mind..... I did something stupid. It works fine. Sorry about that.

Peace
Bruce in Philly

Wayne Smith

So I drove a few hundred miles today. Radio worked fine. Got almost home and stopped for gas. Started again and woofer only. Drove a mile home. Shut it in the garage to maintain the heat. Waited 5 minutes. Started it. Radio was fine.

Heat causing a power supply problem? Heat causing a power on reset problem? Heat not associated? I don't know but I look forward to more data.

Bruce In Philly

This is a growing issue for all of us..... I have not been driving over the last week.... I want to see what happens with that new fan if it gets triggered. I doubt it is a problem but we will see. I did not wire it differently, just replaced the old.

Peace
Bruce in Philly

larrysb

I suspect that the power supply section of the amp is degraded and not stable. I don't think it is so much an overheating issue, as it is something is wonky and a little additional heat pushes it over the edge.

Wayne Smith

Just a thought since I've had mine fail on first start up after sitting overnight in a 40F garage ...

Does the power supply have an over current circuit? So ,if a filter cap has gotten leaky, is a current surge at power on causing a shut down? And, if there is a crowbar circuit, this could explain the need for a prolonged power off before reset.

And, satisfying Bruce, a leaky cap can be temperature biased ...

Just musing here. Hopefully replacing the caps will give us a remedy ... Or Bruce simply replacing the fan, which would be even easier and nicer.

Edit ... One more thought. The SCR on an over current circuit should be filtered to avoid dv/dt spontaneous firing. There could be a baked cap in that circuit causing problems. I hope not since that would likely be surface mount technology.

Bruce In Philly

Hey, I am ready with my soldering iron to replace those big cans or at least the ones I can get to... that is easy. I never replaced surface mount caps... but I love to break things. I will make a mess, curse, burn myself, but I can do that. Let's see if that fan does anything.... then ....

Peace
Bruce in Philly

larrysb

You'll probably want a powered vacuum suction iron to remove the through-hole capacitors. That leadfree solder is miserable to remove. You need some liquid or paste rosin flux and some fine copper desoldering wick.

There are a bunch of youtubes you can watch about surface mount removal and soldering.

On the surface mounted electrolytics, you can alternately heat each pad and rock the capacitor free. Or - in many cases, use brute-force and twist the can, which breaks the lead off the part, leaving a little bit of the leg in the solder joint. Also, examine it carefully to see if any chemical has leaked out of the capacitor. Be sure to thoroughly clean that up.

Work smoothly and quickly. I've done it lots of times. Smooth and precise is faster than trying to rush it.

doclouie

First long drive, 2 hours, shut the car off so the McDonald’s lady could take my order. Turned back on and there were no highs from the amp and the fan was not spinning. Turned the radio off for like 20 minutes and it did not come back on. An hour later it finally came back to life. I think I will hard wire the fan on first and see if that fixes it. If not the large capacitors will be next. No loud radio playing as we were mostly talking so the amp was not being overworked.

ilovemaui

I had this issue a few times. Installed a Kenwood head unit and kept the Bose speakers and amp. No issues since and have put about 3000 miles since.

Bruce In Philly

What year is your car? How did you hook the kenwood to the amp under the passenger seat?

Peace
Bruce in Philly

Wayne Smith

This implies the problem isn't at the amp but perhaps a communication problem allowing start up of the amp.

I've seen invalid errors per the Durametric implying noise on the bus which doesn't surprise me. If this noise occurred at power on ... Just saying. And I've had this problem at first start on a cool morning as well as restarts on cool or hot drives.