I picked up a Fluke 36 yesterday and was able to do a few quick tones. Nothing too in depth, just quick testing to see what sort of power I'm looking at as is.
The amp is supposed to do 10,000rms @ 2 ohms, I'm running the subs (dual 2, really 1.7) at 1.7 nom.
This is not maxed out- for the amps or the subs. I can keep turning the volume up but I don't like seeing below 14 volts, and until my charging can support 10,000w with no substantial drop I'm not turning it up more. My alpine H/U goes up to 35, I tested at 23 and 25
Test results:Frequency | AC voltage | AC Amperage | Ohm load | Output in Watts.
Volume of 23 - DC voltage of 14.8v 30hz | 131.02 | 28a | 4.679 Ohms | 3668.78 Watts Volume of 25 - DC voltage down to 13.5 30hz | 152 | 31.2 | 4.87 Ohms | 4744.15 Watts. This was the highest I turned the volume for the testing - just to show there's plenty more power for comps
Volume of 23- DC voltage 14.8 40hz | 130.08 | 16.5 | 7.8836 = 2147.3
There was a lot more, if anyone wants I'll keep posting. Just shows there's plenty of power left in this amp when I run 1 ohm, hopefully get my rise closer to 2.
Any comments, advice, criticism, math corrections welcome.
When are people going to get it that you can not bench test an amplifier with speakers as a load... that test looks very nice and all but all your readings are pretty much useless. There is absolutely no way to measure output power of an amplifier without using a resistive load where the resistance stays constant. Speakers are reactive, meaning variable impedance, which means you can not measure what output power would be at any specific resistance. This can be proved by the fact that you would be different "results" with different speakers (different reactive loads)
I say this every time somebody posts one of these "amplifier bench test" threads but nobody around here gets it i guess.
MS, what could I use for resistance? Not busting your balls, just truly interested in doing things accurately. Those numbers may not be perfect, but they are better than nothing. I never claimed things were 100% accurate, but I got something useful out of it.
When trying to get louder it's great to know that I'm rising up to 4+ ohms and that I'm safe wiring lower.
I'm actually pulling my btls out and switching subs. Thinking about getting dual 1 ohms coils and running 1 ohm for the pair- should still rise enough to be safe for music.
Basebalz, you have a lot more experience with the 500.1s, you think .25 ohm per board would be safe for burps only- before rise? really don't want to damage the amp just trying it.
Hope this makes sense, on lots of meds right now due to surgery.
MS is correct, although these kinds of tests can be useful if just for the fact that they will give you a rough estimate of each amps output if everything else (components used in the test) remains the same. You need to use what's called a "dummy load" which are basically high wattage non-inductive resistors. Or, in some cases, a string of non-inductave resistors wired in parallel. There are a few more factors at play here too, like what voltage to test at, and to be able to measure distortion and monitor the waveform with an oscilliscope to see the onset of clipping. Reason being that an RMS rating at a huge level of harmonic distortion, say 10%, is not a usable real world spec. And if you can't monitor clipping and distortion levels across the board, you have no way of having a level playing field for each amp in the test. In other words, one amp may be able to put out 1000 watts at 3% THD, where another may only be able to reach that at 17% THD. Not knowing these facts throws a wrench into the whole process.
I have burped each 500.1 many times at .25 ohm nominal. i would rise to .7. now for the 1000.1 i had a buddy that had one and couldnt do 1 ohm nominal(.5 per amp) however i think he was going into protect because of voltage.
all you can do is try ;) these amps have a very nice protection board so yoyu should be safe
Brad pretty much said it all. Those huge resistors are expensive as they usually have to be special ordered from a company that makes that sort of thing, but thats what you would need.
Now, i can see the argument that using speakers is acceptable for measuring how much power you're getting into you own specific reactive load (your speakers), but you would still need a scope at the very least to view the wave and be able to tell when it becomes clipped. Without the scope you have no way at all to know where the point of clipping is and that is what makes the test useless.
