Car audio help please - fuses for battery cable to amp

Commissario
Joined
23 Nov 2004
Posts
42,937
Location
Herts
Had sub/amp setup for nearly a year and I'm now having to change the fuse on the battery cable for the 4th time. I'm pretty sure this is not right!

I have a 4gauge Autoleads kit, running to a Kenwood KAC 9152D 1800W amp which in turn goes to an Alpine 1242D 1500W type R.

Anyone have any idea what the problem could be with regards to the fuse blowing more frequently than it should be?
 
Forgot to mention - I'm using a 60amp fuse. The wiring kit initially came with a 60amp, as was the replacement that came with the kit so I've just bought 60amp fuses thinking that they were right.
 
ok so your using a 60 amp fuse inline with 3300Watts worth of amps. If you take a car battery at 12V, then a 60 amp fuse can pass 60x12 Watts before it burns out. ie. nowhere near enough. You might get away with a 60Amp fuse inline with each amp in parallel circuits as the amps will obviously never draw anywhere near their claimed peak output. Your prob having problems with the amps surging when there is heavy bass which draws slightly too much power for the fuse to cope with.
 
So you suggesting that I need a fuse that has greater amp-age? (lol sorry can't think of the correct term)
 
Whats it rated at, 80 Amps? If so then 1 per circuit will prob be fine. If you still want to run the amplifiers in series then you need a fuse rated at about 275Amps to cope with the draw of the amplifiers and be completely safe. In reality those amps will prob break down if you try to run them at anywhere near peak claimed output so you could prob put 2 of those fuses in parallel in series with the 2 amps giving you a fuse rating of 160Amps which shoul dbe more than enough unless you want to try and run the amps at max power. Also, unless you have seriously beefy cable then theres no way you will be putting 275 amps down them anyway so 2 of those fuses should be fine.
 
Had sub/amp setup for nearly a year and I'm now having to change the fuse on the battery cable for the 4th time. I'm pretty sure this is not right!

I have a 4gauge Autoleads kit, running to a Kenwood KAC 9152D 1800W amp which in turn goes to an Alpine 1242D 1500W type R.

Anyone have any idea what the problem could be with regards to the fuse blowing more frequently than it should be?

ok so your using a 60 amp fuse inline with 3300Watts worth of amps. If you take a car battery at 12V, then a 60 amp fuse can pass 60x12 Watts before it burns out. ie. nowhere near enough.



am i missing something? the 1242d is a subwoofer, not another amp....

anyway.. 1800w / 14v = 129amps. thats the minimum you should aim for when using an amp of that caliber. the absolute minimum id fuse for is 100amp. that 60amp wiring kit surely isnt up to the job either.
 
Last edited:
Just FYI, but it's the input current spec of the AMP you need to look at, not the output spec..

1800W is peak power, it's 900W RMS into 2Ohm's.. but then it has a fuse rating of 2 * 30A.. so the max it can draw is 60A or one of it's own fuses would blow..

Since your 60A fuse is already blowing, without the Amps fuse blowing, I'd say something isn't right.. 60A is just on the limit for your installation, maybe you do need to go upto an 80 or 100A cable/fuse.. and check your Earth is bonded well to the car body.
 
Last edited:
am i missing something? the 1242d is a subwoofer, not another amp....

anyway.. 1800w / 14v = 129amps. thats the minimum you should aim for when using an amp of that caliber. the absolute minimum id fuse for is 100amp. that 60amp wiring kit surely isnt up to the job either.

Sorry I dont know car audio really just electronics :)
 
I have only one amplifier lol.

The wiring kit is 4gauge and I've been told by a few people that this should more than suitable (think it can take up to 800w RMS or similar). It just confuses me that the kit came with a 60amp fuse.

Ladforce - I'm currently using a 60amp fuse but am thinking of going up to an 80amp fuse in future.
 
Back
Top Bottom