shizzzon

What size alternator or battery should i get? For battery sake- you should match the aH rating to half that of your amplifier's recommended fuse rating. For example - if you have 640A worth of fusing for amps, you will need approximately 320aH worth of batteries. Now, you can get away with this rule of thumb by having a large H.O. alternator. Alternator rule of thumb works in about the same manor, you just gotta take the car into consideration as well. If you had 640A worth of fusing, for example, half that is 320. They make 300A alts but some are impractical for car use due to size and most vehicles do not have the room for DUAL alternators. If alt size was always custom, you would want to reserve about 60A for the car and the rest for the stereo. So, 60+320 = 380A alternator unrealistically. Now, if you have an alt that can supply power to the car AND the entire stereo system like this, I have some good news for you. The rule of thumb for batts in the back decreases. You still need batts in the back but not as strong, you need something just to keep the voltage up in the rear. In my opinion, you would only need 25% of the fuse rating of all your amps for batts IF AND ONLY IF you have an alt strong enough to run everything on it's own... so in this example, it would be a 380A alt and 160aH worth of BATTS, not batt, but BATTS. Remember, when using a H.O. alt, you must use multiple batts to prevent over excessive current from being sent to one battery. 3 60aH batts, 2 80aH, 4 40aH and so on... Now, if you do not have enough alt which realistically you wouldnt in that scenario since there is no such thing as a380A alt, you need to follow the rule of thumb for the batts. So, for 640A of fuse rating, you would need 320aH worth of batts. Now, this is where things get reversed... If you are using the stock alt, you can use large batts or multiple smaller batts. Multiple smaller batts wired in parallel exhibit lower resistance allowing slightly faster charging. However less larger batts will allow the alt to send higher current loads to these types of batts allowing faster charging so you see when it comes to stock alt, the preventive rules are not as strict. Now, if you have a H.O. alt but it's not large enough so u have to go with 50% worth of aH for batts, tend to stick with smaller batts if possible, or at least 3 batts total in the system PER alternator (if using multi alt setup) to prevent over excessive current charging to a single battery accidentally. In your situation- 1,300w = ~120A fuse rating if really is a truly rated amp. You need at least 60A + 60A worth of alternator... You PASSED with 130A. Now, you only need 25% of 120 in the rear(never count the starting battery into the rule of thumb equation). 25% of 120 is 40A. You have only a 20aH battery in the rear. I would suggest either replacing or adding enough battery capacitance to equal at least 40aH in the rear alone. with your electrical system, you say lights dim, this should only be happening because the regulator cannot keep up with the rapid current changes that car audio pulls. A battery can so it will pull from it first. 20aH batt is so small that it is probably pulling that baby down so low it's causing dimming or a quick low voltage scenario. I am willing to bet that if you went out there and played a constant test tone real loud that your lights would only dim at the beginning of the tone then return to it's brightness orat least a lot brighter then when they first dimmed until the tone was over then it may just slightly get brighter again. Of course this is rule of thumb. there may be some instances where u may still need slightly more batt capacitance and\or alternator but this rule of thumb is based on music output and how it varies. If you are goin down the road playin test tones and bass tracks non-stop, then the requirements will go UP.

I just had a fun time fixing my charging system today so i thought i spill some info out there for ya. When you look at an alternator, you must understand it's purpose and how it will safely work. An alternator basically keeps your battery(ies) charged. In car audio, we usually tend to buy a H.O. alt because it will help run the system and\or keep the battery(ies) charged but it's not that easy! There are things you must know or damage can occur to your alt or batt(s)! 1 - If purchasing a H.O. alt, do NOT purchase only based upon what size you need to run your car audio install! BIG NO NO! Why? Alternator's charge batteries, not just run stereo equipment! If you have a lot of aH worth of batteries in a vehicle, and they drop to 12.0v or less, you run the risk of overheating your alternator to charge them back up. How? The alt will be at maximum output all the time until the batts are charged which is bad for prolonged periods. Solution- If you only have 1 starting battery and\or one other battery in the rear... do NOT buy yourself a 200+ alternator as it's not a good idea! The reason is if at a certain time one of the batts is fully charged whereas the other one isn't and is considerably low, ALL the alternator current WILL be sent to that one battery. NO BATTERY CAN ACCEPT 200A+ AT THE TERMINALS! It will immediately become damaged and could boil the battery, swell the battery, overheat the terminals, etc... If you need a 200A+ alternator, you must have enough batts in the vehicle to prevent excessive current to be sent to one battery in any given situation! 1 starting battery and at least 2 auxiliary batteries in the rear is recommended to prevent excessive current from damaging a single battery. This way the charging current is divided evenly. If you are not going to use that many batts, then downgrade your alt output capability to prevent this scenario from happening. 2- Adding more and more batteries to your electrical system can be good or EXTREMELY bad if no maintenance or safety devices are installed! Why? If you are adding batteries to a stock alternator, this isn't good as it will now take the stock alt LONGER to ensure that all batteries in the system ar charged 100%. This will open the alt up full blast constantly for a LONG time, especially if you have more than 1 auxiliary battery in the vehicle to charge. This "CAN" inadvertently overheat the alt if proper cooling is not available to prevent the alt from failing. IF you have a H.O. alt and have, for example, 50 batteries, hehe, you can still be safe as long as the alt can keep these batts charged all the time. The problem isn't one or the other, but BOTH! Too many batts undercharged will KILL any alternator, stock or H.O., due to overheating if required to run for extended periods of time. Too much alternator and not enough batteries that need charging will provide too much current at the terminals and immediately lower it's life or cause damage at the spot with swelling, boiling, etc... So, just because you have a H.O. alt doesnt mean your safe, I'm not kidding either! Proper maintenance and proper safety equipment should be used and installed at all times. I use a SMART fuse block which immediately shuts amplifiers down if they experience voltage below 11.5v, 12.0v or 12.5v. I keep mine set to 12.5v for utmost safety. You can also use a remote voltage meter to monitor the realtime voltage. If you choose to do so, do NOT buy a cheap one. Make sure it can be calibrated to properly match your DMM for visual accuracy. IF you have a problem with your alternator and it dies for instance, you will need to charge ALL batts with a charger suited specifically for your batteries. If your starter battery is different then the auxiliary batteries and you only have a charger for the rear... and you charged them up but not the starter battery.. and it's low... and you have a H.O. alt, and you turn the car on and drive it... you will KILL or DAMAGE your starting battery immediately due to overexcessive current. In this situation, it would be best to run at idle or at 700-750rpm for several minutes if batt is really low and that's it! Any higher on 200A+ will usually cause excessive current being sent directly to it. 3- If your alternator no longer comes on all of a sudden, that does not mean it died so don't go crazy because so and so brand said they were the best. So what do i do? In a lot of newer cars today such as Toyota, has a specific fuse in the fuse box to protect against a signal sent from the computer to the alternator to tell the alt to "come on" by spinning the rotor. In stock alts, the signal may only be about 4A but in H.O. alts, they are closer to 10-15A! My fuse for this is rated 7.5A. So... in my car, the fuse is called ALT-8 7.5A. So, if your alt ever quits workin, check this as it's common for this to happen. Now, i've had mine on there for almost a year on the 7.5A fuse and it just popped sending 12A of current through it. Now, i'm not saying to increase the fuse rating because of the facts, BUT, i would suggest increasing the fuse rating ONLY if you are popping this fuse more and more consistently. So, now since you see how an alt works and wont work if used improperly, you can now gauge on what makes an alt good or not. It's mostly boiled down to heat just like anything else, heat is bad. Cheaply priced alts usually have terrible cooling solutions and are not wise to be used for prolonged periods when Wide Open at any given rpm. Read this again and again because you may not have heard this before and i dont want you losing close to or over $1,000 on your new electrical system and getting pissed for the wrong reasons.

u live anywhere near Kentucky or better yet, just post where u live and see if someone here can check it out

found problem close enough. There is still an image on the screen when it goes out. It's gonna be hard to "guess" whether it's the lamp or inverter because it only works for about 2 seconds now. So, i am inclined to lean toward inverter failure.

From what i've gathered just from hearing others running nightshades, try the following- Sub up, port back, approx 3-6" away from hatch door and make the box 3 cubes net instead of 4.

i bought it messed up so i can learn how to repair them as it's going to be necessary for the type of work i do anyway so i might as well learn now. I'll check the screen now

if the remote gain is not hooked up then do not hook it up as there is still something else wrong

since it's an AQ amp, MAKE SURE THE REMOTE GAIN IS SET TO MAX AND THE GAIN ON THE AMP IS SET AS LOW AS POSSIBLE. After you have done this, slowly start to turn the gain up on the amp until it's set properly. The remote control is a gain control, not bass boost.

wow, where to start. Put another amp in there and see if its any different. If another amp is a lot better, then it's not the HU or wires. If its not any better, check the following- sub out on HU is set to maximum output. check voltage at amp terminals(this will also verify good ground as well) check your filter settings on your amp. Check to see if u got the rcas plugged into the correct output on the HU.

Download away...

I am uploading them right now. EVERYBODY WILL BE ABLE TO GET THEM VIA MY SIGNATURE IN ABOUT 5 MINUTES

I'm gonna start bracing my boxes with peanuts now.

let me know if you need any. I'll give you a link to em. Just tell the entire range and\or tones u want and i'll package em all up in 1 rar for ya.

Are there any other electronic repair or computer techs out there that repair pc electronics? I have a 19" proview 900P in front of me that goes blank every 3 seconds once turned on and stays blank for several minutes, then comes back on by itself for 3 seconds and cycle continues. I took it apart and all solder joints like fine and all caps look fine... Only other thing i could think of is the lamp.... but i dont know how to get to it. It shouldnt be the lamp anyways since most are rated for like 7 yrs and this was made in 2005. I can take pics of the boards if anyone needs to see them.

yea, that's already been measured. 98lbs for birch 122lbs for mdf. I'm going birch. Here is the weight in my car for a 800lbs limit- Sound Deadening - 78lbs Batts - 158lbs Amps - 44lbs Subs - ~96lbs Box- 98lbs Wire and bracing - 30lbs Estimated weight - 502lbs That's really too much weight already but u see the problem

it's a matter of design talk rather than equipment talk. am i to expect a noticeable difference of 4 12s over 2 15s? If not, i'll just stick to the 15s..

the cost not to actually spend any money, lol. What i mean is i have 4 Audioque subs. 2 12s and 2 15s all in the original HD3 and new HDC3 line. The money i get from selling these would go towards new subs, that's it! I'm only expecting to spend a $200-400 on building the box so this project isn't that expensive. Weight is an issue. The subs i choose, 4 12s cannot weigh more than 24lbs a piece. That's another reason why i chose those 2. It's been narrowed down to those and to tell u the truth, I've never heard of clif designs but that sub looks pretty nice for the money.

if u already have that alt, then yes, a couple D3100s is fine.

I've been reading that if i want loud for music, i need to go with as much cone area and power as i can. My limited power available is only 4,400w. To keep costs down, i've been looking at some subs at sonicelectronix and i see 2 that seem pretty interesting to me. They are all 12s. Clif Designs CDNUC12 Clif Designs Absolute VI 2000.4 Absolute That Absolute is the D6 version because they have no current info on the D4. I was also lookin at AQs SD2.5s but these subs are cheaper. The reason why i posted this thread is because i'm being told that running 4 12s for daily driving, because of more cone area and more heat dissipation, is gonna be a better, louder choice that running my 2 AQ HD315s. I have never done multi sub setup so i have no experience in the difference.

Dr. Phil?

you wouldnt normally need to upgrade your starting battery. I'm runnin 5,000w of power and i use stock battery. I see that you didnt mention new alternator. because of this... i wouldnt expect your alternator to last for too long with that kind of current being pulled. You will need more batts than normal because of this. Probably 3 D3100s but the problem is the more batt you add, the longer it's gonna take to charge em all back up.

ok, i found that calc, hehe, it's on bcae1.com http://www.bcae1.com/images/swfs/speakerwi...orassistant.swf Anyways, it says that 8awg wire for 12ft long @3000w is the limit. Anything more through that wire and one would need 6awg wire. For my application, i have no risk of a fire and i would only theoretically gain 37w by using 4awg... so i guess i'm still stickin to 8awg... it was a good short story anyway, hehe

i cant remember exactly where i was at when i seen this a while back... i mean a few yrs ago, the website still exists i just cant remember the link. It was a power\voltage calculator. Basically, you put in how many watts you have available and the wire it will be sent through and the length. It will tell you the resistance build up based on AWG size and length and what the end result would be at the other end of the wire. When running a couple thousand watts of power through a wire, there was noticeable wattage drop even on 8awg wire. Ears definitely will not hear a difference, but a mixture of WTF and the urge to get every last drop.

hehe, you ain't gonna believe me when i say this... but i'm serious. When i redo my setup this summer with 2 15s in the back, the speaker wires are gonna be long, we are expecting around 12ft per coil. I'm gona be ordering some 4awg to 8awg reducers! Yes, that's the proper reaction, hehe I am going to be paralleling the subs at the sub, itself, then using 4awg to 4awg couplers to run 4awg SPEAKER WIRE to a 4awg to 8awg reducer si it will fit in my amp to prevent loss of transmission as much as possible. I was afraid i wouldnt be able to fit 4 reducers all next to each other on an amp since my amps have internal bridging on them so i'll do the paralleling at the sub so i'll have plenty of space apart for the reducers. So to the OP - Get the BIGGEST wire possible.. I'm using 4awg this summer

personally, if you have a wall that is over 2ft and there is currently no bracing there and you are gonna be running some big power in there, i would use 5\8" - 3\4" all thread. If the box can be built out of the car and then installed and needs all-thread, i'd run all the runs next to each other then weld the sucker at all intersections. Lock-tite the threads through the wood, use nylon washers, etc everything you can to make that enclosure as hard as concrete. It's not as necessary with less pressure.