Chosing your ICE System
This can be determined by how deep your pocket is, and have faith in the bigger makes with their sometimes bigger prices.
In my opinion, a 10" subwoofer is just as good as a 12" although there are differences.
A 10" sub kicks out more punchy bass notes, whereas a 12" the bass is slightly deeper.
Being the large and long car that the R33 is, this means the bass channeled through it will never be as good as that from a hatchback. - there are a few tricks which i will mention later on.
So, no doubt youve seen other peoples set ups, taken advice from salesmen / installers and perhaps find it all a bit daunting if you want to sit down and do the maths yourself.
Choosing the sub and amplifier power is important at this stage.
Rule number 1.
Always always always have subs of greater RMS capacity than the amplifiers.
Dont be fooled by 1000Watt Max subs with 300W RMS, to plug them into a 600Watt Max amps, pushing out 250 RMS. That 50RMS difference will blow the voice coil on the sub if the amplifiers input sensitivity is not correctly adjusted.
Rule number 2.
Make sure you have the right gauge wire, and inline fuse on the power wire.
Generally the vast majority of people will use the 8AWG (8 gauge) power and earth, sometimes 10AWG for 600Watt systems.
The higher the current demand is, the gauge needs to work downward - such as 2AWG and 0AWG.
Rule number 3.
Earth it to the battery, or alternatively to a good earth point on the chassis.
Sand off any paintwork so its bare metal contact.
Those are the 3 simple rules in my opinion.
So recently I've destroyed my Kenwood Sub woofer, why?
Amplifiers max output power = 180W RMS (4 Ohms, bridged)
Subwoofers max rating power = 200 Watts RMS (4 Ohms impedance)
Whilst having that spark of, stupidity I thought I'd fiddle with the settings as I couldnt seem to get much bass out of the sub, and an easy way of doing this is turning up the "gain", or in this case the Input Sensetivity. As I was saying, I moved the gain from 2.5 Volts to 1 Volt.
In doing this, if my calculations are anything to go by, i lowered the resistance from 4 Ohm to 2 Ohm. Which in turn blew the voice coil as its supposed to handle 4 Ohms ??
Anyhow, here are some formulas:
Ohms Law is V (Volts) divided by I (Amps) or R (Watts) - or
V / I R
Example 12 / 40 = 0.3 Watts
Example 12 /0.3 = 40 Amps
To calculate Watts you need to multiply I x R. 40 x .03 = 12; 12 Volt.
In the case of Kenwood KAC8404 - Amps (40A) x Volts (15v) = 600 Watts
When amplifiers are tested, they are given allowances between input voltages. Most cars are 12Volt Alternating Current systems, with the engine running and a good battery and alternator, when charging, the battery should be able to provide at least 14.5 Volts to the electrical system providing there are no major power drains on it.
Any less than 12 -13Volts and investigation of the battery and charging systems will be required.
So what you need to know is the amplifiers maximum watt output, bridged, and at how many Ohms is it stable to.
Taking the Kenwood KAC 8404 as an example (180W x 2 @ 4 Ohms)
So, 360W total, into 4 Ohms. |
