Rl-i8 burnt voice coil :(

[sotelomichael 2]

Hi guys, well I've had this Rl-i8 for about 2 months and it was real good. I had a custom box built for it that was about 36" long, but had 50" of port area, tuned to 34 hz and about 1 cuft of airspace. Man was this sweet in my car. The thing is, I started smelling something odd (didn't recognize the smell) I thought it was my engine, but left the car on to find out what it was (left my music playing fairly loud) and then the bass just gave out. I noticed my amp was running pretty hot and noticed the remote wire was loose (DOH!) could this have been the reason my subwoofer gave out?

I removed the sub from the enclosure and sure enough the voice coil was burnt black. It was a single 4 ohm voice coil and I was running it off of an Alpine mrp-m850 which was feeding it 500 rms @ 4 ohm. I remember seeing Mike from Sound Splinter posting that the sub could take a little more than 500 RMS, and I figured that's what my amp would do, but surprisingly my sub burnt up

Everything else is in tact, I was just wondering if there's anyone that can fix it? Mike from SS if you could chime in? I think you told me a while back you had no parts for it, but back then I didn't need it fixed, now I do Hopefully someone could point me in the right direction? Or if there's any info I left out, I can surely give you guys an update if you care to post in my thread and help me out.

thanks for your time guys!

[mbarber25 29]

i've been in the same situation man. i know, it sucks! i burnt up my 10" kicker haha.. i know that damn smell and will never forget it! i noticed it the same way and eventually overdrove it... i put the dagger in it when and i decided to add a little bass boost and that's what did it.. i ended up sending the sub a clipped signal.. oh well it was my first everything.. did u happen to change any settings on your headunit or on the amp? as for the remote wire being lose i doubt it but perhaps.. someone will chime in if that could be why.. good luck figuring it out. hope i helped a little.

[sotelomichael 2]

i've been in the same situation man. i know, it sucks! i burnt up my 10" kicker haha.. i know that damn smell and will never forget it! i noticed it the same way and eventually overdrove it... i put the dagger in it when and i decided to add a little bass boost and that's what did it.. i ended up sending the sub a clipped signal.. oh well it was my first everything.. did u happen to change any settings on your headunit or on the amp? as for the remote wire being lose i doubt it but perhaps.. someone will chime in if that could be why.. good luck figuring it out. hope i helped a little.

Thanks very much for the input! I recently made a change since I was initially running active cross over points from my heat unit, but since I purchased some morel integra ovation 6s I had to downgrade to normal without any cross overs, simply running a rudimentary cross over from the head unit. Hmmm... I hadn't had any problems before, but I think I might have heard the voice coil rubbing up inside the woofer, (misaligned?) and I thought it might have been tinsel slap or something. But you raised good points that I had not thought about Thank you very much for your reply!

[sotelomichael 2]

come on guys, if you take the time to view/read what I wrote, at least respond. 52 views only 1 reply?

[Duran 387]

Coil wobble from having 4 times the recommended port area would cause the coil to unwind, and sending it more power than is recommended would burn it.

[SoundSplinter 1]

Sorry to hear about the trouble. The box is definitely a little big (with tons more port area than you need), which may have lead to some over-excursion which over time knocked the coil out of alignment. Or it could have been a clipped signal to the amp... no way to really know exactly what happened here. 500 watts is the maximum amount of power I would comfortably recommend for the RL-i8, and unfortunately I do not have any spare parts right now. At this point, I am expecting more RL-i8's no sooner than October 1st. I do still have some single 6 ohm TC2+ 8" drivers (same motor as the RL-i8 and Audiopulse Epic 8). Check your PM's!

[sotelomichael 2]

Coil wobble from having 4 times the recommended port area would cause the coil to unwind, and sending it more power than is recommended would burn it.

I honestly had no idea a sub could burn up cuz of the enclosure! I guess I'm still new to car audio... Anyway, here are some pictures of the enclosure and the sub setup I had before it burnt out.

The enclosure will be given to my brother and he will purchase a DD 1508 and run 800 watts on it in his 1966 austin mini cooper lol.

Sorry to hear about the trouble. The box is definitely a little big (with tons more port area than you need), which may have lead to some over-excursion which over time knocked the coil out of alignment. Or it could have been a clipped signal to the amp... no way to really know exactly what happened here. 500 watts is the maximum amount of power I would comfortably recommend for the RL-i8, and unfortunately I do not have any spare parts right now. At this point, I am expecting more RL-i8's no sooner than October 1st. I do still have some single 6 ohm TC2+ 8" drivers (same motor as the RL-i8 and Audiopulse Epic 8). Check your PM's!

Thanks so much for the reply Mike, (and the PM you're a stand up guy!) I liked your subs so much I'm buying another pair of 8s They will run off of 800 RMS from a PG Xenon 600.1 (way underrated amps!) But I have a question for you, as per your recommended enclosures. I have not heard the rl-i8s in person in a dual sealed enclosure, but I have heard 1 ported. I must admit I am very impressed by the output @ 500 watts in a ported enclosure, but I've gotten the itch for a louder system. I'm sure 400 per sub and 2 rli8s would be more than enough for my application, but my question to you is this : With 800 watts to work with (give or take any to accommodate SQ) What would be your recommendations for an enclosure on it? I am very pleased with the sleek slender look of the box I currently have, but I think a dual 8" ported enclosure would fit the bill, but I want to hear your input on SQ/output going sealed. (If you can comment) I know I can get another box made with similar dimensions, so should I got dual ported or dual sealed? (Following recommended cuft per type of enclosure to the "T" of course. )

[SoundSplinter 1]

Most likely, your driver got fried from a clipped signal from the amplifier. Be careful with the amplifier gain, especially if you tend to listen to your system at high volume and are using the maximum recommended amount of power for a given speaker.

Since you're lookin' for a louder system, dual 8's in a shared chamber would be a good choice (or even stepping up to a larger coned driver). For the pair of 8's, I would suggest a single enclosure 0.8 - 1.5 cu ft net volume, tuned within the range of 30 - 34 Hz, with 20 square inches of port area.

[sotelomichael 2]

Most likely, your driver got fried from a clipped signal from the amplifier. Be careful with the amplifier gain, especially if you tend to listen to your system at high volume and are using the maximum recommended amount of power for a given speaker.

Since you're lookin' for a louder system, dual 8's in a shared chamber would be a good choice (or even stepping up to a larger coned driver). For the pair of 8's, I would suggest a single enclosure 0.8 - 1.5 cu ft net volume, tuned within the range of 30 - 34 Hz, with 20 square inches of port area.

Thanks for the reply Mike! My amp has a maximum input voltage of 4 volts, though my head unit has 6 volt output. That and the amp had a little bass boost on, I should have just taken it off