Used amp noticed the fuses were both blown (2x15A) so I used caution while I tested it. Put in 2 new fuses and hooked up the Battery + & - to the amp only, popped the main 60A fuse back into the distribution block and instantly blew the fuses. Removed it and took a closer look at it under my high powered inspection glass set up. Found no signs of any direct short any where. Removed board from heatsink, looked at all Fets and saw nothing except a very slight looking light blueish smoke residue near a screw that holds the rail onto the Fet and Temp sensor onto the heatsink. But this was such a slight looking residue that it really could be from anything since there is nothing there that has caused it. I moved onto looking for solder lap, long leads on solder joints, pieces of metal that may have fell in places that may cause a short across anything and finally looked at the actual copper lines on the board to see if there was any indication of hot spots or burning. Nothing again, the only thing I can say is there etching is really poor on this board, there were some strange spots where the coating looked like it wasn't covering the top layer correctly but still not the problem. I then checked the main diode hoping it was bad, not bad, left it out and tested it on a power supply that puts out less current than the fuses to see if I could get some readings on it. Problem is, the direct short will cause the power supply to pop it's breaker before I can get anything done. then it takes 30 seconds before it tries again. I was hoping on using a surface temp probe to see if I could see any temp rises in the components or spots on the board(s). I can't imagine what will cause this direct short without it being obvious. I really don't want to take every part out to test each one. Hoping that someone has fixed this type of problem and can point me to a more definite starting point since this amp isn't worth my time and effort if I can't do a quick fix. My next idea is to simply bypass the fuses and hook it back up to a 900CCA Optima and finding the problem instantly, although I know there is no guarantee that the problem will be exactly shown this way but it will give me a good starting point. Unless this board has more than 2 layers of copper lines on it and may be shorting out across the layers since I've noticed the poor etching, this could be happening if it has more layers, I doubt it has been engineered to that extent, after all it is just a Kicker Car Amp and they are not worried about the size of this device so much that it would even be worthwhile to produce it, but you never know. Any one ever see this happen before with no obvious problems?
One more thing, I have a pile of these Transistors from ERS marked ERS 153 D7 ERS stands for Exact Replacement Semiconductors, they are all individually packaged and have the same look as any P or N Mosfet Power Transistor does. A20 style if I'm remembering the form style correctly. Looked every place for a cross match but have no matches to get a data sheet for them. Could they be like IRF Z type?
One more thing, I have a pile of these Transistors from ERS marked ERS 153 D7 ERS stands for Exact Replacement Semiconductors, they are all individually packaged and have the same look as any P or N Mosfet Power Transistor does. A20 style if I'm remembering the form style correctly. Looked every place for a cross match but have no matches to get a data sheet for them. Could they be like IRF Z type?
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