Battery Drainage! (Car Audio Gurus I Need You!)

[hamgatan]

okay well heres the go..

ive just spent two full days hooking up all my car audio gear and ive finally got everything working schmick (after accidentally nearly blowing one crossover by gettin the pos and the neg round the wrong way.. but thats another story)..

so heres what im running now -

JVC KD-SHX855 Head Unit
JVC CS-HX6945 360W 4 Way 6x9s
Cadence ZX6-KIT 6" Splits / 1" Tweeter + Crossover
Kicker KX200.2 2 Channel Amplifier
Kicker 12" CompVR 800W Subwoofer in Kicker Comp Enclosure

im driving the cadence splits off the head unit, obviously with the crossovers to the tweeters, and also the JVC 6x9"s are driven off the head unit too.

the subwoofer out line from the head unit goes straight to the input of the kicker amp, where the internal crossover is set to low frequencies and the L+ / R- are bridged and cabled out to the sub enclosure in the boot.

sub pounds nice, but i need to tune it i think.. ive got the gain and bass boost only turned up about halfway on the amp.. it doesnt sound like its picking up all the bass however. whats the standard sort of bass frequency on most tracks these days? 60hz? the amp however is on its default 50hz setting which seems to throw out most of the bass in a DnB track.. but doesnt do it for higher bass frequencies.. should i be raising this to 60hz or so?

also after the whole weekend installing whilst playing cd's with the ignition lights on all the time i kind of drained the crap out of my battery. wouldnt start and the starter motor ticked over. i left the car off for an hour and came back to it and i could start it however when i depressed the accelerator a whine came out from the rear.. im assuming this was the alternator chucking a shit that it had to do some work for a change and recharge the battery. well it kept whining as i drove around.. i went for a drive for a couple of hours and it seemed to die away completely. am i likely to hear it whining away when i go to start it in the morning or would that have only been a once off because i drained it so much?

would it pay also for me to get a stronger more durable battery than my current one if that kind of thing is happening?

i must say though, my first car audio install.. into a frickin MR2 which are a pain in the arse to do it in.. im quite proud of myself now didnt blow one fuse~!

chris

[45aken]

that whine is not your alternator going crazy.
what it is is the RCA cables picking up interference from the power cables. or possibly ground loop interference.

1) did you run power cables up one side of the car and RCA (signal) cables up the other?
2) where did you mount the ground for the amp?

if the rca cables are close to the power cables, then they will pick up the magnetic field that is around the power cable, causing a whine noise from the sub/speakers. so keep them apart.
if you have already kept them apart, then u can try grounding the headunit where you have grounded the amps. stopping ground loop interference.

i would suggest upgrading the cable that runs from the chassis to the batters )negative and from the block to the negative terminal of the battery to around 4AWG cable. make sure you have grounded the amp properly too.

maybe the settings on your headunit are wrong, spl bass is normally around 45hz, and there should be plenty of functions on your H/U to bring out the full potential of your system.

with the battery, if your serious about getting one, go and get a dry cell excide or optima, forget about caps as these batteries have an extremely low ESR anyways. (the speed at which the battery can release power)

[EldarO]

definatley intereference!

Sounds like above, that youve wired the whole bunch together, big car audio no-no!

that sounds like a good system for any type of music you would listen to, however, you need to tune it to each type of music.

the main thing with the amp, gain should be all the way up, while you regulate, on the head unit, the volume of the sub....

looking forward to seeing it sometime soon

Eldar.O.

[Smokey228]

do exactly as 45aken has said.

the most common cause of that ringing noise is running the rca's and power cables up the same side of the car. its easiest to run them up opposite sides, and for easiest route, run the power up the side nearest to the battery, and rca's opposite...
i usualy run my HU bass control on 80hz.

you can pick up a gadget thingy which tells u the power ur battery is pumping out, and sets an alarm wen its getting dangerously low. its a handy little gadget. u can pick them up from jaycar and dicksmith and so on...

sarr,
jason

[45aken]

no!
the proper way to tune your system with gain is to set the gains to zero, then have the music playing on the headunit at about 80% max volume.
now slowly adjust the gain on your amp til the sub nearly distorts then back it off a little.

the gain on an amplifier is only there so you can make your subs/speakers (amped or not) all rise at the same volume from the headunit volume.

[EldarO]

no!
the proper way to tune your system with gain is to set the gains to zero, then have the music playing on the headunit at about 80% max volume.
now slowly adjust the gain on your amp til the sub nearly distorts then back it off a little.

the gain on an amplifier is only there so you can make your subs/speakers (amped or not) all rise at the same volume from the headunit volume.

my mate has an 800 watt amp, coupled with two 1000 watt subs.

with the gain all the up was the way we tuned his system, and it sounds incredible.

Although we did it for hip-hop, which basically means, the more bass the better.

Eldar.O.

[45aken]

mate my system is worth over $8k.

of course it would some awseome' with the gains turned up the whole way, but for the sake of tuning speakers to the amps, that is what the gains are truly ment for.
basically tune your system to whatever sound good for you.
i dont want to start any shit fight over it, just telling you what i know (worked in the industry for 3 years)

[hamgatan]

just to note fellas... theres no interference coming out of the speakers...

i was really careful to layer everything on different sides of the drivetrain..so the wires arent meeting or crossing at any point. ive looped the ground up under the shifter tubes and mounted it to a screw holding bracket there which is grounded to the chassis... so all the grounding and everything is correct.

the whine is definitely alternator because it only whines when you depress the accelerator. i stuck my head in the engine compartment too to find the source of it. it seems to have stopped now though.. im pretty sure it was just coz i was low on juice that the alternator had to work double time to replace it. i read something in the kicker manual about alternator noise in the troubleshooting section too..

im a bit worried about running the system at the moment without the car running. dont want to drain it completely thats all..

[45aken]

no worries mate.
maybe your alternator is on its way out or something? if it;s definately not coming from the sub then it may be something else entirely.
i;d say for the systme your running that you wouldnt need to replace the battery, unless the thing is like 2 years old and been flat a few times.

[EldarO]

mate my system is worth over $8k.

of course it would some awseome' with the gains turned up the whole way, but for the sake of tuning speakers to the amps, that is what the gains are truly ment for.
basically tune your system to whatever sound good for you.
i dont want to start any shit fight over it, just telling you what i know (worked in the industry for 3 years)

shit fight? not at all mate!!!

i know Chris here listens to dance tracks, and while he needs response, clubs tracks need big bass, i was just saying how we got the max out of the sub

Chris, running a big bass system, loudly, without the car running is not advisable, whatever car you have, it will kill the battery.

just make sure if the car is off, your music is somewhat quiet

Eldar.O.

[Smokey228]

to turn my car, i had the volume up prolly about 80% and turned the speakers to the most of the ability. i had no trouble wif the sub distorting or missing a beat, jus the HU. so i turned to speaker gain to the best it can handle. then the sub to suit my music followed by the HU...

seeing that i listed to rock mostly, i barely need bass. but flick a switch, and im getting more than enough for any shity 'ghetto' music ahaha

[Dale]

Clean up some of your earths from your engine block to the chasis, possibly add a couple of new 4ga ones. A new earth from the battery to the chasis using something like 2ga. Check noise suppressors on your coil etc to make sure they have clean earths.

That of course would be if it continues.

If you have a healthy battery it should run for a fair while and still tick over without a problem. I know I've run mine for several hours a few times while working on the car (running two amps off the one battery) and never had a problem starting it. Friends have had their batteries drain in < 30mins with their stereos on, a new battery and it lasted hours running 2 amps, tv, playstation etc.

[Toobs]

Looking at the specs of the speakers I would recommend you buy a larger amp for the sub and configure the speakers as follows.

Run the splits from the headunit
JVC KD-SHX855 Head Unit - 4 x 35WRMS
Cadence ZX6-KIT 6" Splits / 1" Tweeter + Crossover - 2 x 50WRMS

Run the 6x9's from the KX200
Kicker KX200.2 2 Channel Amplifier - 140WRMS x 2 @ 4ohm
JVC CS-HX6945 360W 4 Way 6x9s - 70WRMS x 2

Run the sub off a new amp
New Amp ~500WRMS
Kicker 12" CompVR 800W Subwoofer - dual 4ohm VC - 400WRMS total

[hamgatan]

Looking at the specs of the speakers I would recommend you buy a larger amp for the sub and configure the speakers as follows.

Run the splits from the headunit
JVC KD-SHX855 Head Unit - 4 x 35WRMS
Cadence ZX6-KIT 6" Splits / 1" Tweeter + Crossover - 2 x 50WRMS

Run the 6x9's from the KX200
Kicker KX200.2 2 Channel Amplifier - 140WRMS x 2 @ 4ohm
JVC CS-HX6945 360W 4 Way 6x9s - 70WRMS x 2

Run the sub off a new amp
New Amp ~500WRMS
Kicker 12" CompVR 800W Subwoofer - dual 4ohm VC - 400WRMS total

good advice. i may want to wait a little while though to do it again because im burnt out from 2 and a half days on the weekend ripping it all apart and putting it together.. hehe. but no, your configuration is logical.. makes perfect sense.

[Squid]

Your amp is 4*100w rms which means that it consumes on average 400w rms if it is cranked, for this calculation I would say assume the it it.

P = IV
400 = I*12
I = 33.33 repeater amps.

My car battery when full charged can supply 200 aH (amp hours) so you would need to listen to the stereo at max power for 6 hours to completely flatten the battery.

However that is only of the amp and doesn't account for losses - ie heat, but still I would say most healthy car batteries are capable of running a hefty stereo for quite some time before being completely flat. Keep in mind you want to run the stereo for a bit less than this length of time as you still want to start the car.