kickass audio

OP: there are plenty of things you can do to finish your box. Since you have mdf i personally think it would look like garbage if you were to stain the wood and then varnish it. MDF is just a pile of sawdust glued together so if you stained it and then varnished it, to me it would look like a soggy cardboard box. You can do what newls1 showed but it does take a lot of bondo, sanding, preperation, time and patience to do. Another thing you could try to do would be to get some finished wood in a thin sheet and glue that to the outsides of the box, then you can stain and varnish it at your own preference. Now for what id say to do which isnt all that hard to do and was a lot cheaper and easier for me was to carpet the enclosure. I went to lowes and bought a roll of indoor/outdoor carpeting that had a very minimal amount of ribbing on the carpet pattern and was about 1/8 thick so its was really heavy duty which i liked. I then got a tub of indoor/outdoor carpet glue and some small fine tooth spreaders to apply the glue. I first wiped the box down with a damp cloth, let it air dry, centered the box on the roll of carpet and then applied the glue on the entire box's sides and stapled/stretched it down to make it flat. Now for some this can be a little tedious because you have to line everything up right on the dot, stretch the carpet as you go along to keep it wrinkle/bubble free, and take a nail gun every so often to hold down the seams/edges well. Since my dad installed carpeting for years i had all the tools and tricks of the trade on my side but it is really not as hard as it seems to do. Just start halfway on one side, work your way around the box and then finish that side on the first half finished side. When you come to the seams you need to overlap the carpeting, take a very sharp knife and press down hard to cut both pieces of carpeting and then you apply the glue and nail it together. If i can do a box wrap you can too man.

your reply was so epic i had to put it in my signature. lmfao!!! if that was the case i guess the electrical comapnies can let all their wires just sit in a large body of water and have people swim in it right? Now to the op: soldering the wires together like nate showed is the best. It makes them easier to bend around things, cleaner look, plus it seems stronger from my testing where if you wire them straight its even harder to pull apart. I didnt solder the wires for my h/u at all but i did another way around it since i have a crap load of room behind my radio in the dash. What i did was strip the wires back about 3/8 of a inch, twist the wires together, and then i took a wing nut for wires and put one on each wire i connected together. I have a solid connection and i tried to rip the wires apart and its not moving. I also tested the continuity of each wire and it is at a solid 0.00 ohms.

Yea its your neutral safety switch. One thing you can do to test it would be to take the car and put it in park and try to turn the engine over. If it doesnt turn then your switch could be bad. If it does turn over then it is working at this point. To continue testing the neutral safety switch, put the car in every gear except for neutral, do neutral last. Your car should not attempt to start in any other gear except neutral or park. Now please note, when you are doing this be prepared to step on the brake to stop the car if it starts to move, also engage your parking or emergency brake too during the test. If your car fails to start in any other gears except for park AND neutral then your safety switch is fine. If your car starts in gears other than park and neutral then the switch has hit the bucket and needs to be replaced. Also, if this ever happens again to you and you cannot start the engine in park, heres how you can usually start the car as a failover. Take the car, engage the parking brake, turn the key to On/Run (do not set it to start), press your brake and shift the vehicle into neutral, then turn the key to start. your engine should kick over.

Ray: yea thats why im thinking its my enclosure or something, not the amps or electrical. My electrical is totally overkill for my system but it works perfectly for me. This is my first all out build so i still have quite a bit to learn about the box building and whatnot but hey, im learning about it all slow enough.

Who wants to see some guts????

For the lack of power i think its just my enclosure doing it. For my old amps i got from Ray, i clamped 2794.5w at 1.38 ohms for a 30Hz burp. The amp is supposed to do 4kw at 1 ohms strapped so it had a good amount of loss. I really cant say its my amp or enclosure because ill be damned if im going to junk my enclosure just to try and play around with it. Either way if you sit in my truck when im burping you would swear its putting out more power than it clamped at.

Yea i wont mess with that because my truck is drive by wire. Meaning i have no throttle cable to pull or adjust, its all done electronically. The last time i played with my butterfly on my throttle body i made the damn engine misfire and threw a check engine code.

Start voltage: 14.6v at the very beginning of the burps, then 14.5v after the alt got warm. ending voltage: 13.7v after a 5 second burst per frequency. There wouldnt have been any voltage drop if i was revving my engine up but it was sitting at idle which is barely 500 rpm's so i cant say crap about the voltage falling down that low. If i could sucker someone to sit in the truck when i burp it, i would rev it up to 1800 and clamp it, im sure id get even more power out of it at a full 14.5v.

Youre welcome man. I have all DC amps in my 'voy and i love it. The sq from them is amazing. Also just to put it in here to make everyone aware, the 5.0k does click when you turn it on. This is 100% normal as there are two big relays inside it that engage when the remote wire is applied voltage so dont be alarmed if you have this happen, it is perfectly normal. I will try to upload guts pics of the amp on here in a sec too but it may not work well since im mobile.

If someone is in the market for a DC Audio 5.0k amplifier then look here for the results i got out of my 5.0k. I am running just one of these amps up to my single AA SMD 18" dual 1 ohm sub in a 5.5 cubic foot box tuned to 30Hz. The test was made with my sub wired in parallel to achieve a nominal impedance of .5 ohms and the battery voltage was 13.7v. The clamp results are as follows: 30Hz tone: 1454.583 watts at 1.41 ohms 35Hz tone: 2525.54 watts at 1.63 ohms 40Hz tone: 4061.64 watts at 1.37 ohms 45Hz tone: 5291.84 watts at .976 ohms 50Hz tone: 5161.32 watts at .971 ohms 55Hz tone: 5215.0 watts at .939 ohms 60Hz tone: 4778.4 watts at .912 ohms Average impedance rise and wattage from 30-60Hz: 4096.76 watts at 1.173 ohms Overall i am really satisfied with my DC 5.0k even though the low end tones have less power than my old amp (two Massive Audio DB8000's strapped at .5 ohms nominal) but the higher notes have a lot more power and the clarity of my 5.0k is amazing. With my DB8000's the clarity was alright but the bass was really punchy, with the 5.0k the bass seems to have a slower run off and a more even tone. Plus with this amp, it doesnt get warm at all when my engine is running, if i bump the amp at around half volume with the truck off for a total of 3 hours (i sit in the parking lot at class until my next night class starts) only one half of the amp is warm but its not enough to burn you like my old DB8000's.

That looks like your battery itself is fine just the casing is overheating. Is this part of your battery near your engine or your radiator? I dont think your battery is ready to explode, just was overheated from the engine or any other nearby component that is really hot and caused the case to give way. Id see if you can possibly get a steel case for around the side and possibly part of the top to protect it from heat. Maybe if you really want to be overkill make a protective case and put some second skin or something on it to try and fend the heat from going through the metal onto the battery. Just if you do make a case make sure you have a good amount of room around your terminals to protect against a short.

I hope you guys dont think this is a post dump but heres what i had to say about my future vision hid's. I know its a long story but i have a great experience with them in my envoy: I placed an order on August 14th for the purchase of 880 fog lamps; 9005 high beams, and a 42mm bi-xenon projector kit. I am very pleased in all the great customer service that everyone at FutureVision has provided me both before and after the sale. Prior to the sale I was well educated by everyone at FutureVision of the tasks I would need to perform on my truck, how to make everything work, what i would need to get, and what would be best recommended. I had sent numerous emails back and forth before I have made the final decision to purchase HID's from FutureVision just to make sure I could install HID's in my truck and do it the correct way. After speaking with several workers at FutureVision, I was advised that the 880, 9005, and 42mm projector kits would be perfect for my truck. I purchased those three model lights for my 2004 GMC Envoy with a 4300k bulb color and all the lights except for my high beam would run off a 35w ballast. For my high beams I asked the guys at FutureVision which would be best for far distance and brightness and was advised that for as rare as I would use the high beam that the 55w would be best because it would shine brighter and not really decrease the bulb life since it wont be used a lot in my truck. I placed the order on August 14th of 2011 and I received the order on August 23rd 2011. For me living in the United States and on the opposite part of North America from where FutureVision is located I can truly say that 7 business days for my order to arrive is extremely fast. I was expecting to wait for over 2 weeks but it never happened. When the package arrived I decided to take everything out and look at it all before I was going to start the install process. The kits included all the hardware and diagrams you would ever need. The pictures on the install diagrams are big and easy to read. Everything for the install was included. The mounting brackets for bolting down the ballasts, the ballasts, the bulbs, the adapter wires, and even two sided tape to mount the ballasts to any flat surface. Just seeing all the accessories that came with it, I was already pleased and then looking at the quality of the bulbs and ballasts made me really feel confident in my purchase. When I installed them in my truck with the low beams being retro-fitted and the high and fog lamps just being plug and play I can happily say that I am extremely satisfied in my purchase. The lights are extremely bright and have a fast turn on and warm up time. Whenever I drive with my High beams on, it is like broad day light for how bright they are and they shine for 5 blocks down the road so this is a great benefit from my old stock Halogen bulbs. Another great benefit I have gained from my HID install is that even if I were to drive around with just the fog lamps it would shine over 15 feet in front of my truck. My stock Halogen bulbs wouldn't shine more than 6 feet from the fog light. I also noticed that everything on the road is a lot easier to identify. Street signs are extremely easy to read at night, license plates light up, and the best part is that the reflective tape on police cars will shine back even at very far distances to alert you of what lies ahead. After I had them installed for over 3 weeks I had ran into a small problem with one of my hid bulbs. Sometimes my one fog lamp would illuminate on first start, other times I would have to shut the fogs off and back on and it would ignite. I spoke with Bruno from FutureVision through an email and he advised me what the problem could be with the ballast or even possibly the relay or bulb. I had decided to check over the entire system for that one bulb that was having trouble igniting in the cool weather. I swapped several ballasts around with that same bulb to no prevail that the light would still turn on and off intermittently. I then swapped the bulb to the other side of my truck and it followed over to that side as well to prove it was the bulb. I then checked my relays and they were fully functional and operating at peak performance. So once I found out that the bulb may have a problem I emailed Bruno back and he had sent me out a replacement 880 fog light along with one relay for the trucks projector since the one relay would make a buzzing noise when I unlocked the truck no matter what side I placed it on. All in all I am definitely happy to say that I am really glad I purchased my HID's through FutureVision.com. Even though after a few weeks I did run into two very small problems, the guys at FutureVision, in particular Bruno went above and beyond in helping me resolve the problem. I was guided throughout the entire purchase and install process and learned a lot of great things from the guys at FutureVision. Yes you may think to yourself that the prices are higher than the other companies out there but as the website states "you simply get what you pay for. In our case you get even more!!". This quote is very accurate because I myself have truly gotten even more from FutureVision. They had given me a discount for purchasing all my lights at once, friendly and knowledgeable customer service, and above all an excellent product that I can happily say is great to have installed in my truck. I will definitely be purchasing my future HID's from FutureVisionHID.com because of the great success I have had with their quality products and employees. I will recommend anyone and everyone I know to buy FutureVision to get a high quality product. Thank You to everyone at FutureVisionHID for providing me such above and beyond customer service and one excellent product for my vehicle. I truly appreciate all of the assistance you have all given me with this purchase and for building such a high quality HID light application. _______________ now to continue this, i received the replacement bulb and relay for my hid's which were defective and they work perfect for me now so i have a 100% glitch free lighting system. Future vision is a lot more expensive than other companies but tbh i am glad i paid up for their product because the quality is amazing. Plus if you are good, you can do what i did and get all the lights you need and ask for a discount. Thats what i did. For your lights, i very highly and strongly recommend you get projectors. I use projectors for my low beams and just them. My fog lamps dont have any projectors on them since i couldnt get the damn things out of my bumper but i had my dad drive the truck around and i drove my moms car and my dads truck and the fog lamps are down so low and dont bounce light upward so i didnt really need projectors, nor is the light scattered. What i did was get new headlight lens' from rockauto.com for my envoy. I then went to my co-workers house who had a heat gun, heated up the one headlight i couldnt just pry apart and then i removed the lens. Then i took my dads dremel and cut out the opening from the light socket to fit the projectors back piece in. Then i put it all together, used 100% pure silicone (clear) and let it sit for 2 whole days then installed them. They work great, have no leaks or condensation, and shine really far and are extremely bright. Retrofitting isnt as hard as it seems, honestly the hardest part i ran into was getting my one headlight apart. The one new headlight came apart without any heat, the other one i had to heat so hot that it was starting to melt the plastic in some spots then it came apart. Other than that, just be patient, observe what you are doing, and take your time and it will turn out great.

I believe verizon killed their unlimited data for basic phone web and email usage because there were so many people like me who were stealing it for other use (tethering). With 10g i would use that up like its nothing so i need my unlimited plan or id go over it but i got my first smart phone about 5 years ago and i am grand-fathered into their plan with unlimited data as long as i keep the contract going with verizon. If you can at least get unlimited web for it you will be just fine. There is no need to get their wifi tethering package which has a very low cap for data usage on it and trust me when i say you will exceed it like its nothing especially if you stream media through it, download crap with it, etc.

Yea the OP could do that but i tbh dont think he is too inept with computers to do that. You can always get a damn good length for wifi by using a satellite to grab signals for a longer distance but that wont be any bit obvious with a satellite dish on the roof of your car aiming at someones house to steal their internet at one bit.

For the droid bionic it is really new so your wifi tether may not really work too well. I had gingerbread on my droidx and it worked great except for wifi tether. That damn thing would be a total pain in my ass to the point i gave up on the new OS and wiped it back to the stock firmware of froyo and blocked the over the air updates of it so it would get stuck with froyo until i decided to update it. There are newer versions of the wifi tether out there that are supposed to work with gingerbread but they are really making it hard to tether because you are really supposed to pay for that crap. With my phone when i had gingerbread (the same os as the bionic comes with) when i wanted to tether sometimes it wouldnt work (like 10% it would) if it didnt work i had to stop tethering, put it on airplane mode, put tethering on, take it out of airplane mode and it may work but mostly didnt. I got so fed up that i just reverted back to the stock rom my phone came with and used the tether on it because it worked 100% of the time. There are ways to get it working but i am not taking anymore chances with it not working when i need it so im sticking with what i have and knowing it works all the time. If you want just google "droid bionic wifi tether" there are plenty of guides out there on how to root your phone, how to get free wifi tether and all that.

I know a lot about those usb adapters you are talking about (i support them for the company i work for). Anyway i never have used their 4g service since it is so scarse to find and access but on 3g verizon maxs out at 5mb down and 1mb up. For sprint it is usually 4mb down and 1.2mb up. They do have unlimited plans for them but mostly business accounts, a ton of carriers are trying to get around the whole unlimited data since there are ppl like me who steal it from tethering. What i do is i unlocked my phone (i have a Motorola DroidX first gen from Verizon Wireless) and i have it running off Droid Froyo (the name of the firmware) since it runs wifi-tether like a champ and verizon cant shut me down on that like they can in gingerbread. Then i installed wireless tether and when i set it all up i just turn it on, connect my laptop to it, and i have free internet for up to 5 devices. I still only get 5-6mb down and 1mb up but for not paying their b.s. $19.99 a month fee for a capped limit on tethering i am using the unlimited part of my phones data plan. I on average suck over 1.5-2 gigs of data a week because i tether my phone up at work so im not on my work internet and i do all my homework and streaming/downloading. I have not been busted for stealing all that data yet but if i do ill still do it. lmfao. Honestly id just do what im doing with getting a phone with unlimited data (act fast because companies are stopping the unlimited data things now) and get a cell phone that supports wireless tether and runs off android, root the phone, install wireless tether, enjoy free wifi access from your phone hassle free. I personally hate those damn aircards as their signal strength isnt worth shit and they break so easily from daily use. The other thing i noticed with the aircards is that out of nowhere the damn drivers for them delete off your system and you have to reinstall and reactivate the units.

youre welcome man. i actually learned how to use them not too long ago with my hid's and all that good stuff i wired up. You can also go to the12volt.com as they have a ton of diagrams and great guides for wiring. I use that site a lot when i get stumped on things. The switch would be the best and you could get away without using a relay to power the switch and kick on all your amps and the power inverter but if it wont cut it on then it means you exceeded the limit of your radio's output current for the remote turn on wire. If this is the case you would do the wiring like here: http://www.the12volt.com/relays/relaydiagram25.html and then connect everything, your amps, power inverter, anything else you want to add on as an accessory that turns on and off with your radio to pin 30. Here is the pinout if you cannot get the switch to kick over when you tap into the switch yourself and need to use a relay to boost the power of the remote turn on wire. Pin 30: connect this to the remote turn on inputs for your amplifiers and to the switch wire off your inverter which goes from 0v (inverter off) to +12v (inverter on) Pin 86: remote wire coming directly off your radio (solid blue wire) Pin 87: positive wire (connect to positive terminal of your battery with a fuse close to the battery no more than 5-10 amps is needed since its going to be a small relay) Pin 85: ground, connect to the negative or chassis of your vehicle. For the relay, it is still a SPDT type relay but you wont need near as much power to get it to work. A relay about 5-10 amps would be way more than enough power to turn on a crap load of accessories with a remote turn on wire. Honestly what i would do first if this was my vehicle would be to take the wire you find out in your inverter is the switchable wire and connect that to the remote wire off your headunit. Try turning it on and see if it kicks on the inverter and your amps. If it doesnt kick on the inverter check to see if your amps turned on. If your amps didnt turn on then you exceeded the current limit of your remote wire off your radio and need to use the connection mentioned in this post with the relay to make it all work. If the amps turn on but your inverter does not, then you connect the remote wire to the wrong wire on your inverters switch and this needs to be reversed. I really dont think it needs a lot of power to kick that on but who knows. I have never had any high powered inverters, only a cheap 60w inverter i got for a gift. If im right it should work because i had at one point 4 items turning on and off through the remote lead off my headunit. I had 3 amplifiers, and a sound processor turning on and off with it. Typically there is a limit of 2-3 amplifiers you can connect to the remote lead before it ceases to function but i didnt reach that limit.

Hmm well since it has a switch you could re-wire the switch. What you could do is get a dmm and see what wire is the positive wire for that switch on the inverter is the switchable one (it has power when you flick the switch to "on" and has no power when the switch is set to "off". Once you figure out which wire is switchable, you will take that and wire it up to the remote of your radio for example or the accessory wire for your radio. I dont know how much current it draws to engage the power inverter but it cant be more than 1 amp. If you cant do that you can do an alternative of taking a SPDT relay that can handle a continuous load of 30-40 amps (the bigger the better) and wire it up like this.... Pin 87: Connect to positive terminal of your battery with a 30 amp fuse close to the battery Pin 85: Connect this to the ground or negative terminal of your battery. Pin 86: Connect this to the remote turn on wire for your radio, accessory wire for your radio, or any other wire you can tap into that goes from 0v when your engine is off and the key is set to off to a wire that is energized with +12v when the key is in accessory or on. Pin 30: Connect this to the wire you previously figured out is the trigger wire on your power inverter to switch the power inverter on when the relay is energized.

Yes you will kill the battery if you have the inverter on at all times. You would need to run a relay that can handle about 30-40 amps of current to turn on the power to the inverter when the key is on or the engine is running. You can run a switch for it BUT switches cannot handle loads as much as you will place on it by the power inverter. You will either burn the switch out or shock yourself from the overload of current through the switch. I would get a relay for it and wire it up. 8ga seems too overkill for me, id just get 12ga or at most 10ga and wire it with a 30 amp fuse and call it a day. You will use the relay to interrupt the power when the engine is not running.

It may be a 90w adapter brick for your laptops charger. That will definitely work with your power inverter without making it sweat. I would really think that a 200w power inverter could be too much for your cigarette lighter. What size fuse do you have in you cigarette lighter fusebox?

The reason you blew the cig lighters fuse is that your inverter had a surge of power greater than the fuse. DO NOT i repeat do NOT upgrade the fuse to a higher amperage fuse, doing so will cause wire overload and can burn the wire. I would just do like i said and get some 12-10 gauge wire (speaker wire would work, i did that for my 3sixty.2) and put something like a 30-40 amp fuse depending on how long the run is and wire it directly to the inverter. To check the wattage of your laptops power adapter, look on the back of it. There will be a sticker with the serial number, manufacture date, etc. There will be one that says output power (it will read a number and then have a w after it. Usually they are 65w, 90w, 120w) see if you can find out the wattage of your laptops charger and then find the wattage of your power inverter for me as well.

for your wireless keyboard with a mouse built into it, look here: http://www.gadgetytech.com/2009/01/14/a-wireless-keyboard-for-my-media-server/ its made by logitech but costs about $200 so dont expect anything cheap. They have ones that are hard wired for cheaper. For your power inverter it would be a little cheaper but i wouldnt get one you just plug into your cigarette plug and call it a day. I would at least get a 150w power inverter (just to have some overhead, usually a 95-100w is good enough but can get hot on a near dead battery or a laptop with a high display brightness) and hard wire it to your battery. The power wires going to your cigarette lighter were not made for anything more than 15 amps of current if your lucky, most are only 10 amps. I would get something like 12-10 gauge and wire it to the power inverter directly with a fuse into the line for protection and then plug your laptop into it. Now if you were just going to occasionally use the laptop in the vehicle the cigarette lighter will get you buy but id monitor the power wires to make sure they dont overheat and melt.

the steady voltage part is somewhat along the lines of why steve used the power adapter for his mac mini. It regulates the power and keeps it pretty steady for his computer. He hasnt had any problems with it so im not really thinking it hurts his mac mini running off car power with the adapter. Running it just straight off the battery is completely impossible to do and as stephen stated is not going to be steady at all, it fluctuates a lot.

actually you cannot just splice the wires and put it directly into the 12v of your cars electrical system. Laptops charge at 14-18.8v so the 12v would not even get the laptop any power to run any components. Some computer charge at even more than 18.6v of power. You need something to boost the voltage up higher or use a 16v system where it will charge around 18v. Steve did this to make his mac mini work in his tahoe: Either way you need a step up voltage for it so it takes your voltage and raises it up enough to run the computer off it.

It very well could be clipping to all hell but i know for a 100% fact that mine wasnt clipping or distorting. The tweeter just couldnt handle the power it was being tossed at full tilt. Plus when they were like that, the highs were extremely harsh so i had to back the volume off on the tweeters channels within my 3sixty to make it better. The mids can take a ton of power but the highs from what ive noticed dont like taking that much power, plus they get loud at low power as it is.