sup guys

got in my car this morning, stereo was fine

went to smoko at 930ish, still fine, get back and leave car

get in car at 3pm, headunit is working fine as far as i can see, no sound tho. check amp fuse , its blown. replace fuse, and the very instant the fuse touches the two contact points, blows again and a big blue spark shoots out.

what is the problem with this.. im a first year eleccy and i think its a short LOL obviously but i can't find it.. is there anything else im missing? also the big ass fuse that runs off the car battery under the bonnet is still fine.

check around with a multimeter

what should i be looking for


no continuity right?

If the fuse should be sufficient for the job, maybe check that the grounding wire is actually grounding and not too long?

Try disconnecting the speakers from the amp put a new fuse in, if it blows there is a problem in the amp. If it dosent blow conncet one speaker up at a time this will tell you where the shor is.

It is more than likely that one of the cables that goes to the speakers has melted in the hot sun and has shorted the cable.

how much current should your amp be drawing? is the fuse sufficent for that?

remember fuses are there to protect your device and cabling in the event of a short.

Too much Spice Girls being played.

it had a 20amp fuse in it, and thats what i replaced it with

it says 20a next to the fuse slot, so i think fuse strength isnt the problem,

good idea denominator

would sun really just melt the cable? thats so dodgey.. its good quality cabling it cost 100 bucks just the cable

is this the standard amp the car came with?

is the fuse the one physically in the amp or the one on the positive cable just from the battery?

What amp? And what have you got running off it?

what should i be looking for


no continuity right?

and you're an electrician? I fear for the safety of many a house wired in the near future.

A short circuit means that the power is going straight to ground without passing go. Whoever installed the thing could have buggered it up (like my friend) and made the bare wire too long and the power lead touched the earth lead thus creating a short. You could have blown the amp making a short somewhere internally or like what happened to me, your piece of s*** holden f***ing land barge springs a leak in the rear windows and leaks water all over your amp f*** HOLDEN.

If you're running some kind of amp off your normal radio fuse then there's the problem right there, you're meant to run a thickass lead straight from the battery to the amp, and a short wire from the amp to the car body somewhere for earth. The only fuse there should be the big one on that large lead and quite possibly a fuse on the amp remote wire that comes from the radio.

Honestly I can't figure out what the hell you have hooked to a fuse in the fusebox that would cut out your amp but not the radio. My amp gets power straight from the car battery, doesn't go through the fusebox at all & has it's own seperate fuse under the bonnet. My radio however, does go through the stock fusebox and if that blew it'd take out the head unit + the amp (amp comes on when the radio is on through the remote wire)


last edited by whoop at 19:39:46 08/Nov/06

Sheeesh just put a bigger fuse in.

Job done.

why bother with fuses, they often just end up blowing anyway