First I would just like to say, great site, been a lurker for years now. But I need your help. Ive searched this topic but really couldnt find what I was looking for. If I were to run a car amp then power it with a PSU. What would I connect the remote to? I was thinking the 5v rail but I didnt know for sure. Also when it comes to turning the PSU on, would I just connect the green and a random ground wire to short it out. I know that will turn it on with no motherboard connect but didnt know if I needed to do something special in this case.
I'm pretty sure it takes 12v to turn the remote on - the manual for my amp says if you don't have a remote line just splice a line in to the +12v ACC line in your car so in this case i'm pretty sure you could just grab almost any 12v line. However I have also tried this (amp with a PC PSU) and found it works much better if you just use a car battery instead The variation in the current being pulled by an amp seems to mess with the PSU or something. Also consider that you're probably not going to get much more than 30A @ 12v out of a PSU, giving 360w.... whether or not that's a lot in your system IDK, but for many it's not much
also a car battery provides nice clean power wheas a switching mode powersuply has all kinds of crap coming thorugh it unless it's very well designed (and even then it can't ever be as good as a battry). Just listen to the power rails of your power supply with a crytle ear peice to hear what I mean
Last time I wired up a car amp to a computer I used a bog stardard 12v DC adapter for the ground/12v in, then ran a 12v rail and a ground to the amp for remote/ground. This seemed to run fine for ages, only problem I had was that I had to turn the Line out right down in windows otherwise the amp would shut itself off due to them needing low level input. Basically, turn your volume too high in windows and your gonna make the amp overload and turn itself off.
Hi mate, am guessing you want to run a pc? This is what i am doing. Here some info. When starting your engine you get 9-14v, so this is not constant on crack. The voltage is also un-regualted. Your best bet is to buy a special carpc power supply: http://linitx.com/ http://www.customcarcomputers.co.uk/ http://www.cartft.com/ I have one called M2-ATX. To power an amp, the remote from amp needs 12v. If this was direct to battery, your battery will be flat in a few days!! Dont do that. This remote should be from your HU (head unit) remote. So when your head unit is turned on, the remote gets 12v and the amp comes on. You could do would i did and place a switch in between the HU remote and amp. This way you can have he HU running, and control weather you want the amp on or not. If you dont want to the remote from you hu, use remote from your igintion. This is what the HU uses. See my page for more info http://www.m-i-t.co.uk/carpc.html Also tonnes of info on: http://www.digital-car.co.uk/ (UK) More friendly - Am also on there ) http://www.mp3car.com/ (USA)
why don't u add a large capacitror to the 12V socket line that connects to the computer to add a regulated power so the voltage won't spike unnoticebly. *dremel time*
If thats the case then read this: http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/faq-emporium/84681-faq-how-do-i-power-my-dc-dc-psu-my-workbench.html In short you need to short pins 13 & 14 from your main PSU connector. This will then allow the power from the molex to work. Use the yellow and the black wire next to it. Yellow - 12v GND Red - 5v GND I have done this for testing at home.
I tested it on a 350w q-tec psu once, wasnt a very powerful amp, around 150-170rms Worked fine on low volumes, anything higher it just seemed to turn off? Wiring it up is easy though, remote wire to +12v and same with the battery terminal
The way I ended up using a car amp with the computer was to run the sound cards line out to the aux input of a stereo, then run from stereo to amp. Then you just make sure to keep the computers volume low enough to stop the whole thing overloading
