Power Acoustik Amp

[chadrock]

Hello all.. I'm having a problem with an amp that my brother has had for quite a few years... he only used it for about a year and never abused it. Then one day it just stopped working.. All it does is moves sub back and forth at a slow rate even when not hooked to rca jacks. When it does this it draws a lot of power from the power source and the red led light on the board stays lite the whole time and blinks with the draw of power. All wiring is hooked up right. I was wondering if someone had this problem before and how it fix it. Its a Power Acoustik Fire & Ice FI2X-1600 amp.

[Perry Babin]

If it draws excessive current with only B+, ground and remote connected, it probably has shorted output transistors.

If this is one of the amps that has two blue boxes inside the amp and the large one says 'high voltage', be careful handling the small blue box. It's the one with high voltage.

[chadrock]

Yes this does have a box that says high voltage on it. it plugs into the other part of the circuit board from the left hand side. Is there anyway that I can test the transistors or anywhere I can buy them from like a radio shack or something?

[jol50]

Let it sit for a while unhooked, then take a meter at voltage and check around for power on the rails and transistors before you work in it.

Generally you take the clamp(s) off to get the part number on them, and test between the legs to see if they are shorted with an ohm meter on ohms test. It may have two different types of transistors on outputs; look at board and see what ones are powered via common source they should be the same, ie: find ones that typically will have middle or right legs connected in parallel. Usually there is two groups per channel, and they may or may not be the same part. If any one is shorted between legs it is bad and may short the rest in parallel.

Get the part number and then figure out where to get them. I have not seen one of these but Perry likely has.

[ppia600]

Originally posted by Perry Babin
If it draws excessive current with only B+, ground and remote connected, it probably has shorted output transistors.

If this is one of the amps that has two blue boxes inside the amp and the large one says 'high voltage', be careful handling the small blue box. It's the one with high voltage.

Isn't that box just to run the indiglo or bling bling neon in the amp? Can it just be unplugged on the low voltage input side of the box? Just wondering, I remember pulling a few of them apart a few years back and they had that box.

[Perry Babin]

Yes. On all of the fire and ice amps that I've seen, the high voltage supply (used to power the neon tube) could be unplugged from the main board. It should be unplugged from the main board as soon as the cover is removed.

[chadrock]

I already unplgged that box the the neon and the neon itself when i pulled the cover off.. I don't want to seem like an idiot but the trans your talking about is the yellow round thing at the bottom of the attached pic from perry? I'm no electronics expert by far but I know basic 12v circuits pretty well and obviously know how to check resistance in circuits.

[Perry Babin]

The yellow component in the photo is an inductor. The transformer will be larger and the core will be parallel to the board instead of perpendicular to the board.

What have you checked so far?

Have you found any defective components?

If you're unfamiliar with the terminology and the various components, take a quick look at the basic repair page (link in sig file below).

[chadrock]

I've looked over your link and understand somewhat what most the parts do... I had to use a headlight to keep from blowing the fuses. I checked voltage between the outside prongs on the transistors for the power side i believe.. I got 1.95 volts when the input voltage to the amp was around 6 volts because of the headlight resisting... I also just the resistence in the same ones and didn't find any that seemed to be shorted. Is there a order of things to check to find the problem or is it just a guessing thing with it?
I also checked the transistors or whatever they are on the other end of the amp and noticed on 2 of them that they seemed to be connected on the outer 2 prongs.???? Just let me know with any help you can... thanks

[chadrock]

here are some pics