Thread: Car stereo

Buy some speakers to go with it

A 12v charger will possibly overheat a safer bet is a 12v converter thats used for electrical eqiup like ones for battery drills

Ha Ha Ha might help hey

Thanks Wheelin - Would it matter if it were 15V?

I'll leave that to those who know elec better but I would put a 12v fuse in line

Unlike a mate who put a 12v system in his 24v truck and wondered why it fried.

Originally Posted by garfield

Ha Ha Ha might help hey

Thanks Wheelin - Would it matter if it were 15V?

Throw a voltmeter across it, you'll probably find that it's 15V open circuit but will probably drop to 12-ish when you put a load on it.

just run it off a 12volt car battery and keep the battery connected to a trickle charger

Just go to Dick Smiths and buy a 12 Volt Power supply (or AC to DC Adapter) and plug it in. You can either buy a fixed voltage one or a variable voltage one. They also come in various Amperage outputs and are not that expensive. This way you don't tie up a battery charger when you want to use it. I have about four of these for various uses. I have one in my home made Video/DVD/TV projector to drive the 12 volt cooling fans.

Much cheaper than buying a car battery that you have keep charging all the time.

If you have an old desktop computer lying around, pull the power supply out of it. Should be rated at around 8 amps at 12 volts. Although it may not be big enough for a high powered stereo.

I just wanna run say 2 X 60 watt speakers - or 3 max. So how many amps would I need in my power supply do you think?

Garfield,

Use a 12V car battery and a battery charger. Get from Jaycar the kit KA1795. It turns your bare bones charger into a float charger as well. (you can leave it on all the time)

If you try and run your stereo off the charger only ...it will work but the hum from the the transformer is unbearable. The battery acts just like a capacitor and reduces the hum but running the charger on a fully charged battery will reduce the battery life quite considerably.

My car stereo on near enough to full power pulls ~10Amps from the battery and my charger replaces it at the rate of 6Amps. Since it's left on after I exit the shed the battery is fully charged by the next day.

This battery also provides the power for the alarm system so if I lose power the alarm system is still good enough for a week.

Damn... all sounds too hard if you ask me

Originally Posted by garfield

I just wanna run say 2 X 60 watt speakers - or 3 max. So how many amps would I need in my power supply do you think?

You basically have a car stereo running a couple of speakers. Forget all the crap about 60W of 'peak power', 'music power', 'RMS' and anything else thay can dream up to boost their claims.

I assume you are going to have a little background music running. Do what Barry White says, go to Jaycar, Dick Smith etc. and get a 12V supply that will give you 3 or 4 amps, that will be more than enough to make a heap of noise.

I recently bought a 12V amp on ebay that was claimed at 60W per channel (yeah right), it needs a 2A supply and is plenty loud (need to shout over it).

Murray

Those 12v plug pack power supplies will not survive powering a car stereo, the battery and charger is ok until you run the battery down.

The only cheap power supply that will run it is a computer ps and not a little one you'd want 500w plus unit.

Honestly its just easier to buy a 240v stereo "KISS" even a second handy or a handme down

I'm with Harry. By the time you buy the gear required to make it work properly, you'd have spent as much as a home stereo in the first place.

Ebay the car one, or keep it for the next car, and then look for a home unit. With new digital radios becoming available, the non-digital should start to become even cheaper.