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HHR Ed

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Posts posted by HHR Ed

  3. how to get more power

    in Electrical-battery- Alternators- Wiring

    Posted

    nathan said not to run XS with other brands, in reality it shouldn't be done anyway. But we need to know what amps, ohm load, vehicle alt specs, etc, before telling you anything.

    Actually Nathan said running XS with other brands is not preferred but is possible.

    You DO NOT want to run XS or any AGM batteries with a battery of a different type or chemistry. Example, a wet cell die hard will not mix with a XS agm type.

    It is not ideal but Optima and XS batts can be compatible.

  4. how to get more power

    in Electrical-battery- Alternators- Wiring

    Posted

    And just as a general tip. here are several ways to keep your voltage maintained as high as possible.

    1. Upgrade size of wire on strength of connections from Alternator to Battery and Frame ground. As well as from the battery to the Audio components. This is sometimes called the "Big 3"

    2. Reduce the length of all power wire and grounds to the amplifiers, sometimes people leave extra wire tucked under carpets because they think they may need it someday. This reduces the current capacity of the wire. Cut it to length.

    3. Properly tune your amplifiers. Gains turned up too much not only add distortion, but they cause the amps to draw more current and run less efficient.

    4. Keep your batteries charged. Batteries can be depleted over time. For the last 10 minutes of a car ride, it may be wise to turn down/off your stereo to let the alternator top off the batteries. Or plug in a charger in your driveway/garage.

  6. How much power do I need?

    in Electrical-battery- Alternators- Wiring

    Posted

    I'm wondering, how do you know how much battery/alt power (amps or ah) you need to sufficiently supply a certain amplifier?

    I'm actually uploading a video on youtube that will explain this.

    XS Power gives a good wattage rating on their batts. You can use that as a guide and figure the alternator size required by the batteries you need to charge. Though you may be limited on alt size.

    General idea is that the MAX amps of a batt can translate to it's wattage capabilities. At least in a short time frame. It will be important to have a proper alt to keep that battery charged as the amplifiers are draining them.

    Example, a XS Power D3100 has a max amperage rating of 5000A. This is a short burst rating.

    XS Power rates it at 5000w capability. Notice this is NOT amperage times voltage.

    This is based off of a longer period of load time.

    If you take into account amplifier efficiency and other losses in the system. You can get a realistic 4200w with that battery while playing music for a long period of time with amplifiers that are 85% efficient.

    Now, you will need an alternator of at least 120a to feed that battery to a charge ratio of 1:1. This is approx how many minutes of charge it will take to top off the battery after that many minutes of full power play. So play at full tilt for 1 minute and it will need 1 minute to top off. Of course with 4200w you can play for several minutes.

    These numbers in the example are just figures based on my own calculations and would be a bit lower if you are also using that battery to run the engine.

  7. whats better larger or smaller vehicle???

    in General Audio - Can't find a category for your question? Ask here.

    Posted

    Sound waves have a length to them. There is a certain distance between the peaks of the wave, or the compression nodes if you prefer.

    This length can be found by dividing the speed of sound by the frequency.

    For example

    The speed of sound through air at sea level is approx. 1130 feet per second.

    Divided by 20hz equals 56ft for the length of a 20hz wave.

    Most cars bass is between 30hz and 60hz. So this means waves between 37ft and 18ft.

    Does that mean that elevation can alter output?

    It can and does to an extent.

    That has long be an issue with SPL competition, but the new TL is not effected by elevation, just your system.

  8. whats better larger or smaller vehicle???

    in General Audio - Can't find a category for your question? Ask here.

    Posted

    Sound waves have a length to them. There is a certain distance between the peaks of the wave, or the compression nodes if you prefer.

    This length can be found by dividing the speed of sound by the frequency.

    For example

    The speed of sound through air at sea level is approx. 1130 feet per second.

    Divided by 20hz equals 56ft for the length of a 20hz wave.

    Most cars bass is between 30hz and 60hz. So this means waves between 37ft and 18ft.

    All of which are too long to entirely fit inside a standard passenger car. So we use the half and quarter wave method.

    If your interior is between 9 and 4.5 feet long, then you have the potential to play these frequencies very effectively.

    Now, in fluid dynamics and the physics of air pressure, we know that it is much easier to compress and vacuum smaller amounts of air as compared to larger amounts of air.

    Therefore, it will be easier to create high SPL with smaller amounts of air mass.

    So smaller cars have the greater POTENTIAL to get louder, as long as you know how to build for it.

    And we run into the frequency conundrum, so if you want a small car to still play low frequencies effectively, there is a limit as to how small you should go.

  10. where do you get parts to piece together a custom driver?

    in General Audio - Can't find a category for your question? Ask here.

    Posted

    well thanks for the couple people who gave a serious response. everyone else please stop wasting peoples time you make forums such a pain in the ass to even want to deal with. im surprised you didnt try and correct my grammar. but yea i want to say i built it my self and obviously i would make sure the parts i would be ordering would fit and work properly with one and other. I just want to know who or where to get the parts from

    Forums have attitude and character. You have to accept that or just email someone directly to get straight answers.

    For 1 off parts at low quantity, check out fixmyspeaker.com

    Otherwise you can search around and gather a hodge podge of parts for classifieds sections.

  11. where to buy h.o. alternator, and what battery is best for me

    in Electrical-battery- Alternators- Wiring

    Posted

    with your amp it is not necessary to upgrade your alt but it wouldnt hurt.

    It is more crucial to upgrade your battery.

    When designing and building up your system the first thing you should do is upgrade the battery.

    Then depending on how much power you want to run you can add batteries and if you do, then it becomes imperative to upgrade your alternator in order to charge more effectively.

    During all of this, it will be a given that your wiring must be upgraded.

    And capacitors are not needed and may in fact hurt your system performance.

  13. Will woofers move more when broken in?

    in Subwoofers / Enclosures

    Posted

    short answer YES.

    To add some info, how far a woofer moves is also dependent on your enclosure, your crossover settings, your program material, and your vehicle.

    ok. Just curious. They do move a "fair" bit but nothing close to some I have seen online. That guy with 11k on 4 of them in that crown vic had crazy excursion

    EDIT: they are dual 2's

    I was told to wire them like this : I dont have a cc-1 only dd-1 so running each seperate would be tricky

    Wire a pos from one coil to a negative of the other coil. Do that for both subs.

    Wire the two remaining positives to the positive of the master amp.

    Wire the two remaining negatives to the positive of the slave amp.

    Connect the two ground terminals of the master amp to the two ground terminals of the slave amp.

    You were told wrong.

    Well not totally wrong, but not optimal.

    Amps can run more efficiently and more reliably as individuals. And you do not need a CC-1. or dd-1

    And when strapping amps, perfectly even gain settings are much more crucial.

    Best wiring scheme for that setup is to have each woofer on its own amp. Coils of each woofer wired in parallel.

    You can easily gain match those amps with a few techniques.

    1. If they have a slave/master use that and you are done

    2. use a voltage meter and measure the AC voltage on each speaker wire output. You can do this without the woofers connected and just make each amp read the same voltage.

    3. Look at the woofers playing as you adjust gain. Play a solid tone and just adjust the gains until each woofer is moving an equal amount.

    People have been gain matching for 30 years before CC-1 or dd-1 so I think you will be fine.

    ok, If i do them each in paralell can I use all 4 speaker outs? i hate having to jam 2 8 ga wires into one woofer terminal, it sucks. Also what do you mean by matching the gains while strapped? Theres so much to understand, I'm just trying to wrap my head around it. Thanks for the help too.

    Yes you can use all speaker output terminals. Just connect each coil individually.

    I meant that when you strap amps, the gain settings of each amp must be exactly equal, which is much more crucial than if they are not strapped. This was in reference to your concern about not being able to gain match the amps if they are separate.

    If they are matched when strapped, they will be matched when not strapped.

    And if you have master/slave then you can use that whether strapped or not and they will match themselves.

    Wow I never knew that about master/slave. So if I run them speratley, do I still use that single RCA for jumping? along with the other RCA inputs. Right now while strapped, the gain on master is set correctly and the gain on slave is at 0 along with all the other settings. Do you know If I can still use the bass knob if they are seperate?

    Yes the RCAs and bass knob will all be the same. That all operates on the input side which can be thought of as independent from the output side. So your wiring on either side shouldnt affect the other. To some extent at least.

  14. Will woofers move more when broken in?

    in Subwoofers / Enclosures

    Posted

    short answer YES.

    To add some info, how far a woofer moves is also dependent on your enclosure, your crossover settings, your program material, and your vehicle.

    ok. Just curious. They do move a "fair" bit but nothing close to some I have seen online. That guy with 11k on 4 of them in that crown vic had crazy excursion

    EDIT: they are dual 2's

    I was told to wire them like this : I dont have a cc-1 only dd-1 so running each seperate would be tricky

    Wire a pos from one coil to a negative of the other coil. Do that for both subs.

    Wire the two remaining positives to the positive of the master amp.

    Wire the two remaining negatives to the positive of the slave amp.

    Connect the two ground terminals of the master amp to the two ground terminals of the slave amp.

    You were told wrong.

    Well not totally wrong, but not optimal.

    Amps can run more efficiently and more reliably as individuals. And you do not need a CC-1. or dd-1

    And when strapping amps, perfectly even gain settings are much more crucial.

    Best wiring scheme for that setup is to have each woofer on its own amp. Coils of each woofer wired in parallel.

    You can easily gain match those amps with a few techniques.

    1. If they have a slave/master use that and you are done

    2. use a voltage meter and measure the AC voltage on each speaker wire output. You can do this without the woofers connected and just make each amp read the same voltage.

    3. Look at the woofers playing as you adjust gain. Play a solid tone and just adjust the gains until each woofer is moving an equal amount.

    People have been gain matching for 30 years before CC-1 or dd-1 so I think you will be fine.

    ok, If i do them each in paralell can I use all 4 speaker outs? i hate having to jam 2 8 ga wires into one woofer terminal, it sucks. Also what do you mean by matching the gains while strapped? Theres so much to understand, I'm just trying to wrap my head around it. Thanks for the help too.

    Yes you can use all speaker output terminals. Just connect each coil individually.

    I meant that when you strap amps, the gain settings of each amp must be exactly equal, which is much more crucial than if they are not strapped. This was in reference to your concern about not being able to gain match the amps if they are separate.

    If they are matched when strapped, they will be matched when not strapped.

    And if you have master/slave then you can use that whether strapped or not and they will match themselves.

  16. Will woofers move more when broken in?

    in Subwoofers / Enclosures

    Posted · Edited by HHR Ed

    short answer YES.

    To add some info, how far a woofer moves is also dependent on your enclosure, your crossover settings, your program material, and your vehicle.

    ok. Just curious. They do move a "fair" bit but nothing close to some I have seen online. That guy with 11k on 4 of them in that crown vic had crazy excursion

    EDIT: they are dual 2's

    I was told to wire them like this : I dont have a cc-1 only dd-1 so running each seperate would be tricky

    Wire a pos from one coil to a negative of the other coil. Do that for both subs.

    Wire the two remaining positives to the positive of the master amp.

    Wire the two remaining negatives to the positive of the slave amp.

    Connect the two ground terminals of the master amp to the two ground terminals of the slave amp.

    You were told wrong.

    Well not totally wrong, but not optimal.

    Amps can run more efficiently and more reliably as individuals. And you do not need a CC-1. or dd-1

    And when strapping amps, perfectly even gain settings are much more crucial.

    Best wiring scheme for that setup is to have each woofer on its own amp. Coils of each woofer wired in parallel.

    You can easily gain match those amps with a few techniques.

    1. If they have a slave/master use that and you are done

    2. use a voltage meter and measure the AC voltage on each speaker wire output. You can do this without the woofers connected and just make each amp read the same voltage.

    3. Look at the woofers playing as you adjust gain. Play a solid tone and just adjust the gains until each woofer is moving an equal amount.

    People have been gain matching for 30 years before CC-1 or dd-1 so I think you will be fine.

  20. where to start doing a wall build . .

    in Subwoofers / Enclosures

    Posted

    36" height seems small for an escalade.

    that is not for his vehicle it is an example of a 4th order I was thinking about for my self. Just a way to get his thought process going on his own.

    36 tall is what the OP said he had.

    Floor to ceiling in there is much higher.

    I wonder where this measurement is being taken.

    Is this a C pillar wall?

    also 48 seems like a between the wheel wells measurement. To do a full wall you can get a few more inches in there.

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