first off i already know this was a stupid thing to do. and for the record it wasn't done on purpose. i was hooking up my amp that was atatched to the sub box (witch made it hard to see the lables) and hooked the - to the + and the + to the -. well to make a short story short, what should i do now? is there any way to fix it?thanks for any info.
I thought it wouldn't matter if you changed polarity. It doesn't hurt the sub I don't think, all it does is changes the direction the sub fires. For example, if you invert a sub, then you have to change polarity, so the sub pushes into the box. But it may hurt things in other instances, I'm not sure.
Joe, your correct. It doesnt hurt anything. Just flip the wires back and see what happens. If they are broke then you can come over to my house and kick me in the balls!
You mean you hooked the power to the Ground and the Ground to the Power! I wouldnt know what to do about that. Did you try it the right way? Does it still work?
check your fuses. If they are still intact hook it up, after all what are you gonna hurt. If it works you got lucky, if it doesn't buy another amp. Then be more careful, this was probably a very expensive live and learn lesson.
Hooking them backwards can cause huge problems. YAmps typically use diodes to protect against reverse polarity, but you could have fried those and caused problems. It would be different if it was AC, but when you have an amp that's designed to run one way, it causes problems. Anyway, diodes have a maximum reverse voltage that they can handle, anything that exceeds the "breakdown" region will damage the diode, creating excess heat and destroying the diode. Zener diodes are often used to protect against this, but aren't always used in amplifiers of this case because reverse polarity isn't as big of a problem. The main reason diodes are used in car audio amps are to catch anything that may have slipped past the alternators rectifier, causing noise and possible component damage, protection is an added benefit, which is why the most exotic methods for handling a large amount of reverse current aren't used. Anywho, you probably fried a diode and possibly other components as after a diode fails, all reverse current will pass to transistors, etc. You can always try another fuse and test the amp, but I'm guessing you damaged it.