Leaderboard

Some photos of the new SMD mini anl fuse / distro blocks. From 2 spots up to 8 spots (4 to 16 spots on the ground/distro bars) They have 8ga inputs/outputs to keep the blocks very small…but i designed a really nice single and double input 8ga to 2ga/4ga adapters for those that want to run larger wires. Available in several colors! Copper coming soon as well. Visit www.wccaraudio.com if you have any interest in one of these jewels 💎 💎 We have SHCA mini anl fuses from 50 to 175a in stock to go with them 😎

We made a BUNCH of 3/0 AWG custom cables for Ron's Gen 3 Dodge Diesel Truck. We also set him up with a lime green 370A Mechman alternator. He did all the installation per our guidelines. He supplied his own battery terminals and red wire covering . . . He brought it by and we put the carbon pile on it. Now, this thing is kinda' like D'Amore's honeybadger - it don't give a shit. The results were mighty impressive. The screen shot I captured was at idle (800 rpm). We also measured the voltage drop between the alternator and the battery which we had the carbon pile connected. The sun was in the absolute wrong spot at that time so the photos with the meters was washed out, unfortunately. However, who would like to guess the difference in voltage measurements between the two meters, given the following? 315A - at operating temp, at rpm Meter 1 - red to Alt output stud and black to case of alt Meter 2 - red to battery (+) and and black to (-) terminals on passenger side battery This is known as a voltage drop analysis when you look at the difference of voltage between any two points in a circuit. Ideally, we like to see such measurements differ by less than 3%. This shows us if the circuit is optimized or has room for improvement. Keep in mind that any voltage drop is voltage loss, and is converted to heat vs work. So, guesses? And by the way, all alternators have losses due to heat when mounted to an engine in an hot engine bay. We like to see that 15% or less under load while the alternator is at operating temp. So, this Mechman unit delivered the goods as always.

Holy smokes its me again. So I bought an old school Alienware Predator case on the cheap and wanted to throw my current rig in it for pure nostalgia purposes. For those that don't know, these PCs were the BEES KNEES back in 02-05 and was my dream PC. So bought a case on ebay for 200 bucks that looked in decent shape to start. Equipment - CPU- AMD 5800x 3.8ghz GPU - AMD 6900XT 16gb RAM - G Skill 32gb 3600mhz HD - Seagate Firecuda 1TB m.2 Motherboard - ASRock Tiachi x570 Watercooler - AIO 360 radiator (6) 120mm EZDIY rgb fans Monitor - Samsung 49" Odyssey G9 Speakers - Klipsch RP15 with a 10" Klipsch subwoofer First had to take it all apart and start sanding for new paint. What it looked like when I got it, Plasma purple in somewhat decent shape, lots of scratches. Threw on some spray-on bedliner to coat the inside metal case black (no more retro steelie) Everything loaded in External Paint is a Ford explorer black metallic Finished product

it wont stop raining here so i havent done anything util today. managed to get some stuff done this morning before it started again. This round im gonna try to seal off the trunk again and fire forward. gonna do a better job of sealing off this time though. Started out making a template and transferred that to wood and so on and so forth. Going to need some trim pieces for this gap obviously. this part was a pain in the ass to be honest. Myu solution will require a bit of bodywork and filler to flush it out but its not bad. A couple of rectangle pieces and a wedge or two with a weird angle on them should fill this in nicely Made the cutout for the box to fit into. The box is going to sit flush up against the back of this coutout. Here is the base the box will sit on Added some side panels to help seal off. i think i will screw the box into these to make sure its secure. maybe not, i dont know. would be nice to easily remove the box but i dont want any leaks either. Box will sit like this Thats all for today. gotta pull all this out again and then put sound deadener over all the holes i can find so its sealed off really good. then i need a lower trim piece for the front will probably body work the front panel to smooth out all the lines and hide the business end of stuff. I may just wire up everything to make sure the box doesnt have any terrible flaws before i get crazy. i have plenty of depth to work if i need to change anything. i only had about 5 hours to work today, so i didnt get much progress but i guess any progress is good lol. Thanks for looking!

me too! ive always wanted to do one. this one came out a little janky but now i know what mistakes i made and have a better plan for the next one! heres some more pics I dont like these corners sticking out, just asking to get broke off. that takes care of that! All finished up. might paint it later The next step is to toss it in the trunk and see how it sounds. i have a feeling my tuning is gonna be a bit higher than i wanted but thats no big deal. i think i want to seal off the cabin of the car and fire this forward into the cabin from the trunk. The lkast time it tried it i half assed it and it didnt work too well. so maybe i'll get it right this time \

had to kinda test how many kerf to make. i know hunter martin made a guide but who knows where it is anymore'='' second kerf cut made it looks a bit wonky in this view, i went the wrong way, or too far anyway. it wont matter once its all glued up and forced into place and shape. thats all im ding for today. i'll gp do some more work tomorrow. i think i shoulld have cut the speaker hole out first but as long as i clamp this down tiight and flat it will be fine. i'll add a second baffle when i ge to that point. thanks for looking

The list of "150db" leader board on term pro, in just DB drag, is about 47 pages long. Just in the 1k class. Most, have 2 drivers, and not 18's. Your vehicle plays a big role in metering efficiency. If all you are doing, is chasing numbers, Id rethink your entire set up. (To me, the Fi btl, is one of the most rad drivers out there,.. i love them, especially for a daily ground pounder, but hey, do you)

Also got my rock lights back to working. Had a lil hiccup when the lift was installed. Got them repaired, and working again. 20220526_000307.mp4

True, TRUE sq, can get out of hand fast, budget wise. Speaker location, is huge, as well as direct over buying 4000 dollar focal rigs. Ive never done a sq build, but, buying seperates, over comp sets seems ideal to me (what ive done) as well as processing, time alignment, location, direction, sound dampening, vehicle resonance at specific frequencies, and such, then, that brings in tools. You will want/need a good mic, laptop/3software, and such, to show you bandwidth, peaks, valleys, direction, TA, and such. (Where a good dsp will help) Source can be huge, lossless files/music is a full other bag of monsters.... A true sq oriented building is super satisfying and SUPER involved. Most say SQ, and most just have decent gear in oem locations, and it sounds ok, and they call it sq. Gear,.. bring money. Most SQ guys, won't run anythkng but class A, or class AB. They are large amps, that make more heat than your generic class d turd. (See Tonys big boy, sq class holy fuck amplifer line, things cost more than my entire build) So, its all up to you, how far you wanna go down the rabbit hole. Cheers and good luck. (I think most that say SQ, TRUE SQ, really dont have any idea what they are getting into, but, if you're willing, anything is doable no doubt)

Hey guys! It's been a LONG time. I decided I would hop on here and share a couple of builds I have going on right now. my roommate and best friend Stephen just bought a Jetta Sportwagen TDI, and he has big plans for it. We started off with window tint (5% ceramic tint all the way around) and a stereo to replace that awful factory bluetooth setup. Today, we built the box and put it all together. I sold him some old Skar VVX 12 v3s and an RP1500.1D I had in my 4Runner (stay tuned for a build on that 4Runner soon!). Upcoming is KW Coilovers, Rawtek full exhaust, CR170 turbo, Malone Stage 3 tune and some head porting. First is tinting. Picking up wood in my Blackwood! No bed ftl lol. Equipment! Design Time to build! Time to put her in! She hides pretty well! lol. Stay tuned for more!

Who cares if you “need” 5gig. You want it you get it. I’d shank my mother for that kind of infrastructure.

Like is stated in the video, I have spent the last two years since we moved into this house with the worst internet options known to man. We live in a forest somewhere in the Sierra Nevada's between Sacramento and Reno. I never thought internet could be as bad as it was. I got by with the local provider who climbs up a tree and aims an antenna at the nearest tower and then charges you an arm and two legs for service. That was $100 a month for my plan and with overages they were trying to charge me upwards of $400 a month! For service that wasn't worth a damn at 15 down and about 3-5 up. HORRIBLE. Then I got a business hotspot plan from ATT. That cost me $200 a month and was doing about 30-45 down and about 8-10 up. I added a Waveform flat panel external antenna and was able to get about 100 down and 28-30 up. Not to bad. I can survive on that. I had the entire house running on it through a very expensive mesh network. It was really the only choice. I was able to game on it no problem and youtube video uploads weren't too painful. Then i tried Nomad internet, another 4g LTE based service that hit off the Verizon towers. It cost $150 a month. It did about 30-40 down and about 15-20 up on it's best day. It was spurratic at best. No way i could game on it and uploading videos to the internet was hit or miss. Terrible. I got rid of that after about 6 months and tried a T-Mobile 5g service with the thinking i would maybe hit a T-Mobile tower and it could be better. I saw 60-75 down and 15-20 up. But again, it was unreliable as i couldn't upload very well and gaming sucked on it. For just $50 bucks a month, i kept it acive for an emergency backup. A few months later my Starlink arrived after waiting for a year and a half (we ordered it summer 2021 and were on a waiting list). That costs $110 a month and just now going up to $120 a month. It did ok at 100-150 down and around 12-15 up. We mainly used it for the entire house (i put it on my mesh network) and kept the ATT Hotspot (a Nighthawk M5) dedicated to my office. That was how we did it for several more months and it worked pretty good. But I was still paying $120 for starlink, $200 for ATT (business hotspot), and $50 for T-mobile (as a backup). That is a wopping $370 a month for total crap! Then one day, the sky opened up and the gods handed down Frontier Fiber internet to my neighborhood in the woods. Of course, when i saw 5000 up and 5000 down for $154 a month (and several other amazing teirs for even cheaper), i pulled the trigger and said let's go!! I cancelled all the other stuff and i am saving a ton of money. Maybe i don't need 5000/5000 but dammit, I am so excited to finally have REAL internet at my house I don't care! Give me ALL the bits! As you can also see in the video, i had to make some changes to my PC in order to achieve these speeds. Most PC's aren't capable of doing more than 1000/1000 and that includes my beast gaming rig with an MSI Godlike board. So if you do the same as me, be warned, anyting over 1000/1000 might not be achievable until you make changes. Typically the 5000/5000 is shared in the entire house so my PC doesn't NEED to have those speed all to itself. But I am on a mission to see those numbers with my own eyes. So i build a new one with a 10g ethernet port. The results were pretty good i would say!

Well that seems to have worked, hopefully that will stop the spam for a little while.

as promised a better clip of the sundown e8's got a good recorder and turned it up a lil bit ,audio recorded with a Tascam DR-44WL going to pull the box and finish it up today clamped at 600w total on the recoil 1200.1 amp.... very very pleased with these subs 427035636_4xsundownaudioe8v6son600watts.mp4

Explanation and rambling below. tl;dr, speaker outputs are high voltage, amp casing is ground. Treat it accordingly. If everything still works, I doubt there's any long standing damage to either device. A bit of heat shrink isn't a bad idea, or even a fully insulated connector. Will tag @TonyD'Amore so he can see this. Full bridge, half bridge, class D, AB, etc are all the same in this regard The rails on the amp are energized, and the amp casing is, electrically, a ground. Full bridge / half bridge within this context only refers to if the voltage modulation (signal) happens on one terminal, or both. But regardless, they're both energized. They need to be. Having one terminal at "0v" and the other terminal at any other voltage would just be like wiring a battery to your speaker - DC offset. negative/positive doesn't really exist here as we normally think about negative and positive.... It's just to keep phase consistent, so just bear that in mind when I talk about this. Imagine both pos and neg are charged to 40v. How do you move the driver forward? Positive needs to increase to >40v, so that the ΔV is positive. So, if you play a signal that has an amplitude of 20v, your positive would need to be 60v, and your negative would remain 40v. ΔV = 60v-40v=20v. Then on the other half of the sine wave, where the driver needs to move backwards, positive would be reduced to 20v, so ΔV = 20v-40v=-20v. Whether this is done through one of the output terminals, or both, doesn't matter for the sake of this context. The point I'm trying to make is that regardless of the amplifier design, your speaker terminals should be treated as an energized, high voltage source. Hell, the large 12kw+ amplifiers put out more voltage than you'd get at a wall socket. They become a genuine electrical hazard if you start reaching around and fiddling with stuff wile the system is on.

This. Anything else about equipment is largely irrelevant. Alts won't stop the millisecond level voltage dips and spikes. nor will a bank of batteries Need led / hids, 2 charging systems, or a voltage regulator/driver for the headlights Just.... If you go the hid/led route, at a minimum, get bulbs that will let you adjust the focal point so you don't have squirrel finders. Or better yet, convert the things to projectors from the retrofit source or something (there are others out there, those are just the only ones that pop into my head).

^^^ Yup, especially when your on a tiny island surrounded by salty ocean like he is because that process is nothing but sped up with that salty moist air!

Sign is up and looks awesome!!!!

Once you go DSP you never go back!

Not a ton accomplished over the past few weeks.. Almost complete with a pillars. Totally underestimated the Fab required.. these are the 1st time I've tried to make pillars in my life. Flocked them, still need to cover the grab handles. Also need to make the cloth cover with a MDF ring, the 3d printed ring warped BIGTIME in the sun Assembled the 3rd & 4th banks of lithium & supercaps. Mounted in the rear and started deciding where to place the distribution block Terminated belden cat6a to WBT ends(legitimate rca's - not the eBay specials lol) ran cat6 & rj45 to amps & processor in center console Installed arc 6.0s in the door

Co2 tank mount. Prayed it would fit kekw. It did, perfectly.

Mounted the one side of the lithium, made the trim panels match the contour or the plastics & wrapped. Also started the pillars.. my 1st time doing pillars so take it easy on me Had to cover the hole from my IB setup - all power & ground wire are routing through this

Sniff a Cross fire C7,. for fun,... .. but any/all mentioned above ^^^^^^ are all great options.

More slow progress.. -Molded the beauty panel into the Cpillar with "kitty hair" & wrapped in suede- 1st time using the stuff, wayyy better than bondo - built amp rack as 1 piece, painted with krylon stone spray paint... yeahhh, I know I took the easy route but no way was I gonna be able to wrap it successfully 🤣 - started lithium rack in the rear, 80ah & 500 farad on each side, big distro in the middle

Honestly I hate those things. MDF doesn't lend itself well to inserts of any sort. If you want threads, the best way to do it would be to laser out some rings from sheet steel, drill and tap those, bolt that to the back side of your baffle, then secure the driver to that. Barring that, the screws I've had the best luck with are some spax #8 multi material construction screws.

I’m not a fan of Kicker not trying to rip peoples choices , if you keep having the same issue with same box same subs that box is the problem, I don’t know the specs they need but you need the right built box for the subs and that means it has to be built. I called Sundown for my 3-10’s box and they were more then happy to help me out . Those subs are rated at 600RMS and because of the box and my good electrical they had 1K to each sub for 3yrs and never blew. Ended up selling to my friend and he still has them. Clean power and the right box for the subs they last along time. Also I think brand can help. I’ve built many boxes for people with no space never had issues but got to build the box . Last 2 boxes were 2 Sundown SD3 - 10’s and 3 DD shallow 10’s for me.

So I mounted them quick to get an idea, fed them from a b2 rage 2500.1 at 2ohm so they saw 2k.. Honestly thought it'd be a touch louder on 2k. Definitely over 150db for sure though (comparing to my older systems which I've metered). Either way, when all said & done they'll see 8k.. slightly more power lol. Did a little trim work & wrapped the amps in a vinyl. The beauty panel upper portion around the port will also be wrapped in the forged carbon vinyl & the lower half around the subs will be black suede. I'll have trouble wiring the amps as it's REAL tight. We'll see 🤷🏻

I LOVE that amp rack!

Hey all, I wanted to throw out a new link to the SMD tool map I have been updating since April 23, 2020 to get some more exposure to this map and gather more data. Likewise, I will link the raw data in .csv format for any future map mods to have access to. Along side this I will show the process to update the data into google maps. If you would like to update your information or be added to this map please do the following: PM @Joshdashef or Respond to this post with a location, tools available, and any additional comments you want to add. Example: AZ Phoenix. DD-1, Term Lab. Will help with setting gains, etc. Contact me _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Map Link _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The rest of this post will be like a tutorial so you can disregard unless your curious what is behind the curtain (one-time setup to create your own map with data) Sign into google account and create a custom "My Maps" Then download .csv file titled, "SMD Tool Map 20XX - RAW CLEAN DATA," from link above Follow next steps below for updating data for first time imports I use google drive to make this process a little easier but essentially you will be manually importing the data (sadly no way to automate or have live data changes show without scripting) My google sheet looks like this All cells that are highlighted are what I enter in from any request. Date/Username/County/State/City/Zip Code/Tools/A.I. (leaving anything blank that isn't mentioned). The Agg. Location is a formula using some if and concatenate formulas, so that will normalize it all for google maps api to show the markers. Updating Data You will have a blank map at the beginning or a layer already created if you are updating data. You will want to add another layer regardless then click import If you use a file type like .csv you can upload it here or use Google Drive to import (easier) Once you have your file imported, it will ask you two questions. Follow the pictures below using Agg. Location and Username respectively. 1. Choose columns to position your placemarks (what does google maps need to place a dot = address/location/gps cords./etc.) 2. Choose a column to title your markers (name of each dot placed) This will create a new layer titled the same as the file you import. We want to change to a different style than Uniform. Click Uniform Style Select Group places by: Seq. of numbers | Set labels: Username (or something else if you want) Done 😅

Just run it till the cabin is full of smoke then buy new subs

little progress today. might work on it some more this evening. figure a speaker ring should give me enough thickness to support the sub. guess i'l find out.

Chief, if that's where you at with box design and build knowledge - I'd strongly recommend against going with a wall. Play around with smaller stuff, get your feet under you, then play around with the big stuff. I think coming into this trying to big out of the gate is going to set you up for a lot of frustration, lost time, and lost money.

Found that the head unit is clean to full/max volume. Set the sub amplifier at -7.5db overlap. I was close, but now I know the head unit is clean (my biggest want) and the board is set with my prefered overlap. Good shit. Gets down ok. Next, is fighting the roof rattles. I want to get into the headliner, put some mass up there in a few specific areas, and i think thatll help a ton. Also ran sweeps and saw what the vehicle and enclosure like. It has a super flat responce, barely losing a db in 20 herz. It has a nice nice "peak" around 28hz, and then again around 40hz. Its kinda acting like a band pass. I dig it. Im glad the vehicle resonates low. On to rattle fighting. 20220523_131052.mp4

I used 2 lb. mlv for the floor in the cabin. Heavy stuff. I still need a piece for the trunk as well.

In a perfect world you might get 1500 rmw to each sub, but with box rise you are getting 1k Max to each sub, and this is if you are wired to .5 ohm (assuming you stay at 14 volts). Any lower and you are loosing rms. Box rise is a bitch. Dont go clipping, that will kill your subs, tune the amp, but realize as soon as voltage drops you will start to clip sooner.

Search for a belt in the correct length with more ribs, like 8, 9, 10 ribs. Then what you do is take a sharp utility knife and you cut the additional ribs off the belt down to the correct rib size you need. People with 3-7+ alt setups have been doing this for decades without issue. Usually Gates Industrial belts (green in color) will have the larger lengths and higher rib count. Going with a narrower belt than what you need (ie; 6 ribs instead of 7) will be less surface contact on the pullies and could cause your belt to slip around the alternator pully when the alt gets loaded down. Also that is a lot of alt for such a small motor, hopefully your idle is high enough or you may have no output from the alt when the engine idles because the alt isn't spinning fast enough, or if it does turn on it will have rather low output.

Nice, simple, perfect fitment. I like it!

Panels are primered now. Primered will be painted body color

whooops broke the frame on this one New frame time This thing is like the ship of Theseus. As of now, the original parts from the donor bike are: handle bars, stem, pedals, chain. New frame time. With some hilarious branding

Haven't heard of Crossfire or Fi.... Ill go cry in a corner now

Bear in mind that many of those demo vehicles are using bandpass enclosures which can load the drivers not at a small range of frequencies like ported does but to a custom range that you can set (usually a full octave) in the case of 6th order bandpass enclosures, so they can be mighty loud with almost anything they play.

You have 706 square inches of cone area with the four 15's and two 18's would only be 508 square inches and your measurements with a double baffle gives you 16.70 cubic feet of space. You would be better buying new 15's with good xmax capabilities to get the windy outcome.

Been awhile guys and I’m laughing at myself and some of the things I’ve said on this build log lol. Feel like I’ve learned a decent bit about car audio since I’ve been active on this build log but anyways box is drying as we speak with its final coating of paint. Waiting on my alternator from Dc power to come in and will be ordering headway cells (doing a battery delete) to make a bank.