Alpine V series AMP blinking light...

[Jesterarts]

OK, this weekend i was helping a mate install a stereo in his car...

Its all alpine gear, with R type speakers, sub and V seties amp running it.

One mono and a 4 channel...

Anyway,

I wired the amps in a "series" setup...

Lead from the battery into one amp, the ground from that into the power in the other and then grounded from the second amp.

So we put the headunit back in, turned it on and...

The second amp is has a solid blue light (Woohoo) while the first amp in the series has a pulsing blue light (which i figure is not good).

I'm assuming that this is because its not happy being run in a series setup.

1. Can someone shed some light on what the "pulsing light" means

2. Should a change the setup abit and run the amps parrallel?

Thanks!

[Phreddy]

Ummm - are you saying that you wired the power to the amps in series?? If so, that's a BIG no-no!!

You can loop the +12V main feed from one amp to the other (to the + power terminals), but as far as the grounds are concerned you're far better off running a separate one for each amp, both as short as practical, and grounded firmly to the same point on the chassis.

A much better setup is to have the main power feed - fused of course, right near the battery - running back to a distribution block, then separate +12 feed cables from the block for each amp. If you get real keen you can put a fuse on each of the feeds from the distro block, but that's not really necessary. Again, use a separate ground lead from each amp, hooked to the same chassis ground point. And I mean BOLTED DOWN - not with a cheap ring terminal and pop-riveted, or worse still the strands frayed out and stuffed under a bolted-down bracket or something. Get a good heavy duty ring terminal, and if you have a decent power soldering iron, then solder the terminal to the ground cables. (most good wiring kits will have a couple of these, or get 'em from Jaycar or something) Make sure you scrape or sand off the paint at the point you're bolting down too as well,so the terminal is making good contact with the chassis metal. To stop rust, you can blow a little primer or gold gal over it after everything's tightened.

(hehe - I can never stop myself going on about grounds.... I've seen so many problems created by bad ones....)

But then - if I've misunderstood what you're saying, then at least I got some typing practice in!

[Jesterarts]

yep, thats what i thought...

I just sent out my mate to get a distribution block and another ground wire.

Nah the ground points and wire we used are top of the range kicker ones bolted to the chassis and i sanded the primer off the points its bolted to just to make sure it gets a good connection.

Thanks mate

[Jesterarts]

THat was the issue... all fixed... mate is very happy