Subs cut out... think it might be the battery

[Summer-Sickness]

Yes your right, 6mm2 wire i think is about 10 awg, which is too small which is why your voltage is dropping.
I work with a w g wire sizes but found this and if it is 6mm2 wire size then definatly the reason your voltage is dropping.

AWG to Metric Conversion Chart

just had a look this morning, my cable is only 8 guage... from what ive read around the forum that seems too small to me.. would that be right?

got my battery load tested and they said its fine, im getting a 1 farad power cap of a guy at work for $50, but by the the looks of it i might be in for a re-wire eh?

 

[levymetal]

8 gauge is way too small. i run 8 gauge to a 300wRMS monoblock (that's all i have in the boot), and i was a bit iffy about that...

you'd be wanting to run 4 gauge minimum, i had a similar setup in my last car and from memory i had a 2 gauge power cable to a distribution block in the boot, which ran 8g each to three amps. you might want 8g to 4ch, and 4g to monoblock (see if it will take a 4g cable or not, that's a good indication of what you should be running). that might be overkill though, 4g main and 8g to each amp is probably enough. it's been a long time

 

[Summer-Sickness]

8 gauge is way too small. i run 8 gauge to a 300wRMS monoblock (that's all i have in the boot), and i was a bit iffy about that...

you'd be wanting to run 4 gauge minimum, i had a similar setup in my last car and from memory i had a 2 gauge power cable to a distribution block in the boot, which ran 8g each to three amps. you might want 8g to 4ch, and 4g to monoblock (see if it will take a 4g cable or not, that's a good indication of what you should be running). that might be overkill though, 4g main and 8g to each amp is probably enough. it's been a long time

i have 2 seperate runs for each amp, both in 8 guag (should have mentioned that earlier) so effectively thats the same as runnin a 4 guage main and splitting it into 8 guage's, spoke to the guy at alberts car stereo n he said my cable should be fine, but, im still taking all your suggestions into consideration, sometimes the guys at places like that dont even know that much lol.

he also suggested it might be a good idea to change the configuration of the subbs, at the moment they are wired up in series/parallel (dual voice coil, so the voice coils are in series and both subs are in parallel with each other) which would be giving me 2 ohms, he said it might be an idea to change it to series/series, which would give me 8 ohms, what are your opinions on that?

i think the way i might go is to try the power capacitor first and see if that helps, if it doesnt help atleast itll be able to help with the lights dimming lol.

i also got my battery and alternator tested this morning, they said its all good.

 

[Phoen1x]

Have you upgraded your earth cable from battery to car? basically just run 4 gauge or so cable from negative to ur chassis in the engine bay.
This is mine
http://home.people.net.au/~darknes/29112008528.jpg

 

[Summer-Sickness]

Have you upgraded your earth cable from battery to car? basically just run 4 gauge or so cable from negative to ur chassis in the engine bay.
This is mine
http://home.people.net.au/~darknes/28112008526.jpg

that link didnt work mate, but thats a good point, i'll do that for sure!

 

[Phoen1x]

link fixed now

 

[Summer-Sickness]

link fixed now

good stuff mate, did you just use lugs, i think i'll grab a bit of 95mm2 welding earth from work and use that.

 

[Phoen1x]

yeh, soldered the lugs on, from memory, think i had to drill one of the lug holes a bit bigger to fit one of the bolts on, not sure though.

 

[levymetal]

8g to each amp should be ok then, as you said, it won't make a difference if you split a 4g into 8g at the end anyway. for anyone interested, 4g almost has the same amount of area as 3x8gs, so you can run 3 amps off a single 4g cable provided that 8g is the maximum cable size they will take. i was probably wrong in my last comment, i bet my last car had a 4g main power cable running to the boot.

do you have the model number for your subs? type r's come in 2ohm per coil or 4ohm per coil. if you have the 2ohm ones, then that sounds about right. however if you have the 4ohm ones, then you'll already be running a 4ohm load, and you don't really need to go higher than that. you don't typically hear people running their amps with an 8ohm load, so i wouldn't recommend doing it as there is another problem here that should be fixed

 

[Summer-Sickness]

yeh, soldered the lugs on, from memory, think i had to drill one of the lug holes a bit bigger to fit one of the bolts on, not sure though.

no worries, ill just use my tradesmans hydrualic crimpers, thanks mate.

8g to each amp should be ok then, as you said, it won't make a difference if you split a 4g into 8g at the end anyway. for anyone interested, 4g almost has the same amount of area as 3x8gs, so you can run 3 amps off a single 4g cable provided that 8g is the maximum cable size they will take. i was probably wrong in my last comment, i bet my last car had a 4g main power cable running to the boot.

do you have the model number for your subs? type r's come in 2ohm per coil or 4ohm per coil. if you have the 2ohm ones, then that sounds about right. however if you have the 4ohm ones, then you'll already be running a 4ohm load, and you don't really need to go higher than that. you don't typically hear people running their amps with an 8ohm load, so i wouldn't recommend doing it as there is another problem here that should be fixed

no worries, thanks for that. ill start by upgrading the main ground cable and wacking a power cap into the circuit and see how i go, wont be doing that till wednesday tho so i'lll post up my findings then, thanks for your help guys.