Orion Xtr500 Popping Fuses... Any Help?

[geolemon]

Curious if anyone has any ideas I might have overlooked...

My friend had an amp installed at some local shop around here...

The amp was purchased as a refurb a long time ago, and hasn't ever been used. It was delivered, and sat in it's box.

Anyway, these guys hook up the amp, and claimed it simply didn't work.
Popped both the fuses on the amp.

I looked at the wiring job, and wasn't exactly impressed...
the plug holding the speaker wires, they had stripped about 1" of casing off the wiring, and the wiring was too large to fit into the speaker plug, leaving some squished copper strands on the outside.
(I'm wondering if they ever came in contact, causing a short, and some inherent damage at that point)

At any rate, I tidied up the wiring, made sure the capacitor was charged with a resistor (and monitored its charge), removed the underhood fuse, installed the two fuses into the Orion amp, and noted a spark as I installed them (bear in mind, no fuse underhood - power coming from the charged capacitor).

I then installed the fuse underhood, and got a big spark, I assumed from the capacitor charging back up what it had lost when I plugged in the amp fuses (and I assumed the amp's capacitors charging).

But I walked to the trunk, and both amp fuses had popped.

I'm suspecting damage to the amp, but I don't know whether it is because the yahoos that hooked it up let the speaker wire strands touch (like I said - 1" stripped and shoved in the plug ), or whether the amp was actually damaged.

Anyone have any guesses as to what might be damaged - and if it would make any sense to contact Orion for repair (I'm doubting any warranty on refurbished gear), or if anyone here might have repair facilities?

Any help is appreciated!

PS. I'm not opening the amp up at this point, as it's got it's little sticker on it that says "warranty void", and it's not my amp.

[jstutman]

gonna sound dumb, but you sure you checked to make sure you were using the right rated fuses? also try putting the fuses in, then apply power as your in the truck and see if they blow right when you apply power. anything furture would involve opening it up and seeing if anything inside is toast.

For technical support:

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E-mail: AudioTechs@directed.com

[sandt38]

So the amp wasn't powered on and the fuses popped? If that is the case there is a problem in the amp, as the circut to ground should not be completed untill the HU signals it on.

[The_Ancient]

JD still work for DEI??

if so call him up and say

"listen here you slimly littel BLEEP sucker, give me a new amp you son of a BLEEP"



:P :P

Did you have the Power and Ground Reversed :P

[geolemon]

I didn't install the amp, but when I got the car, the power and ground were in the correct locations.

The fuses were the ones that came with the amp... which the shop that installed it just threw out (not to mention, failed to give my friend even the under-hood fuse ), so I had to look the fuse rating up in the manual, and install two new ones.. so I do know they were correct.
Fuse underhood never blew, just the amp fuses.

Like I mentioned, really the only suspicious thing that I found was the extremely sloppy job fitting the speaker wire into the speaker wire plug (the Orion amps have this plastic plug, almost like a Molex plug, the wires fit into machined holes like a distribution block).
The speaker wire was stripped nearly an inch long, and was too large to fit into each speaker wire hole, meaning strands were askew outside each hole. I cut the stripped portion of the wires down to about half, and trimmed the stray strands... something a shop should have done by instinct, IMO.

But anyway... I agree, it seems like something is dead inside.

This amp was a refurb, and it sat in my friend's closet for over a year, before having it installed.
I don't believe there's any warranty at this point.

I'll get the amp back from him and open it up, the warranty sticker I'm sure has no validity at this point at any rate.

Does anyone know any competent repair shops, or any members on here, that could diagnose and repair at a reasonable cost?

[Drkodin]

it sound EXACTLY like what i just did to my amp . i reversed power and ground when installing it and everytime it was connected after that (it was rewired properly) it kept popping fuses just like you were talking about. Seemed to me that, after eleminating other possible issues, the power supply simply blew something to cause an open short in order to protect the amp. with your electrical knowledge Chris i think you should be able to fix the problem without any huge issues.

[AustinKP]

Originally posted by Drkodin@Jul 16 2004, 05:44 PM
blew something to cause an _open short_ in order to protect the amp.

Well, which one was it? Isn't that an oxymoron? An open is where there are no wires touching, thus nothing would happen when you gave it power. A short is where you would be popping fuses.

[geolemon]

Well...
As "electrical knowledge" goes -
I certainly believe I've got the wherewithall that if I had been the one installing the amp - there wouldn't have been any issues.

However... cracking open an amp, and diagnosing a complicated circuit requires much more specialized Electrical Engineering expertise that I unfortunately don't have...
...simply eyeballing for blackened components I don't think is the best strategy.

[Drkodin]

Originally posted by AustinKP@Jul 17 2004, 08:37 AM
Well, which one was it? Isn't that an oxymoron? An open is where there are no wires touching, thus nothing would happen when you gave it power. A short is where you would be popping fuses.

Quoted post

lol, i don't know what i was thinking, more than likely I said that because i was brain dead at work .

anywho, what i was trying to say was that the power supply shorted out but at teh same time "opened" from the rest of the amp. Basicly i lost the PS before the amp was hurt which is what i bet happened to the Orion.

[geolemon]

Originally posted by Drkodin@Jul 18 2004, 07:22 PM
lol, i don't know what i was thinking, more than likely I said that because i was brain dead at work .

anywho, what i was trying to say was that the power supply shorted out but at teh same time "opened" from the rest of the amp. Basicly i lost the PS before the amp was hurt which is what i bet happened to the Orion.

Quoted post

You likely may be correct...

Again, I didn't do this install, so all I see is the end product, and the positive and negative wires were correct when I got it - but that might not have been the case, they might have realized they made a mistake - or maybe never made one. I don't know.

But TO-3 on CAF is someone whose EE expertise I trust, having audio amplifier experience, and his guess also was that the power supply was shot.

If that's the case, a few components may need to be replaced, and we'll be back in business... but I need to find somewhere/someone that I can trust to perform the repair. My friend paid quite a bit for this amp (compared to what a class D amp of 500w could be had for today), so I feel really bad that he's going to have to shell out more to get it working.