| little_one_der |
Okay, so tomorow i'm heading off to visions to get some stuff so i can finaly hook up my subwoofer.
anyways, i got a sub (w/box), amp, and the head unit w/rca outputs, i also have a few feet of some speaker wire (i can't tell what guage it is tho, the wire is about 4mm in diam).
For the amp power and ground, i was thinking 4 ga, but i'de rather go for 2 ga, should i spend the extra money on some 2 ga, will it benefit me?
Also, for the "remote wire" or whatever that goes from the amp to the head unit, what kind of wire is it? Is it "special" and how much should i be paying for it?
fuses... between the amp and batt, what size of fuse? i'm bridging the amp if that matters... and the amp is going to be pushing around 160 watts, i think. where shoud i place the fuse? i heard the closer it is to the bettery, the better.
the amp is a Pioneer GM-X362
the sub is an Ultimate Ux-10
the head unit is an old school Pioneer DEH-245 High Power 35Wx4 Super Tuner III
and the speaker wire i got is SUPER OFC SERIES SS122 SPEAKER CABLE BY Pheonix Gold
help!!!!!!
i need a shopping list |
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| dc2696 |
| ok first, 4 ga will b fine i run 1000watts on 8 ga,the bigger the wire the more flow the more power,remote wire doesn't matter what size it just sends a signal to tell the amp to turn on,and its just a regular 12 ga wire,$$ i'm not sure a couple bux probably,closer the fuse to the batt the better and runin a 30 watt fuse should work good, hope this helps if not just ask and i'll try to clear it up. |
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| scooby_dooby |
| 8guage is all you need man, it's plenty. |
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| little_one_der |
wow.. thank you thank you thank you sooo very much!
so 8 ga all around then? |
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| dc2696 |
| u know it :bigthumbup: |
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| little_one_der |
| :fruit: :fruit: :fruit: :fruit: :fruit: :fruit: :fruit: :fruit: :fruit: :fruit: :fruit: :fruit: :fruit: :fruit: :fruit: :fruit: :fruit: :fruit: *happy dance* |
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| dc2696 |
| actually 8 ga might b to big for ur amp housing connectors terminal dealys,(where u screw ur wire to the amp) so umight need to go with 10 but runin that wattage and size of amp it shouldn't matter. so measure ur amp termanal size or just know about how big and when u go to buy ur wire just check to ensure it the right size, |
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| Mekanik22 |
| The remote wire is a normal blue wire, just like the wires that are behind your deck. It attaches to the blue and white wire that comes from the deck. |
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| Almost |
Not to knock you down or anything but.....
if you don't know that the fuse between your battery and your amp should be equal to or less than the fuse rating of the fuses on your actual amp, you may want to get someone to help you with the install, or do a little more research just to be safe... :)
don't forget to throw a 5 watt fuse on your remote turn on wire as well, just incase something gets messed up.
Use the biggest guage wire that will fit into your amp terminals (should say in the instructions somewhere).
make sure your ground wire from the amp is no longer than 18"
8 guage is about the biggest wire you'll ever need between an amp and a sub.
4 guage should do you for power wire, 2 guage is overkill for most set-ups. |
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| little_one_der |
Props to everyone! Can't thank you enough for all your help.
I bought a Rockford Fosgate 8awg wiring kit, and a Rockford Fosgate 6.6ft RCA cable
The kit comes with a 40 amp(or watt or whatever :P) fuse for the power (i'll try and pick one up for the remote tomorow... can i get too big of a fuse?)
Is it better to stick with the length of wires I get, or should I trim them down to a nice fit? I heard from someone that the less cable you have to use, the less 'noise' you will get, 'tis true?
And as far as grounding the amp, the amp is behind my bench seat in my 'yota p/u (standard cab), can I just ground it to the back panel, or should i ground it to the frame? Oh, and should i grind the frame a smidgen so i get a good contact?
Mad props to Almost, Mekanik22, dc2696, scooby_dooby. You guys couldn't have been a better help. Thank you thank you thank you! The install looks mad pro! I ran all the wires under the flooring, under the door sills then around the back, you can't see a single cable, and the power cable... i ran through a hole in the fire wall that already had wires runing through it, i followed other wires until i got the the batt and i used quick zips every foot or so, it looks soo clean! (It's all about the details) |
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| SplineZ |
trim the wires.. but leave a little slack for adjustment... or you could just use a quick tie and tie'em together....its up to you..
Grounding is easy, just clean the paint off the area where your seat bolts to the floorboard, and that should be good enough for you..
as for the noise thing.. im not sure, but if you run your power cables and your signal cables together, you will get interferance.. People recomend you run them with a few feet seperating them..
Fuses.. you cant really go too big, i thinkt he main inline fuse is only there to catch the really large spikes.. depending on how much power your gunna be sucking into that amp you might want to get a 40amp fuse.. or 60..
James Z |
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| Almost |
shortest wires possible...yes!!
always use the smallest fuse possible...try using a smaller fuse than recommended... (i.e. my Amp has 4 30amp fuses on it for a total of 120 Amps...the fuse I put between the amp and the battery is 100 Amps, that way it blows first, and as a last back up, my amp fuses blow.) Thumbs up to rockford fosgate resetable breakers.... :bigthumbup:
RCA's should be run down the opposite side of the car as the power cables, any intersections of wire with the RCA's should be at 90 degrees and limited as much as possible
the remote turn on wire fuse should be about 5 amps max, usually the amps say how much current they can take (2.5-5 amps) |
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| ChromeDragon |
quote:
Originally posted by Almost@Jun 15 2003, 09:33 PM
shortest wires possible...yes!!
always use the smallest fuse possible...try using a smaller fuse than recommended... (i.e. my Amp has 4 30amp fuses on it for a total of 120 Amps...the fuse I put between the amp and the battery is 100 Amps, that way it blows first, and as a last back up, my amp fuses blow.) Thumbs up to rockford fosgate resetable breakers.... :bigthumbup:
RCA's should be run down the opposite side of the car as the power cables, any intersections of wire with the RCA's should be at 90 degrees and limited as much as possible
the remote turn on wire fuse should be about 5 amps max, usually the amps say how much current they can take (2.5-5 amps)
Dude, I'm quite confident that your fuses would not be running in parallel, that doesn't make any sense. Something tells me you should be running a 30amp line fuse to your amp.
Like he said though, the easiest way to avoid noise is to run power and speaker/rca wires on opposite sides of the vehicle. I'm not sure who sold you a 6ft RCA cable, but unless you're installing this in a pickup or putting the amp under the front seats, you should go back there and slap them REALLY HARD!!
If you're running the rca's just for sub signal you do not have to be overly concerned about a few extra feet. I recommend picking up a 20ft set of RCA's for this purpose.
Chromey |
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| SplineZ |
It depends on the size of your amp... my sony has 1x40amp fuse.. my old mtx had 2x30 amp fuses... both are about as powerful as each other...
I have a really short RCA cable aswell.. it works, and I have alot of slack.. my car is tiny so I ran it down the center console to behind my seat.. You could do that on the truck aswell fi you mounted the amp under teh seat or on the sub box itself.
James Z |
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| Almost |
quote:
Originally posted by ChromeDragon@Jun 15 2003, 09:42 PM
Dude, I'm quite confident that your fuses would not be running in parallel, that doesn't make any sense. Something tells me you should be running a 30amp line fuse to your amp.
Actually it's quite common when you get into the higher powered amps.....
Audiobahn A4125 HCQ www.audiobahninc.com
seems weird to me too, but apparently it's safer than using one larger fuse which may or may not blow, it's also cheaper for them to make and allows you to use those simple automotive fuses to replace blown ones.....
at least this was the explanation I got from Audiobahn and Kenwood.
you'll probably never pull anywhere close to what their fuses are at though, my 120 Amp, Amplifier was pulling 90 amps at it's peak according to the stinger digital cap thing I bought (and returned after I figured that out :) ) |
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| little_one_der |
quote:
Originally posted by ChromeDragon@Jun 15 2003, 09:42 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Almost@Jun 15 2003, 09:33 PM
shortest wires possible...yes!!
always use the smallest fuse possible...try using a smaller fuse than recommended... (i.e. my Amp has 4 30amp fuses on it for a total of 120 Amps...the fuse I put between the amp and the battery is 100 Amps, that way it blows first, and as a last back up, my amp fuses blow.) Thumbs up to rockford fosgate resetable breakers.... :bigthumbup:
RCA's should be run down the opposite side of the car as the power cables, any intersections of wire with the RCA's should be at 90 degrees and limited as much as possible
the remote turn on wire fuse should be about 5 amps max, usually the amps say how much current they can take (2.5-5 amps)
Dude, I'm quite confident that your fuses would not be running in parallel, that doesn't make any sense. Something tells me you should be running a 30amp line fuse to your amp.
Like he said though, the easiest way to avoid noise is to run power and speaker/rca wires on opposite sides of the vehicle. I'm not sure who sold you a 6ft RCA cable, but unless you're installing this in a pickup or putting the amp under the front seats, you should go back there and slap them REALLY HARD!!
If you're running the rca's just for sub signal you do not have to be overly concerned about a few extra feet. I recommend picking up a 20ft set of RCA's for this purpose.
Chromey
it is in a p/u... a quite small one at that!
i'm running the rca cables under the driver side door sill, and the power cable under the passenger side door sill, then they meet up at the amp.... so that should be sufficient right? I opted not for the 20 ft because i would have had like 14 ft extra, and that would suck anuses IMO...
one more thing... the connections on the woofer (ultimate Ux10) are plain old flat copper tabs... how the shat am i going to connect the speaker wire to that. my friend suggested just soldering them... but, um, yeah, i'de rather not. any suggestions? i think i'm going to goto kingsway to check out radio hack. |
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| SplineZ |
You can get those pushon tab thingies.. I forget what their called but radio shack will have them
they MIGHT not be sufficient if your pushing alot of power into them... and you will ALWAYS get a better connection with solder.. it takes 2 seconds.. whynot solder them? :)
Most high end subs have push down holders, or banana plug type terminals..
Depending on how your interior is layed out, you could always run the RCA's down the center of your vehicle to your amp.. it'd take up less wire.. Just a thought
James Z |
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| little_one_der |
thought of that after i posted.. and i checked it out, and if i run them down the side, i'm like 6 inches short, so i will run them down the middle...
okay, i'm also going to replace my stock speakers (cuz they are hurtin), and the head unit is 34w x 4... what does that mean?
the stock 2-ways are shitaki and i get no bass out of them at all, and they are real fuzzy sounding. i took one out, and it is a Clarion SRR1022 60 W 4 ohm
and also, i noticed when i was taking it out, it only had a positive hooked up... should i ground the new ones? and what numbers should i be looking for when i get new 2-ways? |
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| SplineZ |
These are 4" speakers? Just grab a set of sony's, alpines, or kenwood, or sony's.. or which ever you want :) Power output isnt really all that great out of a deck.. most the time its not even what its rated at..
Yea, rewire those speakers with pos/neg wires instead of one.. you can use regular 12gauge speaker wire from radioshack.. its in dash and nobody can see it :)
James Z |
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| little_one_der |
AHHHH THE SOUND OF SWEET SUCCESS
((((((((((((KABOOM))))))))))))))))
The sub instalation was flawless, the amp went in without a hitch, and the components took all of 2 minutes to install, including removing the old ones!
Oh my freaking god... maybe it's not the pro-est (is that a word) setup, but it rocks my bloody world! I almost killed my batt because i've just been sitting in the truck pumping the tunes. (two words "Bass Mekanics")
I bought some pioneer coaxials, so now i'm runing a pioneer head, pioneer amp, and pioneer 2-ways... it makes me happy that i have a large percentage of one brand...
next thing on my list is build another box because i want to install my other sub that i have (mmmmm, two subs) the sub is right behind the passenger side of the bench seat, but holy hell, i want one behind the drivers seat... maybe i'll sell my subs to a friend and get some 12's (drool)
haha, sorry, i'm a loser with some fresh bass! i love!
(i'm a gnerd) |
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| SplineZ |
what vehicle is this in? how much space behind your seats? extended cab or regular cab?
James Z |
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| little_one_der |
It's a reg cab, and it's holding a bench seat right now.
soon tho, i'm going to midtown wreckers to look for some buckets (maybe civic, or ranger)
right now, it'sa tight squeeze in the truck... i'm going to build a new box, something that will hold both subs and be only a deep as the sub so that i can save some space. it's harsh because the seat is moved all the way to the front right now...
my only other option would be making a blow-through box, and i'm kinda hesitant to cut a big hole in my truck's body right now. |
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| SplineZ |
You have the same problem as I do... no room behind the seats..
well atleast if you get buckets, you MIGHT beable to make a center console to hold your subs..
James Z |
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| little_one_der |
just finished designing a new box (that will hold both subs)
does depth of box vs. depth of sub matter? b/c the subs are about 6 inches deep, and the new box i want to make is 7 inches deep. will that affect the sound in any way (assuming that the volume of the box is still the ideal recomended volume)
oh, and i'm also going to port it, so does the dirrecton of the port matter? i'm thinging of having the ports point to the sides but i don't want that to interfere with whatever the subs need the ports for...
hopefuflly, i'll draw a pic on my comp soon, and i'll be able to show it to you.
(i'm soo happy i finaly can talk about stereo eqip.) |
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| SplineZ |
you cant just drill a hole in the box as a port.. you'd have to use the mfgs recomendations for port size, diameter and legnth... some speakers are NOT meant to work in ported boxes.. some sound better in them..
ports on teh side shouldnt cause any problems..
You might want to leave a little space behind the speaker to allow air to get in and out of the magnet area... for cooling and such.
James Z |
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