Is this OK?

[stedyedy]

Hey Folks,

I have had an amp and a 12inch sub sitting around for a while and now since i'm on holidays decided to put them in the aurion.

But kinda taken a few short cuts.....

So basically i have mounted the AMP under the passenger seat, it was really easy to do as you can easily thread the wires through under the arm rest, but instead of hooking the amp up to the battery directly, i have hooked it up to the cigarette lighter power port thingy, in doing so i have only needed to run about 30cms of wire to power the amp.

The AMP only puts out about 250RMS

The sounds coming out is perfect and is a real improvement!

Just wondering what are the disadvantages of doing what i have done?

Also regarding the parcel shelf, it use to rattle pretty bad so i also took that off today, cut and trimmied all that carpet looking material under the shelf and also trimmed back the plastic which sits above the speakers, now it doesn't rattle at all.

Cheers

Edited June 24, 2010 by stedyedy

[eviltwin]

I always have and always will mount my AMPs under the seat(s) of a car im installing any sound system in. Using the Cig lighter as a means of power is fine as long as you don;t smoke or care for any type of good workmanship. Hook it up to the battery and hopefully you have fused the power to the amp. Also make sure the ground is suffice. Usually i find a small hole and shave the paint off and run a self tapping style bolt to secure it down.

It's not hard to get the wiring from your engine bay into the cabin. all you need is some electrical tape and a coat hanger straightened out. Simply tape your wire to the hanger and let it do the work.

Keep in mind if you trigger the lighter you will indefinatly blow the fuse if your using both the stereo and the cig at the same time.

Hope this helps.

[DJKOR]

Personally, I think powering an amp off your cigarette lighter is just stupid idea (no offence intended). If you are going to put an amp in, do it right and run a power lead to the battery. But each to their own.

Not only that, your cigarette lighter is limited to 10A max and at 12V-13.8V, you are looking at a maximum power of 120 watts to 138 watts. If you then factor in the fact that amplifiers can be around 80% efficient, this means the most you can get out of your amp is 96 watts to about 110 watts*.

Go more than that and you will blow your fuse for the cigarette lighter. On top of that, I wouldn't want to put the continuous stress on the cigarette lighter wiring like that.

* These are all rough figures. For the sake of this discussion, I will not bother going into full detail.

[Mole]

If nothing else I'd be worried that the wire going to the cig lighter wouldnt be a low enough gauge to take the extra power, overheat and melt.

Run a nice thick cable to the battery and whack a appropriate fuse on it, even for a weenie little amp like that.

[Steven]

Another risk present in that if your current draw is exceeding what the factory wiring is up to (unlikely as you should have blown a fuse by this stage), then you are "choking" your amplifier and risk burning it out.

Once you start down the dark dodgy path, forever will it reflect itself on your car.... I sense much laziness in you

:P

[stedyedy]

Thanks for the replies guys, its only a temporary thing, will head out soon and buy a fuse and a thick power cable and run it from the battery

[Freddo]

yeh i hope its temporary! hahaha

even 16 guage will be 10x better than stock. but when u do wire it 8 guage should be plenty.

[stedyedy]

Hey again guys

I went and picked up a wiring kit, so its wired up correctly now :)

Now i decided to hook the four 6x9's up to an amp aswell

But the only problem is that my headunit only has L and R audio out, so i have split that L and R so that i can run the 4 speakers plus the sub.

It sounds pretty decent but once the headunit turns on there is a bit of static coming from the speakers, and also there is slight engine wine coming through the speakers aswell

Would it be better to wire up the high input selection on the amp and use the L & R our for the SUB

Cheers

[stedyedy]

Ok been thinking about this for a while now

What do you guys reckon the best option would be

taking note my headunit only has a Left and Right RCA out

1.Split those 2 RCA's to run the sub and the 4 speakers, (won't have any control over over the 6x9's from the headunit then)

2.Run the sub of the two RCA's and run the speakers using the high input selection on the amp

3.Install a 2nd headunit under the A/C controls, which would be used for music, and use the main headunit for GPS and Watching DVD's etc(But how would i get sound to come out of the speakers from both headunits)

Cheers

[DJKOR]

If I had to work with what I got, I would just choose to split the two RCA's. It will make for some loss, but it would be marginally less than using the high-to-low level converter.

[stedyedy]

If I had to work with what I got, I would just choose to split the two RCA's. It will make for some loss, but it would be marginally less than using the high-to-low level converter.

Yea i think i'll go with that

just one more thing

As soon as the headunit powers up there is a constant shhhhhhhhhhh noise coming from the speakers.

any ideas what could be causing this?

Cheers