wire gauge question, please help

[SuckMikeHawk23 10+ year member]

i just upgraded my amp to a fosgate 800.2 and i understand that i need at least 4awg wire to run this sufficiently. however, i already have 8awg wire installed and wont have money for about a month or so to go get myself some 4awg wire. my question is, what is this going to do to my system in general, and what harm is it going to do, if any? thanks

Click to read more...

 

[markab]

I'd love to know to, as I am in nearly the same bind.

 

[mykeys 10+ year member]

If that is the only amp you are running off the 8 awg it will work, BUT.

You are going to have current problems.. the amp is going to try and draw more than the wire can handle..You can keep the gain very low and not turn the volume up to help with this.. otherwise you can not only cause the wire to get hot, but may also become a fire hazard to your car and equipment.. Another problem may be after heavy bass lines your subs will seem to fade out due to lack of sufficient power to the amp..

Mike

 

[SuckMikeHawk23 10+ year member]

thanks for the reply. i have one more question. will the lack of heavy bass due to the lack of current harm my subwoofers in any way? and will it harm my amp in any way? i plan on rewiring in about 2-3 weeks. how much drainage will this due to my battery? thanks.

 

[Unregistered]

You should also know that it is better for your subs to have more power than less power. A fosgate 800.2 is a very hefty amp and will draw all of the power that you can give it. It is like a fat kid in a candy store. Just be shure not to push your amp so hard that it starts to distort your speakers. I have had many systems and have never blown a sub. For the longest time most people have thought that it is shear power that blows your speakers, But that is not entirely true. Distortion is a sound made when you take to much info and try to make a sub compute all of this at the same time. This soon leads to voice coil breakdown. The main answer to your question is: If the speakers start to distort, turn it down a little. You will see that you will not have this problem as much if you adjust your crossover and also add your 4 awg wire.

corbrat@hotmail.com

 

[maylar 10+ year member]

8 gage wire is good to about 40 amps, which is half of what an 800 watt amp would draw on peaks. The good news is that music has about an 8:1 peak-to-average duty cycle, so unless you listen to pure sine waves the wire won't get hot enough to be a safety problem.

The real problem is if you crank it to full power, the voltage drop in the wire will starve the amp and make its power supply work harder and get hotter. It could also distort on the peaks, which isn't healthy for the subs. You'll probably know when you get to that point, cuz it'll sound like crap.

drc

 

[n2audio 5,000+ posts]

First of all, 8 ga wire shouldn't cause you any fire hazards IF you make SURE you have an in-line fuse at the battery.

Something no one has mentioned to you though...How long is your 8 ga wire? If it's around 10' it will provide about 80 amps. If it's a little longer, maybe 15', it will give you more like 60.

800 x 2(for peaks) = 1600w/13.8v = 115A

115A would be the absolute maximum current that amp will draw at any given moment. So I would agree that at high volumes and low frequencies you may have significant voltage drops due to your wire. However, you should be fine temporarily, especially if your wire is fairly short. Just be SURE to have a 60 or 80 amp fuse at the battery.

 

[SuckMikeHawk23 10+ year member]

thanks to all those who replied, it was a great help to me. i ordered a 4 gauge amp kit yesterday, does it really matter what brand i get? i mean, is lightning audio, stinger, or fosgates wires any better than just any normal joe blow wires? i currently have a 60 amp fuse in my fuse holder, but i think my new amp kit comes with an 80, so i'll obviously swap that. thanks again.

 

[n2audio 5,000+ posts]

Nope, wire's wire. Especially power cable. The only thing I know of that the name brand stuff will give you that the cheap stuff might not is physical flexibility, but some of the cheap stuff is very flexible as well.