Thread: Amp Remote Wire

Not trying to attack you but here's basically what the ACC wire does.

When the ACC wire is "hot", then the device is on. It's basically a switch that comes from your key, that tells your radio/amp/anything else that the engine is running.

So, your amp has three power input's. Well, technically only two, but we won't go into that. Ground, Battery, Accessory. The ground is the return, and should be obvious. The Battery is hooked up to the battery. With a amp it is a good idea to actually run it to the battery. I also run the ground to the battery in the same fashion. Otherwise you can get Ground Loop's. The Accessory comes from your radio. Your radio turns this on when it's on. NOT related to the accessory that your key uses.

So, the amp should have the acc wire wired to the "amp" wire on your radio. If the radio doesn't have a amp wire, it should be on the power antena. Gerenally it's a blue wire. The amp wire is a blue wire with a stripe of white, generally.

Since you are hooking up your computer directly to the car, without a radio, you have two options.

1) Hook up the amp to the accessory wire coming from your wiring harness for your stereo. The problem with this is even when you have the Computer off, the amp will be on. And if the key is in the acc position, the amp will be on. This could run the battery dead.

2) Make your own relay that turns on when the computer is on. And hook your amp to this wire.

If I was ditching the radio, i'd use the relay method, but I can't live without my Sirius.

Knight.

I'm just learning about car audio (for what it's worth, I second the motion for an audio forum on this board), but what voltage is the amp looking for?

I'm assuming it's +5v, as with most electronics? In that case, you can just cut open a USB cable and use the +5v line on there. No need for a relay, and the amp would only be powered as long as the motherboard is getting power.. which it wouldn't be, when your power supply is shut off.

Just thinking here of what current the amp remote wire needs ?
since the amp is powered by the battery directly and only switches on when current is present in the remote wire, what type of current is it looking for ?

Can we not just use a spare pc hard drive power plug and splice the +12v line into the amp remote, then whenever the pc is on, the amp will be ? or will the draw from the amp destroy the pc power supply ? (regardless of whether its an opus, PWrange or inverter fed ) my amps blow a 50 AMP fuse if I crank the gain up all the way, using a headunit.

Hi,

Could you run a 12v supply directly from inside the PC, from one of the HDD or CDRom power connectors. This would then power the Acc line into the amp only when the PC is on. I'm sure the current draw for this is within the capabilities of the computer's PSU.

Just a thought, shoot me down if necessary...

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