Installed a Pioneer GM-D8500m Amp. ratad 600W RMS x 1(2ohm)50hz. (1200 peak). Amp. powers one 10 in. Pioneer sub only (ts-sw250152) thru a Pioneer Z110 Navigation system with iPod. Car speakers work off Nav. built in Amp. I have good grounds and have done the 3 electrical upgrades

All sounds good, no problems there.

Battery is getting sucked down even when "off" is selected in the Nav. menu, you can here the sub drop off in the sound and go to just the car speakers. There is a blue "on" light on the Amp. to indicate the power is ON weather you have selected "on" or "off". Selection does drop the sound off, but the Amp. stays powered. After an hour of driving with the Sub. selected in off, the Amp. is still hot to the touch but not producing any sound. When turning the car off, the blue light goes out.

Apparently, the Amp. stays on all the time the car is running and sucking my battery down - Is this normal?

Note - Battery 4 1/2 years old so I replaced it with top of the line 7 yr. Delco - same problem, I guess the alternator is next?

Should I put in a power cut off switch for the Amp to make sure it's off?

 

if the radio is on the amp will stay on regardless of the sub on/off setting in the radio (this just controls audio signal)

there is no way this should run your battery on, something else is going on

 

Thanks, so Amp. is on when it should be, where do I go from here? I was pretty carefull with the wiring, everything sodered and placed nicely, any suggestions on where to start from here, I'm thinking alternator output problem - the voltage just kept dropping slowly (till it won't start anymore) with the old and new battery.

No problem with battery/starting with the nav. system until I hooked up Amp. & sub.

 

unhook amp for a day or 2 and see if it goes back to normal

 

Already unhooked it all today after watching new battery voltage drop, will use the car all day tomorrow and carry jumping cables in case - thank you.

 

If I follow you correctly if the car is off you have zero issues and that when the car is running and the amp is on it runs the battery down?

 

That is correct and it seems to run the battery (voltage) down even with the Amp. off (I pulled the breaker I have in-line on the power to Amp. line). Although this was only for a short time today, I can check for sure tomorrow. I'm thinking I must have destroyed the alternator somehow with the Amp. sucking juice all the time.

 

I would take a volt meter and check to see if you are getting voltage to the amps trigger input wire with the head turned off. If you are, then you need to start looking at the headunit to determine why you are getting trigger output when the heads off. I assume you attached your trigger to the head units blue wire???

You could always get your amp trigger from an Ignition on power source but that would be mickey mouse.

My Arc Amps have a switch on them to set the trigger source in cases where the audio input is an OEM headunits speaker outs. You might check to see if there is a switch on the amp for trigger source.

 

Yes, I used the Pioneer Nav. control wire (blue with a white stripe) to hook up to the Amp. control wire terminal. This wire was also tagged as the control wire too in the Nav. bundle of wires. I can check that first thing in the morning. I assume this wire will have no current when the car is shut off - correct?

Also, no trigger switch or any other type of switch on the Amp.

 

if the light goes off when u turn radio off that means the amp is off the blue/white wire is turning the amp off

something else is causing it to run down poss a bad amp... maybe get a current meter and see what kinda amperage its drawing

 

I just checked the instructions for your amp. I assume you have the input switch set to RCA?

 

I have a multimeter, I'll try to figure out how to do that or have someone else that is more experienced give it a shot. I'm going to try to have the alternator output measured tomorrow to see if/how much it is charging. How about a quick instruction on where and how to hook up the meter for Amp. draw?

 

Here is a link to your manual. See page 9 for the following:
You want the black connection on the meter to ground terminal #2 and the red to the remote input terminal 1. I think it should read 12V but most importantly, it should read 0 with the radio off. Also, see my comment above. Make sure the source switch is set to RCA (page 5). In that mode, it will only turn on from a head units trigger.

** If you read voltage with the headunit powered off then you are probably connecting the amps trigger source to the wrong wire on the headunit or you have the trigger/remote connected to the battery.

One thing I didnt ask.. Are you using the GM headunit and getting your input from your speaker wires? In that case, the switch mentioned above should not be set to RCA but should be set to SP and the remote input should not have a connection.

 

yes, using RCA connectors.

 

I wanted instruction on how to read the current draw of the Amp., I do know how to read the voltage on the trigger wire, so that is one I know I can perform. I still have the hard copy of my manual - thank you covering that part. I'll do my testing tomorrow and report back in this thread.

 

Today I checked the control wire (trigger wire) from the Nav. to the Amp. and found that it had 12.3 v whenever the ignition was turned to acc. or to the "on" position. When key turned off, no voltage was present.

Removed Alternator and took it to a rebuild shop, they bench tested as working well and tested under a 60 amp. load - no problem there.

Checked amp. output in car (running) showed 80 amps. output at that time.

Checked DIC volt readings against an analog and a digital multimeter at various conditions (not running, idling, increased rpm) and found DIC readings consistant with both meters - so its not the DIC guage readings being off. Tested as low as 11.8v and up to 14.2v.

Did not have a way to check the Amp. draw so I removed circuit breaker in power line from + post to Amp. terminal and replaced it with a 5 amp fuse - did not blow fuse all day with Sub playing so I'm thinking there is not a lot of current draw.

Threw jumper cables in back and made several trips (total of about 75 miles), turned car off and restarted about 8 times during the day - always restarted.

Started day with amp on, Ipod playing, AC running (92 degrees here today) and for the last trip of the day I put on the 50 watt fog lights.
Began @ 14.2v and slowly dropped down to a somewhat steady 13.2 or 13.3 when engine RPM @ 900 or more. Whenever it idled the voltage would drop at about .3 or .4 per min. of idle. On longer idles of 4-5 min. stuck in traffic crawl went down to 11.8v. Whenever I would regain speed it would only come up about .4 volts from the lower starting position. On a longer hwy. drive it would come up slowly to 13.6 or 13.7. but an idle would always take it back into the 11's. - but it always restarted after a shutdown. Did not charge battery tonight, will resume driving it tomorrow. Battery is new Delco Pro 7 yr., two days old. Maybe this is "normal"?

 

Something isnt right you should be dipping that low in voltage. One thing to check is on the battery side of your fuse holder make sure no wire strands are loose shorting out to ground because this wont cause the fuse to blow

 

Do you have a underdrive balancer? If so that can cause the alternator to not be able to keep up at idle.

 

The fuse holder is 4 inches from the battery post and all connections are sodered & shrink wrapped.

 

Yes, there is an underdrive pulley, because of cam it idles @ 700 RPM, I guess this could account for the low voltage at idle but it has not been a problem for the past 18 months/14K miles. I'll just keep driving it to see if the new battery stays charged because the old one did not after I put the Amp. & Sub. in. When the old battery went dead I had just driven it on a 1 hour hwy trip all well above idle speeds. I'm thinking this all must have been a battery problem, a few more days will tell. I don't do a lot of night driving with this car, maybe the battery was on the edge before it gave up.