10 inch subs and amp Question

[f1502rngr]

I just wanted a plain jane inexpensive system with little bass. I bought a sub box that would fit my 98 Ford Extended Cab F250 under the bench seats. My amp is a Total Mobile T3202 and I bought some simple speakers that a friend actually had in his truck and sounded decent enough for me, they are from Pep Boys, 10 inch SPX Subs single voice coil. I installed the speakers and then took 16AWG speaker wire and connected them in Parallel to get 2 ohms. I tested my amp on my sons car because his car is wired for a serious setup so the power/ground/REM and RCA cables were there for me. I started out low and they sounded great, but when my son went to vol 10, his 40amp fuse blew (the main wire fuse at the battery end), I thought it was the amp, so I reconnected his amp (a Rockford\Fosgate) and disconnected his speakers and connected mine, replaced the fuse, then everything is great until vol 10, the main fuse again!! So i reconnect his speakers back up and replace yet the fuse again, vol 10 nothing, vol 20 I am screaming to turn it down, all that bass!!!! Should I just wire these subs individually and not bridge the amp? I just want slight bass to where there is a nice sound system in my truck.
Thanks!!

 

[Loud Ranger]

you wont be able to run the subs parallel and with the amp bridged at the same time. 2ch amp usually will only handle >4ohms bridged. you can either run them parallel on one channel or seperate on each channel. You could also run wire the subs in series for a 8 ohm load and bridge the amp. if you had 2x 2ohm single voice coil subs it would be a much better match for a 2 channel amp.

 

[f1502rngr]

Thanks for the quick reply LR!! Let me see if memory serves me correctly, to go series is Left speaker "-" to Right speaker "+", then Left speaker "+" to "+" on amp (bridge) and Right Speaker "-" to "-" amp Bridge. And that should give me 4ohms, correct?

 

[Loud Ranger]

correct for the most part, except you would be running a 8ohm final load not 4.

But either way you wont get full power from that combonation.

you can run bridged at 8ohms instead of 4 so you will be running about 1/2 power,

or run each sub on its own channel with a 4 ohm load on each channel which would also only get you about half of its rated power since each channel can safety run at 2 ohm

or run both subs in parallel on one channel so you would only be using half the amp.

Which ever way you choose will end up about the same but try em out each way if you get bored, you may like 1 config over the other.

 

[f1502rngr]

What set of speakers would you recommend to do a 2 ohm load bridged? Maybe in the future I will change, but doubt it.

 

[Loud Ranger]

basically any set of 2 ohm single voice coil subs will get you to a 4 ohm load wired in series,
or a set of 8 ohm svc wired in parallel,
or 2x 2ohm dvc subs, many ways to do it but id get the dvc subs so you would have more options if you change amps

But there is nothing wrong with running at 1/2 power i just wanted to make sure you knew you wouldnt be running at 100% with that setup.

 

[f1502rngr]

Hey Loud Ranger, thanks for the reply. Why would the main line fuse blow in this case? I figured the load would have blown on of the two fuses on the amp itself.

 

[Loud Ranger]

Hey Loud Ranger, thanks for the reply. Why would the main line fuse blow in this case? I figured the load would have blown on of the two fuses on the amp itself.

I would think you would blow one of the amps fuses first running it too hard (bridged @ 2 ohms) but im thinking its just trying to pull to much through that 40a for too long and is popping it.

how big are the onboard fuses on the amp?

 

[f1502rngr]

There are two separate fuses, 20A each.