I have an older Alpine 3547 hooked to a 10" bazooka tube in my cavalier. Noticed that the sub wasn't working the other day. The fuse on the amp and on the power cable are both ok. There is a status light on the top of the amp that I thought used to be green but its orange now. Anyone have any ideas? I played with the headunit (pioneer) turning the sub on and off through it and it made no difference. As far as I can tell all the connections are good a tight. I havent started to pull the interior apart yet to look at all the wires but I was wondering if that orange light ment anything. I dont have a manual for it anymore.
97 Cavalier 2.2 5-speed, 88 Camaro IROC-Z 5.7 auto, 91 Firebird Formula 5.7 auto, 88 Conquest TSi 2.6T 5 speed, 93 Silverado ECSB 5.7 auto, 83 Mazda RX-7
Nope, on those old ones it just means
one of the protection circuits went off.
So test:
1) Disconnect your speaker wires from the amp, turn on the deck, see if that fixed the problem
----If it did, then you have a short in your speaker wires going to the sub or you have a shorted coil on the sub itself. (blown sub)
----OR the speaker impedance is wrong, but if it worked up till now this probably not the cause
2) Get a voltmeter/multimeter and make sure you have 12V across the Power and Ground terminals. Check if it's low (less than 11 volts or so)
----If it is, you either have a bad/dirty/loose ground or a too small/loose power wire or a melted fuse that doesn't look blown.
3) Take the same multimeter and put the ground lead on the amp ground and check the test points on the ONBOARD fuses of the amp.
----If they show 12v or so on both sides of the fuses, then the fuses are fine.
----If they show 12v on one side and 0v or --- on the other side then you have a blown onboard fuse.
4) Disconnect the RCAs, turn the amp on.
----If it goes away you have a short inside your RCAs. This is rare to see and usually doesn't throw a protection circuit.
Ok, just busted out the power probe and did some checks.
I have a solid 12 volts to the amp and a solid ground. The fuse on the amp is fine, 12.2 volts on both sides. with the amp connected and on, I am not getting any voltage to the speaker wires to the amp, just ground. Disconnected the speaker wires from the amp and still the orange light is on. On the remote wire to the amp, it has 10.3 volts with the key on. I disconnected the RCA cables from the amp and the light is still orange. Just to clarify, the light should be green not orange if everything is working correct? Any other ideas? Thanks for the help.
97 Cavalier 2.2 5-speed, 88 Camaro IROC-Z 5.7 auto, 91 Firebird Formula 5.7 auto, 88 Conquest TSi 2.6T 5 speed, 93 Silverado ECSB 5.7 auto, 83 Mazda RX-7
