Tutorial: Using a Car Amp in Home

OK, There have been alot of questions in here, well not a lot but a good number, about using a car amplifier for home use. This makes perfect sense, if you can get a hold of a 12-15v power supply that can handle the amperes needed to run today’s car amps.

There are a lot of poor, broke ass ways of doing this. One of the more idiotic and dangerous ways is to use a car battery and charger. This is dangerous because, unless you are using an expensive sealed battery, you are releasing poisonous, corrosive, and explosive gasses into the room.

The much safer poor, broke ass way of going about this is to use a PSU aka a computer power supply. You ask how? well that is what this is about. step by step instructions WITH PICTURES!

WARNING: I take no responsibility for your actions. If you electrocute yourself, that is your problem. This is simply a tutorial. What you do is with your own free will. USE COMMON SENCE. If you are not somewhat electronically inclined DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS. Note: doing what is done in this tutorial WILL void any warranty on the power supply

The First thing you will need will be a PSU. They look a little something like this.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v201/CBFryman/Picture240.jpg

What you are going to do is take the case off. Yes this means breaking the "Do Not Remove, Removal Voids Warranty" stickers.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v201/CBFryman/Picture241.jpg

Examine the inside. Fine the Capacitors. Stear clear of the caps, caps store charge and if some how you actualy managed to short out the terminals you are in for a pretty big shock.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v201/CBFryman/Picture242.jpg

Now remove all of the zip ties. This will just make sorting wires easier.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v201/CBFryman/Picture243.jpg

Start Clipping wires, but dont just go at it like crazy man with a lawn mower. Cut as close as porible to the plugs. the longer the wires the better. The wires you remove may come as some use later on in life. Any true audio guy has at least $100 worth of copper in all of the spare wire in his house.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v201/CBFryman/Picture244.jpg

Locate the Green remote power on wire. There should be only one green wire so it is kind of hard to screw up.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v201/CBFryman/Picture246.jpg

Time for a little hair cut. trim all wires EXCEPT for the Yellow (12v +), black (Ground), and Green (rem. on). This means cut the Red, Orange, Blue, Purple, or any other color. Note: This is just the common color code. check to make sure this code follows suit with your PSU. also, dont cut the leads to the fan. there will be a black and red lead going to the fan. you want your PSU to stay cool.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v201/CBFryman/Picture247.jpg

Take the green wire and a (one, not all) black (ground) wire and cut them to similar lengths so that they will still be able to youch at the ends with slack.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v201/CBFryman/Picture248.jpg

Now twist them togather and solder. then cover with either heat shrink or electrical tape.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v201/CBFryman/Picture249.jpg
Twisted
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v201/CBFryman/Picture259.jpg
Soldering (sorry, i couldnt find my soldering iron so i had to use a solder remover to solder)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v201/CBFryman/Picture252.jpg
Finished product before Electrical tape
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v201/CBFryman/Picture260.jpg
Finished

Now strip all of the yellow (should be at least 5) and an equal number of black as yellow about 1/2". any remaining blacks can be trimmed. I used a knife because I suck at striping with plyers and I hate using wire stripers.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v201/CBFryman/Picture255.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v201/CBFryman/Picture256.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v201/CBFryman/Picture251.jpg

Now take all but one of the yellows and all of the blacks and twist them togather and solder. as in 4 yellows togather and 5 blacks togather and then twist and tint one yellow by itsself (for amp remote turn on)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v201/CBFryman/Picture258.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v201/CBFryman/Picture261.jpg

Now wrap all of the blacks and yelllows togather to insulate them agianst any sharp objects. Leaving enough space at the end for htem to spread out to their respective terminals on the amp.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v201/CBFryman/Picture262.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v201/CBFryman/Picture265.jpg

Close it back up tucking the green wired that is conected to the black wire inside the case. and of course leaving the black and yellow's out of the case so they can be hooked up to your amp.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v201/CBFryman/Picture264.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v201/CBFryman/Picture266.jpg

Now Hook the amp up like you would in the car. Yellow is your power and the one yellow by itsself is the remote turn on. Black is your ground.
then of course plug in your RCA's and set your gains.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v201/CBFryman/Picture267.jpg

Congrats, you have now just created your own 12v power supply. You may have noticed i have two. well that is beause my amp can handle 40a and sine one can only provide 25 peak i am using two in parallel to get 50a peak. Eventually I will add to this using 4 3.3v in series and 3 5v in series to see which gives best results.

Don't you ever clean your fingernails?

Good shit, guy REQ on ca.com made same tutorial about 3-4 months ago...good to see it again here...

NG

ima go dig out my spare PSU that i use to test fans and see if i can get this working on my amp since my car is outta commission.... what size box would you recommend for 6x9s or shoudl i jsut use a piece of wood to get rid of cancelation? and what did you use for RCA input? RCA's from cable box or w/e?

RCA cable from my stereo to my amp... there is an AUX out and a sub out which is already crossed over at 80Hz 18dB/octave actively.
and ummm size of box depends on the t/s params... :)

shit i dont have those.... damn, you think a 1.0 cube would be overkill? and i tuned my amp to run offa my MP3 player, .45Mv imput lmao. i gotta hok my computer back um to my tv and shit then ill use my computer.

1cube will be fine, it isnt going to hurt the speaker. probably just be a really loq Qtc enclosure.

FOr your 6x9's i have a pair of audiobahns in a seald 750 ci box, i have gotten people to believe i have subs hidden in my pickup.

i jsut want something better soudning then the crappy kmart bluelight special 8"s i got. so ima make a box and slap in my Kenwood 6x9s. eventually ima get 2 RE12's and a boc for my room, then jsut lowpass the amp so i can have heavy bass when i watch DVD s and shit

Where can i get a PSU?

circuit city
best buy
compusa
frys
microcenter
www.newegg.com
or anywhere else computer parts are sold

hey cb where did you find the green wire conected to was it on the plug tat goes into the motherboard or was it just conected inside the psu somewhere. The reason i ask is the psu that i have doesnt' have the green wire

you may not have an ATX power supply .......

Hey, great tutorial CBFryman... I just realized that I have two brand new computer towers sitting in the back of my truck that I've been trying to throw away... I just may salvage the power supply now, only thing is they're pretty wet.

I think this is a great idea, especially when setting up a home theater. I would like to be able to use any subwoofer I please in my home theater and I think this would be the most economical way to do it. You'd have to spent big bucks for a subwoofer that really shakes the fucking house when shit blows up in a movie. Car subs and amplfiers have a lot more bang, no pun intended, for the buck than a regular powered sub.

no it is an atx soft power psu but it was an older one. I have a wire that did the same function but it wasn't green i later found that wire by looking on another psu. the wire conects to the main motherboard plug 1 ping to the right of the clip. In my case it was black.
I personally think that using car audio this way in home is very good my car audio speakers have a lot better sound then any thing ever put in a tv and its fair compared to some home theathers.

im putting my 250W 118DB sub/amp combo in my room hooked up to my TV when i get my new amp, that should piss off the parents and neighbors considerably

Damn, I had those two computer towers in the bed of my truck for weeks, wanting to throw them out. When I read this thread I decided to keep the power supplies, I should have taken them out right away! Somebody must have stole them from my truck while I was out somewhere because they're gone.

If I remember right,they said 230V which would be almost 20A, so I could hook up two in parallel to get 40A?

CBFryman, how did you run a 40A amplifier, didn't it blow the fuses in your house?

1.) there are no fuses 30a circut breakers to the one outlet which all of my stereo gets its power from, 2.) they are 2 300w power supples, each draws maybe 4a@120v.