oh man, i just typed out like a bloody essay, and iexploere error poped up when i hit Post. :'( Lets try again... briefer.

Im new. I have got a HeadUnit, an Amp, and a Subwoofer. (Specs below).
I have nfi what im doing. I have no idea what cables to use, where to put the cables, what other equitment i need. The only current thing installed in my car is the headunit. I aim to store the amp on the side of the sub box in the boot.

So basically, after browsing these forums, the lingo went straight over my head, and i only found a single topology of wiring image, which still left me quite clueless.

I need to know what cables i need, and specifically where the cables go. While i 'could' go get a pro to install it, it would defeat the purpose of me trying to learn. Ive done quite a bit of searching on the forums, CAA, and the net in general, but either im not looking in the right spots, or w/e , i havent had much luck.

If someone could give me a rundown of what cables i need, and where they should go, where i should put my cables (side of cars, under carpet etc), what other bits of pieces i should need, and everythign else i might need to know, to get this system up and running. Its not a pro system, just something to keep me enjoyed in the car. Feel free to draw on the pics, or draw topologies :D Orrrr, if i missed an obvious audio thread - shove me in the right direction :D

Anyway, heres what i have:
HEADUNIT:
Clarion DB125
• High Power 4 x 45W • Rotary Volume Control • Green LCD • Dimmer • Digital Quartz Clock • Power Antenna Activator / Power Antenna current Limiter • 4 Speaker Output • Detachable Control Panel (DCP) • 2-Channel RCA Output • Z-Enhancer • Acrylic Cosmetic Design

AMP:
Boss BA-2900 (start up system: shhh about the boss equitment :P)
4x250 Watts Max. Output Power
4/3/2 Channel Bridgeable
2 OHM Stable & Tri-Mode Connection Possible
Thermal/ Short-Circuit/ Overloading Protection
High Efficiency Mosfet Power Supply
Variable Bass Booster
Variable Low Pass & High Pass Crossover
Gold Plated RCA Inputs & Speaker Terminals
Power On & Protection Led Indicators
Fan Cooling System
http://ebay.audioland.com.au/Website2/ba2900/side1_2900.jpg
http://ebay.audioland.com.au/Website2/ba2900/side2_2900.jpg

SUB
Basically a 12", with 2 little plugs on the back ... a red and a black push down thignie... i presume you can poke raw stripped cable into the holes, and clamp down the wires with the knobs. :D
http://www.debyrne.com/sub1.gif

So please, any advice would be great. Dont assume that i konw anything :nuts:

For starters, is the aftermarket headunit installed already?

Anyways, the wires you would need would be:

4 or 8 gauge power cables, fuse, fuse holder, short piece of speaker wire, RCA cables, crimp on terminals, 18 gauge wire for a the remote wire.

power cables:

around 5-6m of 8gauge cable for positive power from the battery. It goes from the positive battery terminal, to a fuse, 30cm away, then all the way to the back of the boot. This cable goes to the B+ terminal.

Ground cable, this goes from the GND terminal to a good solid piece of metal in your boot.

RCA cables:

this goes from the RCA outputs on the back of the headunit to the 'input' parts on the amp. Run these cables down to the opposite side of the car compared to the power cable.

Remote wire:

Run from teh 'remote' wire on the back of the headunit, all the way to the amp, to the remote terminal. this is the wire that turns your amp on.

Speaker wire:

Run these from teh speaker terminal to the back of the box (yes, stripped raw and shoved in)


Now..there is s a problem. You have a four channel amp, but you only have one sub. These would mean you can bridge a set of channels (either front or rear) into the sub, but the other two would be useless. the other two can be put to use by running speakers, or another sub.

With the remote wire, there should be a blue wire on the back of your headunit. Solder this onto the wire, run it to your boot, and connect it to the remote terminal on the amp.

8 gauge cable is definately enough for that amp, but if you want to expand on, add more amps later on, then go and buy 4 gauge cable, or even thicker. To connect these up, crimp a ring terminal to a one side, bolt this onto your +ve battery terminal, then 30cm onwards, connect it to a fuse holder, then from the fuse holder, run the rest of the wire thru the firewall, down the side of your car, and into your boot. Crimp a fork terminal on this side, and put it to the B+ terminal. For the ground cable, crimp a ring terminal on one side, and crimp a ring terminal on the other, and bolt it to a good, solid piece of metal in you boot.

You don't want much, do you? :P Just kidding.

In a nutshell you want to run an Amp power cable from the +ve terminal on your battery to wherever you want to mount your Amp and wire it to the +ve terminal on your Amp. Somewhere between the +ve terminal and the amp you'll want a fuse. Putting this as close to the battery as possible is a good idea because if your cable shorts out after the fuse the fuse will blow and you (probably) won't start a fire. So if your fuse is in the boot, bad things might happen.

To complete the circuit you need to run a bit of cable from the -ve terminal on your Amp to some kind of earth point. If you really wanted you could go back to the -ve terminal on your battery, but that's just too much work since the whole chassis of your car is connected back to the -ve terminal on the battery. A valid earth point is any bolt that runs into bare metal. There are heaps of them in the boot. If you've got a multimeter you can test easily by putting the +ve probe onto the line from the battery and the -ve probe onto the heads of bolts in the boot. The multimeter should be set to measure DC voltage of at least 12V.

That's power done.

You'll also need speaker cables to run from the speaker terminals on your Amp to your speakers in the doors. Getting through the door grommets is a pain in the arse. But since you didn't buy any new speakers you could simply wire the new speaker wires up to the old wires that are currently plugged into the back of your head unit. Make sense?

You'll need two pairs of RCA cables, one cable will do left and right for your speakers, the other will do left and right for your sub (even though it's really only mono). These cables need to run from the head unit back to the amp, so they'll need to be 5m long or so. Get shielded ones.

Lastly you'll need to run a cable from the remote power wire on your head unit to the remote power terminal on your amp. This is so the amp only turns on when your head unit turns on. I used a single strand of speaker wire for this.

You can either run all of this wire through the wiring ducts that are located beneath the scuff plates at the base of the door opening (the scuff plates will pull up easily enough), or through the centre console where your gear shifter is. It's up to you. The only thing to keep in mind is don't run power and speaker wires near each other because you'll introduce interference.

All of this wire can be bought in a kit from somewhere like Supercheap, or you can buy each type of cable seperately from a Jaycar or Dick Smith.

I know that's brief.. but hopefully it'll get you started!

Don't you hate it when you write a big arsed reply only to find out someone else wrote one faster... :cry:

Don't you hate it when you write a big arsed reply only to find out someone else wrote one faster... :cry:

:bowrofl: :bowrofl: :bowrofl:

hehe, wiring kits are cheap, just go get one at strathfield or whatever. 4 channel 8gauge kit. Go and get a aerpro kit or whatever, unless you want a brand named, stinger or streetwires pack :P

guys.. much love. exact starting point that i need. ill sit down and plan this out on paper toinght, and ill keep you guys updated. :D Isnt this fun :P but you both answered so many questions perfectomondo :) :bowdown:

hey eek,

you referring to one of these kits?
http://www.autoshop.com.au/shopcae.php?c=71

i was looking at getting one of the top two (but i still needed the explanations - thx guys :P). I copied down the items in those power packages and went to dse, but the chick at the counter had nfi. Neither did i.. so i walked out of their confused and empty handed.

so do u think one of those kits are worth getting.. $40... pretty cheap.

hey eek,

you referring to one of these kits?
http://www.autoshop.com.au/shopcae.php?c=71

i was looking at getting one of the top two (but i still needed the explanations - thx guys :P). I copied down the items in those power packages and went to dse, but the chick at the counter had nfi. Neither did i.. so i walked out of their confused and empty handed.

so do u think one of those kits are worth getting.. $40... pretty cheap.


Hey, either one of the top two kits will do just fine for you! Just one is gold and one is platnium. I like the platnium one, coz the power cable is blue in colour, lol

hrmm... im fine with the single connections, however what im confused about is the RCA cables, and how they connect
speakers > headunit > amp < sub

tehnically, in my mind, this is what i tried to peice together:
http://www.debyrne.com/sound1.gif
i konw thats really quite off, as it sounds like i should only have 2 sets of rca cables.

In fact, the HUD is already connected to the speakers (2 front and 2 rears), but i still want to get my head around the setup.

RCA diagram :P

I have so much spare time these days its not even funny. :doubt:

i would of <3 it had it not been for the aqua text on white :P

nah.. thx man

alright.. how does this look... can you double check the wiring materials and ensure ive got them right, so i dont have to run down to dse twice :D

ive left the connections from the front speakers to the headunit off... cause i since the headunit is currently utilising the front and rear speakers, i shouldnt have to play around with them too much, orchange the cabling.

and with the connection of the power line to thebattery... whats the exact name and size of that special clip i need. ? Ive never played with the battery before :S It looks like these ring terminals... need to be a certain size... ?


http://www.debyrne.com/wiring1.gif

don't be so critical on my drawings :rant: :P

reading your stuff again, the clarion headunit has only 1 pair of RCA outputs? As in one white and one red plug...that would mean you'd only need one set of RCA cables, and plug them into the amp and bridge the pair (either front or rear) to power the sub.

oh, no no no, the yellow and orange RCA cables are to go into the RCA plugs (which are on the other side of the amp, the round looking plugs)

from there on, the wires that go into the sub connect to either the front or rear (lower pic of amp) on the screw-down terminals

hrmm.. updated pic :|

i thought i was starting to understand... getting lost again however :headbange

hey

thats better..but now move the purple lines to the bottom pic of the amp, on screw down terminals (RHS) where you connected up the RCA cables to.

put your remote cable back in too, u need it :P

awsome :) ill be trying this over the next few days or so, im sure ill be back :)

its all good except u just need to remember to connect the dark purple wires (positive to postive, and negative to negative) on the amp, where they are labelled 'bridged'. These are on the two corners of each set of terminals.

okie doke.. got my stuff..

however, i go to attatch the power cable from my car battery to the amp, however, at the battery end, i notice that the positive (red) point, already has a connection (There is already a eye loop hook thingie attached to the positive terminal.

Is it possible to attacth another eyeloop to the positive terminal? Or will this end up with me blowing up and dying :|

I just read the thread in the last 5 mins and noticed your amp only does 4/3/2 channels. What that means is since you want to power your sub, you will only need 1 channel to power 1 subwoofer (assuming your only using 1 subwoofer). Your amp unfortunately can only go down to 2 channels in bridged mode, so you'll be utilising only 50% of the amp.

Are your subs the dual voice coil type? Hmm, I might go back and read over....

*blinks*

u might want to re-read the line... im a newb... so many of the things u just mentioned... went over my head :)

i was aiming to amp the 1 sub, and my pair of front speakers.

oops realised Eek had already said what I said in his long post

okay don't worry about the stuff I said about the dual voice coil bit, you won't know about it because its part of the speaker driver (the actual speaker) which is in the box.

lol
This thread is funny

Eek, you should become a pro diagram man...

:cool:

I love your diagrams, if only all my instruction manuals had these pictures i'll be laughing all day.

oh and the rca's don't go into your sub mate, they come from your head unit to your amp... that's it...

speaker terminals go to your sub

and you also bridged the speaker terminals wrongly, they should be at both extreme ends for your amp

lol
This thread is funny

Eek, you should become a pro diagram man...

:cool:

haha, you can't beat drawing with the 'paintbrush' thing in photoshop using a laptop touchpad :P

errr
wheres the rest of the replies gone :|
i havent finished yet, and a lot of info i needed is gone :(

Edit: nvm. had a prob, but im so pro i fixed it :gtfo:

yah... spare the laughing, im sensitive :'(

Anyway
Hooked up the power cables and grounding cables, speaker wire from sub->amp , went to install the remote power cable form the HU to the amp... and... i cant find anywhere to put it on the back of the HeadUnit.

The only things on the back of the head unit, is... a RCA lead hanging out, and another longish connector into the back of the uni (i presume.. antenna).

So where would i put the remote power cable?

BTW. Regarding the ground cabling, i tied it down with a screw in the base of the boot against the metal base... this is ok?

yah... spare the laughing, im sensitive :'(

Anyway
Hooked up the power cables and grounding cables, speaker wire from sub->amp , went to install the remote power cable form the HU to the amp... and... i cant find anywhere to put it on the back of the HeadUnit.

The only things on the back of the head unit, is... a RCA lead hanging out, and another longish connector into the back of the uni (i presume.. antenna).

So where would i put the remote power cable?

BTW. Regarding the ground cabling, i tied it down with a screw in the base of the boot against the metal base... this is ok?

I used a bolt, screw thing on the rear right hand side on the floor. Lift up the carpet, and there should be like...2-3 screws there...better to use a spanner or socket to remove than a phillips screwdriver. Once u remove the screw, sand the area..about 4cm diameter, until all the paint's gone, and screw the bolt back in with the ground cables there.

For the remote wire...look at your headunit's wiring loom (yes, the big complicated bunch of wires coming out the back of the headunit). Look for a blue coloured on (its usually labelled 12V+ switched, remote, or whatever anyways) and just solder the remote wire to it.

Oooh
there was a spare blue/white cable there (seperate to that big bunch) (identical to the cigareete lighter wire) - is that the one your' referring to? just connect the remote wire to that?

Oooh
there was a spare blue/white cable there (seperate to that big bunch) (identical to the cigareete lighter wire) - is that the one your' referring to? just connect the remote wire to that?

um...maybe. Just to make sure....test it with a multimeter or test light! Turn the headunit on, and see if it gives out 12V when the headunit's on....

or you could read the user manual for your headunit and find out