1 blown channel on amp

[Paul_S13]

Hello there,

I have a Kicker IX406 amp and the right hand channel is dead, anyone have any ideas how much it would cost to get fixed?

Its an old amp but its a goodie and it'll be a shame to throw it if it can be fixed as it cost me nearly £400 when I got it 6 years ago


Cheers

Paul

[tej]

depends, sometimes you can pick up the mosfets for cheap at somewhere like Maplins/CPC etc etc.. other times you can buy replacement mosfets, but the quality may not be as good..

if your any good at soldering you can give it a try, its not hard.. the hard part is identifying the problem, but 9times out of 10 its a set of burnt FETs

[200krisx]

FET's?

[madcowman]

FET's?

Field Effect Transistor - critical component in an audio amplifier.

[200krisx]

Field Effect Transistor - critical component in an audio amplifier.

I knew that

I was into ICE a few years back then decided to concentrate more on the way the car drives, Good to learn different stuff though

Cheers

[Paul_S13]

Cheers all (except Moby Dick )

I can solder ECU's but I don't want to try this myself, I think I'll get a quote from a Kicker dearer to fix it.

[Paul_S13]

Sod it!

No one will repair the amp, as soon as I say "it's a Kicker" they don't want to know so it looks like I'll give it a go myself!

Would a blown FET look like its burn out or smell funny or is it a case of testing, I assume a continuity test or output test would be the way to go?

Cheers all!

[tej]

they dont always look black/burnt, although if your lucky they will.. continuity test wont always work

tbh, i've never known how to test for a blown mosfet with a multimeter, you just have to test them all and look for the one that reads inconsistently or one that shows up as a dead short!

if your really serious about repairing it, a post in the technical section of www.talkaudio.co.uk might be worth your while

[Paul_S13]

Thanks Tej,

I just opened it I assume the FET is the big winding but there is only one in it.

I traced the tracks from the speaker outlets to a long row of resistors (well I assume they are resistors) big blue ones with brown, black, silver and gold bands, would they cock it up?

[madcowman]

Nah the FETs would usually be under a heat sink - the big old winding would be an inductor or transformer

http://www.4qd.co.uk/serv/mostest.html

[tej]

this is an IX404 (I'm assuming the 406 is similar)



the big toroid/donut shaped winding thing, as mentioned above, is the transformer..these rarely go wrong.. after all they are just a bunch of wires wound round a magnet

now, i'm not an expert by any means and am more used to the "push/pull" configuration where you have a bunch of mosfets on one side mirrored by slightly different ones on the other side, however this amp is a little different...

basically, the mosfets are under the silver metal plate that runs along the bottom side of that pic, and half of the top side.. unscrew this plate and you will see them

also, look for any obvious burns on the board or annhialiated capacitors!

[Asht_200]

Good luck Paul. I would think for correct testing you'd need an oscilloscope

[Grim]

paul
i've got the gear to test the amp and mosfets, if you need a power supply, meters, scope, signal generator.

plus soldering irons, suckers etc

Larraine loves it when the anoracs come round

[Paul_S13]

Cheers Moby, Ash, Tej and Grim!

Tej, yup that looks like mine just a lot shorter!

I'm going to have a look tonight and see what fets they are.......