Thread: seperate amp, no head unit question

The amp needs two +12v power sources to work. One goes straight to the battery(fused of course), and the other is a low ampreage turn on trigger that normally goes to the head unit. Since you are not going to have a turn on trigger (also know as remote output) from a headunit anymore you need a +12 turn on lead that will tell the amps when to turn on and off. You can get this off of your computers power supply or the ignition of the vehicle. Depending on how you turn on your computer would probably dictate which of these sources you use.
How is your computer going to be turned on and off?

WEll i was going to use an inverter for power with the comp and have a switch for the inverter some where near the dash and have the pc always come on when the inverter is turned on.
is there a simple way to have the computer switch on at start up?

If you wanted you could use a 12v relay triggered off of the ignition that would give power to the inverter only when the key is on. This way when the key is on the inverter will have power, and when the key is off the inverter will lose power. In this configuration you would just leave the switch on the inverter in the "on" position all of the time.
In this case I would hook the "remote input" on the amp to the output of the relay, this way the amp will turn on with the inverter, only when the key is on.