Thread: Newb Power Question

Originally Posted by darroj

so i'm just about ready to install the carputer. amp is installed, wired and up ready for the carputer, 7" lilliput screen is all mounted into my dash, but before I do, i had a question about powering it.

I'm using a 1GHz Jetway with an M1-ATX psu, so by no means power hungry. My plan was to use the exisiting wiring which went to the stock HU to power the carputer and see if I could jumper off that and power the lilliput as well.

Do you think this would work or would there not be enough power?
Could I power the monitor off of the M1-ATX instead?

Thanks!

THe stock wiring is not sufficient for any power draw really. Just run a dedicated wire, and you will be happy. The stock wiring may be able to handle it, but why play roulette with your car?

And to power the lilli off the M1 then you need to chop off the "egg" (unregulated car voltage to stable 12v converter) and you can use the yellow and black wires from the power supply.

Or you can probably wire the screen with the egg to the stock power wire.

You can get the ignition wire from the stock harness though because it is just a remote signal.

8-10awg is good. A little big, but in this case, bigger is better.

I use 4awg for a via board, just because I can. It makes me feel good to know I could power a P4 Extreme Edition if I wanted to with no upgrade to wiring.

Originally Posted by david69leonard

thats what im using is 4awg for my power, the acc you can use the stock HU wire for that, i also use a 4awg for my ground(to help eliminate any ground loop interference) I use a separate 0awg for my amps...

I think my Honda would explode if I tried to pull enough current to fill a 0/1 wire!

Originally Posted by darroj

i'm going to add a 20A fuse to my 10awg power wire (going with 10awg ground also)

just another newb question - i can run right from the battery to the m1-atx and the psu will stop drawing power such that my battery doesn't die - correct? I know it's a "smart"/automotive PSU, but I figured better safe than sorry.

Yes infact that is what you have to do. The M1/M2 also will "pull the plug" on the computer if the battery voltage goes below a certain amount if the computer is set to never hard-off (which is not reccommended). The M2 always draws a little bit of power, but that is just to power its clock and the wakeup chip. So insignificant that the little flashing LED people have on their alarms is about the equivalent.

Originally Posted by 2k1Toaster

I think my Honda would explode if I tried to pull enough current to fill a 0/1 wire!

My cit is just a tin can.... yep, running 1/0 also.... It'll be in the news when my car should ever explode. Needs to power only about 700watts (that is if the PSU works at full potential and I crank the volume all the way up). Plenty, don't you think

So yeah, If you're scared of your car exploding when you would use full potential of a 1/0 (which is about 150a i think), I don't want to know what it would do to my car