Anyone use their leftover / extra Car Audio stuff for home HiFi? One would think - by now - the name brand car audio stuff would have specs that far exceed what is considered good for noise, distortion, frequency response et al. 12V power shouldnt be a mountain to overcome...
I picked up a Rockford Fosgate R-150 / 2 at a gamble price; the blue light came on when I powered it up. Sounds good to my ears in my garage system. I'm going to try a FRFR for guitar / vocal with it, with two FR speakers and amp / cab models upstream.
I picked up a Rockford Fosgate R-150 / 2 at a gamble price; the blue light came on when I powered it up. Sounds good to my ears in my garage system. I'm going to try a FRFR for guitar / vocal with it, with two FR speakers and amp / cab models upstream.
It's been done many times. The problem is generally the 12v power supply. For low power systems, you can generally get a supply for $50 or less (ebay, switching power supplies or computer power supplies). For higher power systems, the supplies can easily exceed the cost of an entire amplifier, designed for 120v.
The particular amp I found says it'll handle 12 - 16V DC power. I assume that's to accommodate the racket in a 12V auto power system.
If they can guarantee operation at 16V, what's the actual limit on the switching regulator inside the amp, assuming there's probably still some margin on top? Thinking 4 LiPo cells, at 16.8 full charge, falling to maybe 13V at end of charge.
Worried about that 0.8!
The older Rockford amps would go into over-voltage protection at about 16v. I don't know about the newer amplifiers.
If you wanted to go with battery power, a Li Ion battery/booster pack with a trickle charger may work well enough for low power.
If you wanted to go with battery power, a Li Ion battery/booster pack with a trickle charger may work well enough for low power.
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Thanks, Perry.
Perhaps that particular voltage is just the rating of the input cap on their switcher; 16V seems to be an economical choice for 12V operation. I cant even get the cover off the thing to look inside. I have a 12V 5AH LiPo battery I got cheap off Amazon; probably rolling my own isnt worth it to save a little current between what the amp would pull at 16 vs 12V on the input. I could just buy a bigger 12V if a short run time gets annoying.
I assume these commercial LiPo batteries with the nice, whole number output voltages - like 9, 12 - simply have switching regulators inside, along with their charging circuitry; charge from 5, outputs 9 - Hmmm, how do they do?. It feels counterintuitive, but, as long as it works for my purposes messing with individual cells could be way more problematic.
The primary side filter caps are typically 25 or 35v and I've seen 63v. Higher voltage, for a given capacitance typically has a lower ESR which reduces heating.
Check around at the local computer repair shops. They may have a used ATX type supply that with have a 12v rating of 50 or so amps. I'm not recommending the following, it's just an example. For these, you have to ground the green wire in the plug to cause it to turn on.
https://www.newegg.com/thermaltake-smart-series-ps-spd-0600npcwus-w-600w/p/N82E16817153232
Check around at the local computer repair shops. They may have a used ATX type supply that with have a 12v rating of 50 or so amps. I'm not recommending the following, it's just an example. For these, you have to ground the green wire in the plug to cause it to turn on.
https://www.newegg.com/thermaltake-smart-series-ps-spd-0600npcwus-w-600w/p/N82E16817153232