chunkotron

OK, I have some problems. The main issue is that my amp is draining my battery. The secondary issue is maybe my right channel isn't working.

Problem 1. When the car is completely off, my amp draws 400 mA. The on/off led on the amp is completely off. When I turn my car (and headunit) on, it draws about 1000 mA. The on/off led is green. The amp's power is direct from the battery and there is no short in the power line.

Is there something wrong with my amp, or is this to be expected? the 400mA draw is draining my battery and I have to jumpstart my car if I haven't driven in a couple of days. I was thinking it might be a defective remote line, but the remote seems to work vis-a-vis the green led that lights up whenever the remote input is live.

Problem 2: When the amp is on, I can get a signal to the left speaker out but not the right speaker out. Is there a switch on the amp that controls that (perhaps both outputs on my amp is bridged to the left channel). that's my guess b/c when I remove the left channel input and feed the amp only the right channel, the left channel output still maintains a voltage while the right channel output has no voltage across it.

thanks for all your help.

IShift@9v1

Many high current amps of quality have numerous caps inside of them to help perform the demands of a high output system. Its not likely that the amps caps are starving so much as to kill your battery, but a small current draw isnt out of the ordinary. The simple answer would be your battery could be on its way out...have you had it and your alternator tested? As long as the remote line is below 10 or so volts, the amp should be off...disconnect the 12v and remote lines temp. and see if your battery still dies.

Problem 2) So you're saying your left speaker plays, but not the right when the amp is on. Your problem 2 paragraph is really confusing, I dont think you are using the correct terminology to describe what you are doing, but...if you can do either of these two things you have a bad output channel:

1) leave the rcas plugged in as normal and swap the left speaker wires with the right speaker wires on the amp. If the left speaker still plays, then the right speaker could either be disconnected or not working altogether. If the right speaker now plays and the left doesnt you most likely have a bad output channel on the amp. This is if you have a two channel amp wired in stereo.

2) leave everything the way it is completely hooked up with the right speaker still not playing...unplug the rcas and plug the right channel rca into the left channel input on the amp. If the left speaker still plays you know that you have a good signal from the source going through both the left and right side of the rca cable. If you plug the right channel rca into the left channel input of the amp and the left speaker does not play...you either have a bad rca, a bad output from the source (stereo or line out converter) or if on a line out converter a poor or improper connection on the right side.

Neutered Sputniks

Sounds to me like you need to replace your amp. There shouldn't be a 400ma draw on the amp if it's off. I would expect some current draw, but that's a bit excessive. Before replacing the amp, you might check the ground to ensure it's solid, but I'd lean towards the amp as the culprit if I were you.

This leads into your second problem. Of course, as IShift suggested, verify the RCA has a signal on both channels first, but it's probably (given the high current draw on the amp) a blown channel (and that's likely what's causing the 400ma draw).