Does no one have any car audio? - here's mine

[maxw]

I am suprised at what little content the car audio section has
Does no one do there own installs, make there own boxes, cabling etc?
All there seems to be is a small discussion on PSUs for car amps and a load of newbie questions

Anyway I thought Id share pics of my install as it progresses. I have just purchased an A31 cefiro with no stereo and I have a collection of equipment to install in it

Pics to come.....

[maxw]

This is the layout...

[maxw]

This is the car, a 1989 Nissan Cefiro:




The first thing that needed changing was the parcel tray as it had already been hackup up to fit 6x9" speakers which I did not want:




I made one out of two sheets of MDF:




And speaker spacers out of MDF:








This is where I am heading and I have almost completed it:

[sdoom]

Ok, just did a little drawing .....

That´s the setup in my winter-car , a Subaru station wagon 4x4 (2.0l turbo , 200hp).

I used to run the subs with a GenX zeus , which is now resting until I got my car for the summer ready. In the V4004 for the subs I installed more and bigger capacitors in the SMPS.

[maxw]

Originally posted by sdoom
Ok, just did a little drawing .....

That´s the setup in my winter-car , a Subaru station wagon 4x4 (2.0l turbo , 200hp).

I used to run the subs with a GenX zeus , which is now resting until I got my car for the summer ready. In the V4004 for the subs I installed more and bigger capacitors in the SMPS.

Nice. Its funny how other parts of the world have brands you have never heard of
Got any pics of it installed?
So you found the caps had a positive affect? there is alot of debate as to wether they are good/bad for a system.

[sdoom]

Hi

Yes, caps will always help

The big 1F caps will increase the voltage delivered to the amplifier when the engine is running, thus makes it easier for the DC-converter to convert more power. Also the draw of electrical current is way faster done by a cap than a battery. That´s why the caps should always be installed as nearest as possible to the amplifiers. If there is more than 50cm cable between cap and amp , the cap is useless.

A friend of mine did some testing with a 1kw digital amplifier running with caps and w/o caps and I wouldn´t run high-current amplifiers without a cap.


What I did was also encrease the capacity of the caps that are on the secondary side of the DC-converter, that also helps as the subs draw a lot of current, it´s rather useless when driving smaller speakers, as their current draw is smaller.

[maxw]

Originally posted by sdoom
Yes, caps will always help

The big 1F caps will increase the voltage delivered to the amplifier when the engine is running, thus makes it easier for the DC-converter to convert more power. Also the draw of electrical current is way faster done by a cap than a battery. That´s why the caps should always be installed as nearest as possible to the amplifiers. If there is more than 50cm cable between cap and amp , the cap is useless.

A friend of mine did some testing with a 1kw digital amplifier running with caps and w/o caps and I wouldn´t run high-current amplifiers without a cap.

A capacitor CANT increase voltage.

Well, like I said before its highly debated. People seem think "my lights stop dimming once I added a capacitor so it must be better" but I think a capacitor is more of a bandaid for a inadequate electrical system. I have noticed that most of the people who have advanced knowledge of electricity, ESR etc think they are a marketing ploy and most of the people who think they are good have lesser knowledge. I dont think you can say they are better in every situation, I think maybe there are few situation when they are better but thats just my oppinion

When you are faced with an electrical problem where you might add a capacitor, its not a debate between adding a cap or not, its a debate as to wether to add a capacitor or spend that money on a battery and alternator upgrade instead.

Here is some discussion:
http://forums.beyond.ca/showthread.p...threadid=44291
http://forums.beyond.ca/showthread/t-48038.html
Technical arguements:
http://www.realcaraudio.com/forums/s...ight=capacitor

Originally posted by sdoom

What I did was also encrease the capacity of the caps that are on the secondary side of the DC-converter, that also helps as the subs draw a lot of current, it´s rather useless when driving smaller speakers, as their current draw is smaller.

How do you do that?

[Stuart Easson]

Hi,

sdoom is right about increasing the caps on the output of the DC-DC converter, but this is not for the beginner. The caps need to be of the correct spec or they will die fast and probably take the rest of the amp with them...small, high temp, high quality caps are not necessarily trivial to find and not cheap...

The output of the DC-DC converter is normally a high freq squareish wave, somewhere between +/- 20 and 50v depending on the power of the amp. The cap must be designed for constant, deep, high freq charge / discharge cycles, with low internal losses or it will generate heat and ultimately 'pop', I'd only consider 105c caps.

That having been said caps on the output side of the smps are probably 10 times more effective than those on the input, basically because they are holding more power through much higher voltage, they charge and discharge with less losses because the currents are lower, and they tend to be of higher quality, for the reasons described earlier.

I am still studying the 'profile' of current draw from the amps I've been repairing, but it is already clear that some are very brutal on the input side, having current peaks that are very high relative to the average. If this is a common problem then the 'huge' caps, placed very, very close to the amp are probably fulfilling demand for these peaks, and making the cabling up to that point 'see' a smoother demand. They don't make the nominal voltage higher, but I would hypothesize that they make the nominal current through the main cables closer to the true average, and as such are probably useful.

Stuart

[offroadbum]

MAXW,
Their are alot of us here with systems in our auto`s.
Myself at the moment I`m building one for my old full-size bronco.It will consist of 6 fiberglass speaker boxes and 4 `glass pods.The subs will be mounted in 2-3.5cft ported boxes,the mid bass will be 4-.75cft sealed boxes,the midrange and tweets will be in 4 pods.I have a pioneer head,an old Orion parametric 5 band eq,a caver crossover with holographic and bass retrieval,an old ppi art sires to handle power for the mid range and highs,orion 800.4 for the mid bass,another orion 800.4 to power the subs,a 200 amp alt. and deep cycle battery just for the system and my driving(8) lights,winch,etc...,0 gauge wire to the 3f cap..Driver consist of 2 sets of 6.5 polk db components,4 mtx 8"mtx for midbass,2-12 eclipse alum's.
And before anyone jumps me about so much midbass,your going to have to understand how and what I use this truck for.My wife and I do alot of offroading,we drive the truck to nearby offroad parks most with in a 2hour drive.The tires are quite large 40" tall and 16" wide with very large lugs.Most of the time I have the top off.
But what seems to happen the tire noise cancels out the lower midrange,so I`m trying to overcome that.Now whether this works or not I`m not sure but I think that it is worth a try.

[Warren G]

i visit this forum for diy speaker infos. there are many forums that are dedicated to car audio only that i find more useful since most have separate forums for like amps, installs, boxes, speakers, etc...and has more users in those areas.