AUX Battery -> Amp = dimming lights
Hey guys,
So I have a 2002 E250 Quigley 4x4 Converted, hard hightop van. ( I know not SMB but hoping some leads could help here)
Used to be a wheelchair bus out in Massachusetts.
The previous owner purchased it from the local transit authority and went ahead and removed lots of stuff. All seats, lift, strobe lights, any radio or door connections in the front.
I didn't realize I had an AUX battery, I thought he removed it until I saw a red wire sticking out of my floor and it sparked when it touched some metal I was moving.
I had been wanting to install my amp and subwoofers for a while, and figured I should be able to run it to this battery. I did. I ran a Kenwood KAC-7201 with two tens for a while and it ran fine. I didn't notice anything wacky, no turning off, no dimming of lights, and I was able to play it at loud volumes. I listen to a lot of Drum and Bass, tech house, house music etc.
I do some VJ-ing (Visual Jockey) and projection mapping, so I wanted to install an Inverter somewhere in the van to be able to plug projector + laptop to go projection bombing wherever /whenever we wanted.
I installed a power distributor that had 2 inputs and 8 outputs. I ran an inline fuse before hitting the distributor from the aux battery. And then ran the three power wires to each device. the amplifier , one 500w inverter (this inverter only has a pos and neg connection), and one 900w inverter. this inverter i see has a positive, neg, and ground connection)
Now, I think this is one place where I messed up. I ran the ground from the chassis into the 2nd input of the distributor. And then ran a ground to the amp, and then the grounds into the negative connections on the inverters. The 900w doesn't currently have the ground connection, connected to anything.
I switched the subs from 2 10's, to one sony 15 inch. And ran the amp in bridged mode "460 watts RMS x 1 bridged output at 4 ohms"
Sub is 400w RMS @ 4ohm
So in just driving around blasting music, I notice the amp just turns off. Not sure if it's going into protect mode, or just not getting any juice. The amp doesn't have a light or indicator that it is in fact in protect mode. I just have a blue light that indicates it's on, or off.
Also notice at night when the headlights are on, the bass really really really dims the lights.
Now, we plugged in the projector and laptop to the smaller inverter and we got something going. We kept the van idling while we did this. Now when we put the music up even a little, and the sub tried to hit any bass note, the inverter would shut off.
If you've read this far, I appreciate you. I've been reading on the way the batteries are wired for the gas vans. and I feel like could this be a dead AUX battery? a bad ground somewhere? but then I've read that maybe the AUX Battery relay could be bad and not allowing for the battery in the back to charge?
And I also thought of rerouting the negative wires from the inverter to the actual battery terminal, rather than into the ground distribution block. This should be done anyway. But I've been reading different takes on negative and ground.
The van does have an intellitec battery guard and looks like the braun circuit sentry 100A circuit breaker still installed. not sure if this has anything to do with what is happening back there.
Right now I'm playing music and It's cutting off randomly. The only thing I've connected to the inverter while driving has been a USB for an iphone as I quarantine my girlfriend to the back of the van for the time being.
Thank you for any help!
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