Buttkicker owners beware!

[digital desire]

My buttkicker picked up a smoking habit. I saw on a different forum some people had issues with them catching fire or smoking, but thought it was a once in a million sort of thing - until it happened to me.
I was not even driving it hard, normal listening level when it smoked. A nice little flash, and a little atomic cloud above it. My wife was always nervous about it, but I insisted it was safe (I showed her the pics of the smoking one a while ago), and now she is giving me the silent I told ya so.
Driving a single 4 ohm sub, it smoked. No help from the company, they did not even ask for a serial number to see if it was in the running for the known batch of bad ones. They only offered 25% off a different one.
I ordered an ep2500 instead.

If you are using one of these units, please make sure it is out on its own, with nothing nearby. That way it can smoke by itself instead of inviting company.
Personally, I think you should consider removing it. Just my opinion.

[NEO Dan]

The Buttkicker comes from a long line of smokers

[impala454]

dang, nice looking outdoor grilling setup :T

[CupCak3]

I saw many of these occurances (or at least enough to alarm me) over at AVS a year or so about while looking for sub amps. I bought the EP2500 instead.

[Amphiprion]

Someone over at AVS popped the top off his and took pics. The soldering/assembly work was so terrible I couldn't believe it was actually a consumer product. A drunken child could have done better. It was obvious there was no automated assembly process (pick and place or insertion machines) involved anywhere in the board pictures he showed.

I would bet dollars to donuts these are sweatshop produced. I would never buy one of these after seeing the guts.

[joetama]

Someone over at AVS popped the top off his and took pics. The soldering/assembly work was so terrible I couldn't believe it was actually a consumer product. A drunken child could have done better. It was obvious there was no automated assembly process (pick and place or insertion machines) involved anywhere in the board pictures he showed.

I would bet dollars to donuts these are sweatshop produced. I would never buy one of these after seeing the guts.

Do you have the link?

I can't find it, I saw the pictures once but can't find them now... :roll:

[Amphiprion]

Sorry, it was a long while back...

[Dennis H]

Aside from the QC issues, the amp performed rather poorly in Chuck's tests.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=855865

[digital desire]

It is funny how this thing went from an internet sensation to "avoid" so quickly.

I remember when it first hit the scene, it was the a great buy! Now, I don't see how anyone would order one.

Do you think it fares better doing its intended role of shaking couches? That is the only reason I am cutting the manufacture a *little* slack. It was not intended for driving a sub. It just seemed so suitable at the time. Maybe the inductance of a shaker is nicer to it? Dunno.

At this point it might make a decent starting point for a amp project. Hey, I got a nice toroid, and a chassis. Just need time and motivation - and a reason.

[---k---]

imho, I think that owners should have been cautious from the beginning. These amps were intended to power seat shakers, not subs. Using them for subs was already using them for something they weren't intended, and there is usually a little risk in doing that. I, like many, didn't think the risk was that great. Obviously, we were wrong.

You win some, you loose some.

[Gir]

It was obvious there was no automated assembly process (pick and place or insertion machines) involved anywhere in the board pictures he showed.

Actually what they do sometimes is place the components in and send it through a solder wave pool. Very cheap and messy way of doing it, but it gets the job done quicker than by hand.

[Amphiprion]

I'm familiar with wave soldering, but I was more referring to the fact it looked like all the leads were hand bent and stuck in as opposed to machine bent and inserted. It literally has to be seen to be believed.

[1Michael]

I have had one for over a year without any problems. There was a batch of these that the company found were bad and they have corrected the problem and my serial number is not one of the bad ones. If this amp was designed to move 2 pound pieces of metal up an down its good enough to move a sub
Sure they only output 740 watts at 14% distortion but for those of us that are financially challenged these are a respectable alternative until we can get something better. Dont let the naysayers scare you :T