2 amps driving the speakers were put on a 80A cont. duty relay to disconnect their power cable from the battery to keep them from draining my battery down. The turn on power req. for that relay is .75A, so I had to install a smaller relay to trigger the large relay. The turn on lead from the HU is rated at 300mA max, hence the need for the small relay.
In short, both the amps 'turn on' signal lead and the large relay signal are both tied together. When I turn off my stereo (killing the turn on signal), the speakers all pop.

I installed diodes across the relays coil leads on both relays to control the voltage spike with the band towards the + side of the coils, yet no change.
Even with the volume turned all the way down, they still pop.

Any suggestions on what's needed within this system? I'm wondering if it has something to do with killing the amps power and turn on signal at the same time????? A delay needed of some type??

Not interested in manually swithing on-off.
worked fine before I added the relays.

Thanks

What you need is the internal power supplies in the amps to shut down before you pull the main feed from them. When you kill power to them, with the amps still on, the power supply goes "wide open" for a millisecond (in simple terms!) to try and compensate for the lower voltage.
You can do this pretty easy with your set up. You need to install an isolating diode from the enable line, and after that diode, add a fairly good size capacitor. What happens is, the enable line powers down, telling the internal power supply in the amp to shut off. Meanwhile, the amp remains powered for an extra second or two as the isolated cap drains through the relay to hold relays closed. This will give the amps the second or two they require to shut down normally.

Thanks.

I assumed the turn off on both circuts needed some type of stagger. Just didn't know how to go about it.

I would connect them in the standard fashion first. Then do an ammeter reading when the system is off to see if there is any draw in the first place. If you have no draw it renders the relays useless. In my experience the head unit has been the culprit for draining my batteries.

The diodes really only lower the DC voltage by about .7VDC per inline diode. They have little or no effect whatsoever on a "surge" or pop. Also, since a diode in a "unidirectional device" and speakers must have alternating "bi-directional" current to move back and forth and reproduce sound a diode could potentially be a bad thing for a speaker line. An easy and typical way to protect the speakers from "pop" is a simple relay on the speaker line. The relay disconnects the speakers from the electronics at turn-on and off. This is actually quite common in stereo amplifiers. They are usually a simple "time delay" relay that waits a few moments before completing the circuit after initial turn-on commences. You would have to wire additional relay control to turn the relay off prior to amplifier turn off.

The relay will not solve any existing problems but will effectively eliminate any damage from the annoying pops.

That you are experiencing a severe pop most likely represents a problem. The relay circuit I mentioned above can isolate the problem from the speakers at turn on/off time but it's likely that a larger problem does exist.

I didn't have this popping before I added the relays last week. My amps do drain my battery while off. The amps were installed last winter... that's when my problems started. The head unit was used prior on a different amp with no problem.

If I unhooked the power cables to the amps, battery is fine. Battery was new last spring and was rechecked last summer thinking it was bad. I did a current draw on every DC using item and was told by the JL tech guy the amps are in specs and that they do have some draw even while off. I was showing a power off a 32mA and a 2mA draw for the 2 amps. I have no idea if thats alot or not, why the obvious difference, or how long it would take to drain a battery. While talking with the JL tech guy, he made mention of installing a cap, but at time I wasn't to the point of having it all hooked up, so the popping wasn't an issue, therefore I didn't take note on his cap use reasoning. May have to make a another call.
The diodes are to protect the contacts in the relays themselves from the voltage spike when the field collapses. Probably over protection. Just wasn't sure if they would have any effect on the pass thru circut.

Thanks for the help.

A couple points here.
High performance stuff will never have relays in the outputs to the speakers.
But, really a moot point.
Also, no one is suggesting a diode in the speaker lines. It would quickly make an amp useless.
The diode is put in the enable line, right next to the power control relay, and the cap goes across the coil of the same relay. (along with your diode to prevent voltage spike- many relays have these built in)

An easy way to see if this will solve your problem, leave the relays ON (by temp. re-wire) while you shut off the head unit - but the amp should be shutting down if the power on (enable) is hooked up directly to the HU. No pop? Now, see if it pops after it is shut down - it should not - when you power down the relay. If no pop, you have the cure.

However, as the other poster stated, the amps should not be causing a draw. You may have a leaky cap on the low voltage side of the power supply. If they are still working fine, this would be a good work around since you already have it...If the amps are identical, and one is sinking 2ma, and the other is 32ma, there is a problem there. Though if that is the total drain on the battery, you should be able to go a week or two between cycles. If the jl tech was suggesting one of those big beer can 1 farad (or bigger) caps, I really do not think that will help. Kill the load, not store energy.

FA,

Yes, I understand no diodes are to be in the speaker lines.
JL 250/1 mono amp has the 32mA draw.
JL 300/4 drawing 2mA.

I have no idea what cap I'd need. Any suggestions?

So at the power relay (I take this to mean the larger 80A relay), I'll have 2 diodes,...1 connected in series in the signal lead, and the 2nd as I currently have.

I'll try your test 1st, sounds easy enough.

I agree the amps shouldn't be pulling my batteries down, but since the tech guy said they are in spec, would appear pointless to send them in for repair. No idea what type of cap he was suggesting as that wasn't pertaining to my battery draining conditiion. So I didn't expand futher that area of conversation.

Thanks again. Much appreciated.

Ok, did the test. Unhooked the signal wire from the solenoid and left it going to the amps only, and put a jumper (pliers ) across the power cable terminals.
Turned off HU, counted 1 second, then removed pliers, A little smaller pop. Redid the test and counted out 2 seconds. Smaller pop yet. 3 seconds yielded no poping. This seemed to be about the same amount of time it used to take for the power light on the amps to go out. So I assume I need a cap to give me at least 3 seconds of delay timing. What specs do I ask for when picking up a cap?? Longer delay timing would be fine...5 second delay a sure thing

Also, with the amps off, if I put the pliers back across the terminals, I get a good spark. I'm assuming there is still a charge within the amps. Is this ok? Does it eventually bleed down?

Thanks