Any way to cool amp w/o fans???

My RF amp is in a pretty good spot that gets decent circulation but after 15 minutes or so of continuous use it will shut down for a minute or two. Is my only option to wire a fan up to the amp?

Do you have it mounted with the heat sinks at the highest point? Other than totally reworking your amp for liqiud cooling there is nothing I know of other than a fan. They are an easy fix, just hook up a relay to your remote turn on to power the fan. A easy $14 fix.

well this shows my ignorance. I dont know what heat sinks are and I sure as heck dont know where they are on my amp. I probably have the heat sinks mounted up side down b/c this amp NEVER turned off in 3 years in my truck.

if the amp is mounted properly and still clips out, try mouting the amp on spacer so the bottom of the amp is away from the carpet, this is a great solution if you do not want to use a fan.

Just bolt a big piece of aluminum plate to the part that is getting hot. The aluminum will disperse the heat over a larger area, not pretty but effective.

the heat sinks are the big fins on the outside of the body of the amp. if/when you remount it, make sure those fins are oriented vertically. this makes for better convective cooling than horizontal (heat rises).

Due to the open area of boats we tend to drive our amps way harder then any car would normally do for an extended period of time. All three of my amps have fans mounted on them and they have never cut out after that except when i was driving the towers hard at a beach scene and the fan froze, then that amp shut down (it now has 2 fans). Im triing to decide how many fans to put on the new tower amp http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=18796&item=5779404 723&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

If the amp is heating up that fast you might be running too many speakers off the channels. This will cause the amp to run excessively hot. How many speakers are connected to this amp?

simple solution.... buy an amp with a built in fan. They're around and are perfect for boat applications.

jason pribyl,
i have an amp in my car i wanna add a fan to so your saying all that i have to do is wire it into the remote turn on from the head unit and it will be good to go?

Yes jake, just use like a computer case fan and then you will need a relay, as the remote wire is very low current and you would ruin your headunit. Use the remote wire for the "trigger" then wire 12 volts and a ground to the relay

I just wired a 12v fan for my tower speaker amp. Go to radio shack and pick up a 12v cooling fan, an automotive relay, some 16-18g wire, and some .250 female connectors. Run a wire from the remote turn on from the head unit into the part that says "switch" on the relay, run a wire from the(12v out) on the relay to the power lead on the fan, run another wire from your positive battery terminal(or come off your existing electrical system) to the 12v In on your relay( add an appropriate sized fuse in this line), then ground both the relay and the fan to your negative battery post(or an existing ground).

You're good to go, the fan will come on when the amp turns on and go off when it turns off. Here's a lil diagram to illustrate it.

I have seen amp covers on the web in the past made of cast aluminum that just set over the top of your existing amps and will dissapate 40% more of the amps heat. I've looked all over and can't find it today but will keep you posted.

Shawn Macking,

I'm planning on doing the exact same thing, but I'm not sure where to put the fan. Where did you put yours? My amp is in a dry storage compartment in front of the driver seat kick plate/bulkhead (not sure about the term). It is mounted on spacers about 1/2 inch off of the wall. Should I put the fan in the wall directly behind the amp or should I put it high in the compartment? Any input would be great. Thanks in advance.

On another note, I was browsing computer fans and came across a fan by Antec called Smartcool that increases RPMs with increased heat, which seems pretty sweet. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

something is really wrong if the amp is shutting down in 15 minutes might be too many speakers or input level too high or low quality amp...

it is a Rockford Fosgate 500.2 amp (not low quality)
it is wired to 2 Kicker DS60 speakers (soon to be 4)
The gain is turned almost all the way down. It just keeps shutting down????

Devin, I have my fan connected to a hose that can take in fresh air. In the compartment under the dash, there's a tube that looks like a dryer vent that comes from a vent in front of the windshield, that's where it's drawing air from, and it's set up to blow it along the heat sinks to remove the heat from the amp.

this amps should not be shutting down...

what is the back ground of the amps & speakers ?? new, used, refurb ??? if used, what was it pushing before ?

is the amp getting its signal from the deck ? also which deck ? are there any step down converters being used ?

what gauge of wire and fuse used ?

Jake, yes you can wire a fan from your remote wire, but you need a relay wired in like Shawn put up.

I agree with clubmyke. Is this amp getting hot to the touch? If not, you may have a bad thermal circuit. If it is getting hot, then there is definitely something wrong. Check the wiring.....maybe a shorted voice coil in your speaker or bad power wires.

"this amps should not be shutting down..." I agree!

"what is the back ground of the amps & speakers ?? new, used, refurb ??? if used, what was it pushing before ?"....The Speakers are brand new, the amp was in my girlfreinds car for a year pushing 2 JL W3 10's, NEVER once shut down, it was in a hot trunk too.

"is the amp getting its signal from the deck ? also which deck ? are there any step down converters being used ?"....Pioneer Premier (31xx), step down converters? (I dont know what that is??)

"what gauge of wire and fuse used?"....8ga power and 8 ga ground with 40 amp fuse....too small?

Thanks! Clay

Unless you want to use a really large fan then a relay is unnecessary. I would think that either a 60mm or 80mm fan would be more than enough, and such a fan only draws about a watt (less than a tenth of an amp). The coil of a relay might draw more power than that!

Overall, I like Rio's suggestion: mount the amp on spacers so that there is air gap all around the unit. This will allow maximum cooling naturally and it may not need a fan. If it is bolted down to the carpet then it is being kept insulated and might even have air vents blocked.

Im suprised that no one has talked about water cooling. It seems like you have somthing thats wrong and that's why your amps are running hot.
If thats not the case and everything is A-OK and you are handy with tools you can hook up your own water cooled amps,

This is a photo of 2 2400 watt bass amps that have water fittings threw them the cool water runs threw on amp and into the other

Grant check the post wayyyy at the top, I mentioned liquid(water) water cooling, but figured he wouldn't want to go through the time to do that.

Water cooling would be sweet but it isnt really that big of a problem for me to go through much hassle at all.

Jason: woops my bad

I figured that you didnt want to go with the Liqued Cooled set up.

I took a blower fan and mounted it in a out of the way spot. Then I ran the cool air tube to the amp location, where the cool air runs across the amp's. I have never had to turn on he fan yet it was more of a back up if things got to hott.

Well that is a sweet setuo for sure! Thanks for the tip!

I did the same thing as Grant, so far I haven't had to use it.

what length is 8 ga power cord ?

Next time the amp shuts down... Throw it in in the lake.

I used to have a problem with my MTX amps going into thermal protection, but that was after hours at high volumes on hot days. I never got around to it, but..... I was going to take the cold air intake ducts from below the windshield and re rout them by the amps splitting the ducts at either end of amps. Those ducts are the engine intake and with the boat running at cruising speed should get plenty of air moving inside the compartment to take care of any heat problems. It'd be simple and most likely free. I guess it depends more on type of boat and where the cool air ducts are located.