Heat behind kc rear seats

ecbmxer · 09-18-2005, 12:55 PM

For those of you that have a large amp mounted on the driver's side behind your rear kc seats, how hot does it get back there? Is it a problem or not, because I am worried about the amp heating up too much and being damaged or even worse, a fire situation with the back of the seat. The DLS amp I am looking at has outputs for a fan that will control it. Turns it on when the amp reaches a certain temp and increases the speed with temperature to a certain point. I am considering doing this if I can find a place to run the fan. The other thing that I was thinking about and is kinda out there, is water cooling the fins of the amp. There are alot of computers that use water cooling so I might be able to use some parts for them. I was just thinking about this stuff and was wondering what people thought. The only reason I would want to water cool it is if I couldn't find a place to run the fans. It would be really cool to run the tubing down under the truck to a mounted heat exchanger right below the rear seats....that would be way overkill though

I don't know what I would do in the winter though...the water would freeze when the truck was off outside. Maybe if I filled a percentage of it with alcohol or some kind of antifreze solution. I don't know what the evaporation temperature is for that and if it would be an issue with an amp.

grunge311 · 09-18-2005, 02:51 PM

Honestly, I think the heat issue is more dependant on what amp you have, and what your running.

After a few hours my amp gets barely warm to the touch, but thats because I am running it at 4 ohm. It is a 5channel usamps 5600x that is mounted behind the seat. The amp is powering 4 sets of 4ohm separates and 1 4ohm sub. This is pretty easy for this pericular amp to do. I would venture that if I hooked up some more subs, and ran the sub channel on the amp at 1 ohm (it is rated to run at 1 ohm) that heat may become an issue.

Or if i had a cheap amp then heat would also be an issue. but as it stands I have not had any problems, and like i said it runs very cool.

What amp were you thinking about getting? some amps already have fans built in them.

rcantu · 09-18-2005, 03:28 PM

I agree. it depends on how much you crank it and the load on the amp.

you amps should shut down before going to point of burning up.

my old hifonics europa VII would do that and that was over 10 years ago so a new DLS has gotta have better technology.

ecbmxer · 09-19-2005, 08:00 AM

Its gonna be a DLS Ultimate A5 amp. I am gonna run the front DLS MS6 speakers with 85Wx2 @ 4ohms and 2 JL 10W3V2 D2 subs wired to 2 ohms total with 500W @ 2 ohms. I don't think the heat will be too much of an issue but I was just thinking how cool a water cooled setup would be in general. If it gets hot at all, I may use the fan outputs on the amp with one of the little 4 cm DLS fans. I just don't know if there would be anywhere to direct the air from behind the KC seat.

grunge311 · 09-19-2005, 08:39 AM

Cool, I didn't know DLS made a 5ch with those specs. I like it, I like how the connections are all on the bottom rather than on the sides like my USAMP.

I wonder where there getting the 50w nominal and 85w typical, if that means 50w 12v and 85w 14.4v or what. either way I want to know what you think of this amp, and how much you paid for it. From the picture I only see 4 RCA inputs, if that is the case you cannot control the sub from your HU.

Do you know if the sub channel is class D? if so then I wouldn't worry at all about heat. If its class a/b then it should still be ok.

bestatchess · 09-19-2005, 09:04 AM

I don't think I have seen a single post regarding rear cab wall mounted amps over-heating.

ecbmxer · 09-19-2005, 09:19 AM

The A5 is actually a 3 ch amp. They make a similar 5 ch amp though also. The 50W I believe is just a conservative number @ 12V and the 85W (or actually from what I hear even 100 W!) is normal operation in a vehicle. I am sure the sub channel is a class D and the speakers an A/B. Alot of their amps have multiple power supplies in them so it would not make sense to put an A/B supply when they could just as easily put in a D. Even some of their 2 ch amps have 2 power supplies and need 2 power wires. There are 2 pairs of RCA's. 1 for the speakers (2 ch) and 1 for the sub. I still need to take careful measurements of the area behind the seat, but I don't think I'll have a problem. How big is your amp grunge?

grunge311 · 09-19-2005, 11:51 AM

Off the top of my head I think its 17.5 x 9 x 2.3 something like that. and with the connections all made on the ends it was very hard to squeeze it behind the rear seat KC. yours should be no problem since its 16 x 9.5, and all the connections are on the bottom.

You won't have any problem. I think the overall useable space is 11x19