New Xenon 1200.1 Giving Issues

[stipud]

Well, I assume you live in Portland, and they offered to repair your amp for free.... so give them a shout

[kg1961]

[cj10488]

Well I talked to PG today and we definetly think the amp is overheating... I can drive for about 30mins and everything is fine then it starts to go into protection mode... We checked the fan and that was working good atleast powered by a seperate source. Checked for bulging caps and those all looked fine as well.. There was a few burn marks on the outside casing above the Large inductor coil and along the output section. Since it was a refurb its possible that the housing never got cleaned.

Either way PG is going to take care of things. The amp is back in for now until I can make it down there to get it either fixed or replaced. I would assume they replace it with another as Its 1hr 30min drive from my place...

In the mean time I am looking for a new HO alternator to replace the stock as the amp is pulling a bit more juice that I am really comfortable with. Still get a constant 14.3v at the amp under load but I always like to be overkill on everything.

James

[mhyde71]

In the mean time I am looking for a new HO alternator to replace the stock as the amp is pulling a bit more juice that I am really comfortable with. Still get a constant 14.3v at the amp under load but I always like to be overkill on everything.
James

Want NEW HO Alt, or maybe a used PG HO ALT??? Lemme know/shoot me PM I have HO PG Alt... which I know nothing of.. except it is blue in color... does have serial number on it though.. maybe that would help!??!! dunno

[cj10488]

Thanks for the offer.. Its gotta be for a 95 civic w/o AC which seem to be few and far between... I might call a few shops and see if I cant get a rebuild kit and just mod mine into a HO...

James

[cj10488]

Well That seems kind of strange... I under advice of The Tech Support person pulled the unit apart to check for cracked solder, buldging caps, anything burnt or obvious failures as well as check the Fan function and making sure it was plugged in... Everything seemed to check out fine... Well not to soldering but I am a class 3 or nothing and china is whatever gets them by but it was still class 2 solder quality.

Anyways no changes anywhere.. Plugged it back in and things seem to be going good. Hasnt went into protection mode yet. hopefully it wont.

Anyways thanks again for everything guys.

Thanks again,
James

[cj10488]

Ok so here it is quite a while later. Blown Fets. Burnt transformer. All fets replaced with identical replacements. All old heat sink gel cleaned up with isopropyl. Heat sink compound reapplied as if they were all CPUs so its not too thick. Amp still shuts down and goes into protection mode at random times.

Was given the idea that the XEload circuit might not be working good right so I unhooked one of my subs to run the amp at 4ohm still went into protection randomly so I turned off the stereo until I could get it checked out. So Friday I am driving home and I noticed the stereo was on but the volume was at 0. So I turned it up and had no sub. Guess what amp was in protection mode yet again. Doesnt seem power related to me. Seems more like a thermal protection than anything.

Any Ideas what might be going on? Its in my trunk but there is plenty of circulation back there and its mounted again the sub box with plenty of breathing room. Power situation is straight from the battery to a fuse box. One power wire directly to the amp post fuse and another going thru 2x 1.5F caps into the second power input. Dual grounds both grounded in different places and less than 12" from the amp. Alternator is a high output 150A alternator (at idle) so its got the juice. Caps drop to roughly 13.8v under load for at most 1/2 second. Fan is pluggled in. I believe I verified it was working but I do not remember at this point in time.

I am getting quite irritated as its completely random.

Thanks again,
James

[cj10488]

So I took the amp apart again. Cleaned up all the fets and applied some more heat sink thermal compound again. I also took out the fan and tested it as well. Fan worked outside the unit. Took a drive and tested out the amp. I am almost 99% positive that its thermal related. As soon as the amp started to get warm it kicked into protection which took a good 30mins. Thank god the cops are nice around here. I was down at the boat ramp testing it out and the cops came down to make sure no one was down there after hours. Told me it was fine to test the amp there and ran my license and left.

Anyways any ideas why or how this thing can be getting warm and shutting down like it is? Next step I think is to pull it apart and see if the fan circuit is working.

Thanks again,
James

[cj10488]

Ok so back onto the amp...

I tested out the thermistor for the fan and no good.. Fan still didnt come on. I touched up the solder and ran the amp at 2ohm for quite some time and got it good and hot. Fan came on and was working. Got the amp back installed and took it for a drive and pushed it real hard without it going into protection... Hopefully this is the end of the story and all will be well with the amp now.


James

[stipud]

Wow, that's quite the journey! Here's hoping it's actually fixed now!

Did the amp use thermal paste stock, or sil-pads? I personally find sil-pads much easier to work with.

[cj10488]

Well here's to it still not working correctly.. 30mins into my drive today pushing the amp and it went into protection again. I am at my wits end with this thing.

As for thermal means it had doth the pads and the paste stock. I reassembled it the same way thermal pads and compound. I find it odd that they had thermal paste on the thermistors as well but anyways. Amp is back to when I bought it. Going into protection any time it feels like it. All the fets have been replaced. Power torroid replaced. Everything works perfectly until it decides to go into protection. Checked to see if it was vibrations causing it and its not. Any ideas before this thing goes off to Alex to get it figured out.

Thanks again
James