Putting guts of amp in carputer.

stonestatue · 04-16-2008, 01:44 AM

I intend to design a carputer that is as integrated as possible.

This means I want as many components and accessories inside the carputer that will reasonably fit.

I also intend to power two subs with an amplifier. How feasible is it to rip apart the amp and put the guts inside a carputer case?

_dopehead_ · 04-16-2008, 08:44 AM

I would think that the carputer case would need to be pretty big for this to be possible, unless of course your amps are very small, also there is alot of electrical noise inside a pc case, that you certainly wouldn't wan't to just put your amps inside. That being said, it's certainly not impossible, and would probably be a fun project. I am soon starting version2 of my carpc, and i am gonna try with 41hz.com's small amps just as a test to see how well it works.

scott_fx · 04-16-2008, 10:07 AM

i agree with dopehead. your best bet is to either go with a chip amp like the 41hz kits or tear apart a sonic impact t-amp (i just purchased one to play with and i'm impressed with it's performance) you can search on ebay for some other cheap alternative or for slightly improved sound quality of the t-amps you can do research on 'gainclone' i have a gainclone hybrid and i absolutely love it... i totally missed the fact that you want to power a pair of subs with this amp... i would recommend getting an external amp for the subs. they are power hungry and usually require a beefy power supply and large heat sink to dissipate heat. I did do a test with the t-amp powering an 8 inch sub and it was surprising that it actually powered it BUT... you're not going to get the spl needed in a loud car.

amapro704 · 04-16-2008, 11:25 AM

Heat will probably be an issue unless you pay a lot of attention to ventilation, which then also takes up space...

LittleDragon · 04-16-2008, 12:29 PM

I wouldn't do it unless it was a low power amp. The typical car amp uses the entire casing as a heatsink and they can get pretty warm

CrArC · 04-17-2008, 07:06 AM

Out of curiosity, would there not also be a risk of the amplifier interfering with the circuitry of the Carputer? Just thinking about the kind of power passing through the amp's board when powering subwoofers. Also I'd be concerned about running the amp and car pc off the same power cabling into the case; I'd imagine the voltage drop across the cable would put strain on the carputer's PSU. Again, for subwoofers, you might need one of the nifty wide input PSUs for peace of mind.

It would be absolutely awesome though

and as far as sticking bits of amp in a case goes, perfectly feasible so long as you can sufficiently heatsink all the neccessities.

stonestatue · 04-18-2008, 06:27 PM

Sorry for any confusion. What I intend to do is take apart a subwoofer amplifier, and put the circuit board, etc inside of the carputer case. I can make it big enough to allow for heatsink, etc.

stonestatue · 04-18-2008, 06:40 PM

Also, I would run separate power cables dedicated for each unit, etc. The only thing common to the carputer and the amp would be the case they both reside in.

mezz64 · 04-18-2008, 07:07 PM

If you place the boards side by side then you should have little to no problems. However one on top of the other is only going to lead to overheating issues.