Box finishing suggestions

Hey everyone...

I've been working on building my own enclosure for the last couple of months, and I'm nearing completion. I'm going to be sanding the outside for the last time today, which is the last step before painting/carpeting. My question is: which do most think is better? Carpeting or painting? I got a cheap rug at walmart that's too small to cover the whole box, but enough to show me basically what it would look like. I also have a pint of black tinted primer that I could paint the whole thing with a few times. The rug in my car is maroon, and I'd like to find something that matched or looks nice with it, and I'm not sure if that's possible with the very limited supply at walmart. I know that the cheaper (thin and bendable at least) the better, but the only ones big enough had really thick backings. Any suggestions?

Thanks!

http://dce.ath.cx/images/IMG_3436.JPG
Here's a pretty good shot of my box while the glue was drying.

http://dce.ath.cx/images/IMG_3437.JPG
Because I'm cheap and don't want to buy a wire pass through thing. I'm only using one of the wires, but installed two in case I wanted to do a parallel configuration later with a different sub.

http://dce.ath.cx/images/IMG_3441.JPG
Here's the inside where the wires come through. In addition to all that wood glue, there's now a layer of silicone sealant on all the inside seams.

http://dce.ath.cx/images/IMG_3438.JPG
This was my first attempt at even building a box, and because of a dumb mistake I ended up making it a flush mount box. The sub still sticks up a little, but it looks pretty good.

http://dce.ath.cx/images/IMG_3446.JPG
There's the carpet I have, which is too small. It looks ok, I guess.

http://dce.ath.cx/images/IMG_3447.JPG
This is the paint I have. It's tinted pretty dark, just about black I think. I'll probably put at least 2 layers of this stuff on.


Well, that's just about it. I'll take some pictures of the innards of my car if it's not raining out too bad. I'm in CT, and we're supposedly having a huge rainstorm. I really don't see much of it, just a bunch of fog.

I think it would look better carpeted. You can get black, grey, dark blue, and tan carpet ffrom wal-mart. Go to the Automotive section and it will be sittin right under all of the floor mats. They call it "repalcement carpet" and its like 8 or 9 bucks a roll. You can prolly get away with one roll, but might need two.

ooo... I was in the home decor section... that's where I got that rug. I didn't know they had more carpet in automotive. I was even there checking out the fog lights :p. Thanks bumpin! I'm also gonna put some handles on it so it's easier to carry. Any ideas how to secure something like this in the trunk? It's sitting on a thin fiber board panel that's covering the spare tire well, so I can't really attach anything to it. I was thinking some straps connected to the hinges of the rear seat going to the sides of the box.

also home depot and lowes sell many different types of carpet by the foot. you could get astroturf on your box :lol:

L-brackets.

L-brackets.

I've seriously considered those, but what am I going to connect them to? There's only half an inch on either side of the sub between the wheel wells and it's not vertical surface on the front or back. I'm thinking I'm going to bolt some sort of round flat connector to the sides and loop rope around them to the rear seat hinge. I doubt even that will work though, because there's so much paneling and crap everywhere. I may just end up making some braces that wedge between the rear wall of the car and the back of the speaker. I did that before with some junk in my trunk when I was testing it before gluing, and it didn't budge. I went over some of those nasty long speed bumps that chucks your rear way into the air if you're going too fast over them, and heard everything crunch as it hit floor. I'd like to be able to have the sub in different positions in the trunk, like facing up and foreward, back and up, and back and down. In the pics you can see it's shaped kinda funky. Heh, first time doin it all my self, and that's what I get. It was fun making it though :)

I'll have some more pics of the amp rack and the wiring soon. Would it be ok you think to make a project thread?

edit:: oh yeah, I bought 2 rolls of dark blue replacement carpet... just where you said they'd be, Bumpin! Thanks a ton! As soon as I get my homework done for tonight, I'll be carpetting that box.

One other random thing, does anyone know what the voltage on the turn-on lead coming from the head unit is?

Get a pic and I'll tell you the best way to connect it.... and if your wonder about voltage from the remote the answer is no don't hook other shit up to the remote wire.

darn... I'd like to turn a bunch of LED's on with a transistor, and I was planning to use the remote lead as the activation voltage. I suppose I could just hook it up to the little light already in the trunk, but I was trying to avoid that. I guess I'll figure out something else besides the remote lead to do it. Thanks for the warning.

darn... I'd like to turn a bunch of LED's on with a transistor, and I was planning to use the remote lead as the activation voltage. I suppose I could just hook it up to the little light already in the trunk, but I was trying to avoid that. I guess I'll figure out something else besides the remote lead to do it. Thanks for the warning.
Why not use the amp turn on lead with 12v. relay? Then you can ad as much as you want to that circuit.

Is a relay different than a transistor? I was gonna use a resistor to reduce the voltage on the activation line to 5 volts, so hardly any current will go that way vs. straight into amp. It's a basic transistor, so I didn't think it would be much of a problem to do this. The turn-on signal wire is only designed to have a steady voltage applied to it, to let the amp know when to power up and start amplifying the signals coming from the head unit, right? I suppose I could hook a potentiometer up to the actual speaker wire (so I could limit the voltage going to the the LED circuit at a given volume level) and get a mosfet transistor (one that can turn on and off really quickly) and have it go nuts with the music, which would be pretty cool. I'm not sure I wanna mess with that, though. Ideas ideas ideas... so much fun :)

Why are you trying to hook it all up off the remote and bullisht. Just hook it into the power coming from the battery. I would suggest not running anything off the remote wire..... its a good way to fry headunits. If any power gets backfed that HU goes pop and frys the fuck out of itsself.

Why are you trying to hook it all up off the remote and bullisht. Just hook it into the power coming from the battery. I would suggest not running anything off the remote wire..... its a good way to fry headunits. If any power gets backfed that HU goes pop and frys the fuck out of itsself.

I'm not running it off the remote... I'm using power from the battery, I just don't want it on 24/7. I want to use the activation signal from the head unit to turn on power to LED's (from the battery). LED's only allow voltage to flow in one direction, as do transistors (if connected properly), so there's very little danger to the head unit.

http://dce.ath.cx/images/LEDdiagram.jpg

I think it will work just fine, if I can figure out what the voltage on the turn on lead is, and get it reduced to about 5 Volts.

Why are you trying to hook it all up off the remote and bullisht. Just hook it into the power coming from the battery. I would suggest not running anything off the remote wire..... its a good way to fry headunits. If any power gets backfed that HU goes pop and frys the fuck out of itsself.
Hey dumb shit, that's what relays are for. I thought you and your buds are some sort of car audio prodigy or something? That's car stereo 101 dude. He needs something like this http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=7964363089&category=6763

Now that one says that it has a diode in the harness which is commonly used for starter kills on alarms. I'm not worried about that, you need only the relay.

They are very simple for his application. It has 5 pins on the back of it. pins 85 and 86 will be the trigger from the stereo and the other to ground. Pin 30 would go to your high amperaged 12v constant (or ignition if you want) and then #87 would go out to what ever you need to give 12v. to turn on. This COMPLETELY takes the load off the "trigger" wire from the stereo. These relays are usually rated at 20 or 30amp so should work great.

FYI> transistors wouldn't do anything for you. Actually, they could create even more of a load than what you are trying to keep from happening.

I'm lighting up some LEDs... current load is going to be about 250 mA... I don't need something that will give me 20 or 30 amps :p Sigh... all I wanted to know was what the voltage on the remote turn on wire was... My head unit manual gives me a max amperage (500 mA), but no voltage. I've tried to test the voltage with my multimeter, but the thing doesn't seem to work properly for voltages that low or something. Yes I've use multimeters before, and this particular one sucks.

Hey dumbshit Don't talk shit.... better safe then sorry..... and I'd rather run a switch then buy a relay.

Hey dumb shit

LMAO that is Siggy quote worthyness.... :rofl:

Well, after an evening of testing and stuff, I found that a Darlington transistor is designed to turn OFF the stuff hooked to it when you send a signal to it... where does it say that on the box? Or on any websites? Guess I'll have to go back to Radio Shack and pick up another transistor that'll work more for my needs... probably a MOSFET one. I'm pretty sure those turn the connected stuff ON when you send a signal to it. Stupid Radio Shack people... "You have questions, we have answers", BULL! I'll put some more pictures up when I get the LEDs working tomorrow.

I agree, Radio Shack people are jerks. It should be "You've got questions, we'll try to sucker you into buying more batteries"

Well, after an evening of testing and stuff, I found that a Darlington transistor is designed to turn OFF the stuff hooked to it when you send a signal to it... where does it say that on the box? Or on any websites? Guess I'll have to go back to Radio Shack and pick up another transistor that'll work more for my needs... probably a MOSFET one. I'm pretty sure those turn the connected stuff ON when you send a signal to it. Stupid Radio Shack people... "You have questions, we have answers", BULL! I'll put some more pictures up when I get the LEDs working tomorrow.
The turn on lead should be 12v.. Personally, I'd still isolate the system via relay. Don't just use a switch. That's where most people go wrong. Most switches aren't designed for direct switching. They are not like AC wall switches. Relays are our friends guys. Since you all like to mess with stereos, it would be beneficial to learn how to use them. Everything you see custom done on vehicles like remotely operated amp racks or even simple trunk pop from an alarm are done with relays.

http://www.the12volt.com/relays/relays.asp

BTW, what's the specs on the LED lights that you have?

Hehehe... it's a little after the fact now :p...

http://dce.ath.cx/images/IMG_3485.JPG

I got it working with a simple transistor, after reducing the voltage on the turn on lead to 5 volts with a couple of resistors. The LEDs are 3.7 volts or so... though they can take a bit more than that. I have two directly under my head unit lighting up both the front seats. Those ones have about 4.5 volts on them, and they're really bright.

http://dce.ath.cx/images/IMG_3491.JPG
http://dce.ath.cx/images/IMG_3492.JPG
http://dce.ath.cx/images/IMG_3497.JPG

i reakon that just carpet it to, the same collor of where ever its goin ;)

Sorry guys, it's all done now :)

I made a project page on my website... Click here (http://dce.ath.cx/project/page1.html) to see it!