automotive audio in a home application

[2drxploder]

i have always wanted to have a car stereo running my garage if i ever got one. now i have a garage. i do not have a set plan yet. very open to help, suggestions, and safety concerns. i was thinking a double din head unit, quality speakers, and self powered smaller sub, have one in my ranger works great 3 years now, was like 80 bux from amzn. power source? again SAFETY. 35 years to get a garage, no fires. i like the idea of the car stereo, i'm very aware i could get better, cheaper sound with a home/120v system. was unsure where in electrical to post this.

 

[franklin2]

I know you have your heart set on a car stereo unit, but I have one in my garage and is very good and it's a home unit I got from goodwill. One of the things you will have to rig up will be the antenna. I don't know the area you live in or the signal strength of the stations, but a home unit with a outside antenna will work much better and have less interference than a auto unit with the whip antenna inside the garage.

You can build it up in time, I found a Technics receiver and found some Bose speakers, and then I found some Polk audio speakers. You can buy a 1/8 stereo to two rca adapters to plug your phone into the system or use a bluetooth adapter.

If you are going to get anything auto based that has any power, you will need a hefty 12v power supply for it. Half of those amplifiers or sub amplifers are actually inverters inside the amps that change the 12v to a higher voltage. You can only drive a speaker to around 30 watts with a 12v amp that doesn't have a internal voltage inversion.

 

[sgtsandman]

With an 120 Volt AC to 12 volt DC power supply and a wire pigtail adapter, you should be able to make that happen. The rest would be just running wire to speakers and the sub. Now splitting the signal for the sub is out of my experience but I imagine that wouldn't be anymore difficult that doing it inside a vehicle.

 

[2drxploder]

I mostly like the idea of controlling it from a car head unit. Maybe just run it and 4 speakers from it on 12v, then rca for signal to 120v amp for sub?

 

[RonD]

You need an AC/DC power supply, 12volt 10 amp, will do for any Factory Radio unit

These look like a Laptop Power supply, usually $35-$45
You can just cut the 12v plug end off and splice the + and - wires or get a Female plug that matches the plug on the power supply

You need it to feed two 12volt lines and usually 2 grounds on a radio

1998 Ranger wiring diagram here: https://www.therangerstation.com/tech_library/pdf_documents/1998_Ranger_Radio_Wiring.pdf

Fuse 28 red/black wire is NOT hooked up, it MUTES the radio when starting engine

Fuses 20 and 29 wires do need to be hooked up to the 12volt power supply
Yellow/black and green/purple wires

You don't need the fuses, power supplies can fail but just stop working, they never do voltage spikes

Green/purple wire is needed to Hold Presets and Clock time
Yellow/black is the key on and off 12volt power, you will just be using the on/off switch on the radio

You can also hook up the Blue/red wire to 12v, its for the back lights on the radio, pin 1 on diagram

This diagram show 3 grounds, so these connect to the "-" wire on the power supply

You also need an antenna to get Radio stations

Any 8ohms speakers can be used, and you just need 2 but can run 4, up to you, there is a Fader control so all sound goes to front 2 speakers

Make sure the Powered Sub has an 8 ohm speaker wire Pass thru, not just an RCA jack plug in
You would hook it up to the Left Front speaker wire and then continue that wire to the regular speaker
Some powered subs can be hooked up to both left and right, even better, then out to the regular speakers
These pass thrus act as 0 load so doesn't effect the impedance the radio amplifier sees, it just uses the "speaker level" signals to pull out the lower frequencies

 

[franklin2]

I mostly like the idea of controlling it from a car head unit. Maybe just run it and 4 speakers from it on 12v, then rca for signal to 120v amp for sub?

That might be the wiser decision. Use the car radio for the control unit, and use conventional 120v components to drive the speakers.

Like was said in Ron D's post, a 10 amp supply would be sufficient to run the standard radio with the standard amplifier it came with. But if you are going to have any external amplifiers or subs with amplifiers, you are going to need a lot of 12v power. It sounds like you are familiar with installing stereos in autos. All you have to do is look at the size of the power wire for the amplifier or sub with amplifier, and you get the idea how much power it will take, those wires are pretty large and it takes a lot of 12v current to run them full volume.

The 12v amplifiers also require at least a 4 ohm or lower speaker. The competition car audio amplifiers can handle speaker loads down to 2 ohms. The higher 8 ohm speaker will work with the car audio, but it will not pull the full output out of a car amplifier. But the home 120v amplifier does just fine with a higher 8 ohm speaker. So your combination idea would give you the function and look that you want, and also give you the audio power output you want to get higher sound levels. I am assuming the higher sound levels are your goal, since you said something about subs.

 

[Angie]

I have built a system similar to this idea. It is a portable box, i will post a pic of it. I originally built it to use in an off road CAT loader, that had no radio system in it. I placed a (cheap) single din radio with usb input, and a new set of speakers. worked out very well... antennae is built into the box also.

for the power in the shop where it is now is with a 10 amp converter I have for all my auto testing stuff...

with plywood and a saw anything is possible.