IONH
Well-known member
There was another thread recently talking about powering a car radio and amp inside the garage. There was discussion about using a computer power supply. That got me investigating.
I had a very old Pentium II (circa 1998 is my guess) and googled how to start it up without a computer. No problem, figured that out. Checked voltage out of the legs and confirmed the yellow leg was putting out +12V and the black were ground. Hooked up a brand new car radio I had sitting in a box for a couple of years that I never installed, it powered up.
Seeing as that PSU was only rated at 120 watts, it was not going to drive the 400 watt amp on a speaker box which was sitting in my garage. I looked online and purchased a DiabloTek 600 watt PSU for about $30 with free Amazon Prime shipping. Received that new PSU today and hooked it up, again jumpering to power up. Let it sit spinning with just the load of the radio for about 30 minutes just to confirm it's not completely DOA, then I went to cutting.
I probably could have used just the one 600w PSU, but I was thinking this would be less strain on the 600w by letting the 120w drive the radio.
It sounds great and no line noise at all!
As the 120w PSU is so old, I don't want to leave it running all the time. The only downside of this is that I have to manually change the radio to the aux input every time so I can listen to my iPod... and its remote does not have an input change button.
And in case you were wondering, I secured everything to the top of the box loosely by driving 1 5/8" screws in next to everything at an angle. You couldn't pick up the box by any of them, but they won't immediately fall off. Also, I put a wall switch on each PSU to turn them on and off.
I've run it for maybe 15 minutes so far and none of the wires got warm.
I had a very old Pentium II (circa 1998 is my guess) and googled how to start it up without a computer. No problem, figured that out. Checked voltage out of the legs and confirmed the yellow leg was putting out +12V and the black were ground. Hooked up a brand new car radio I had sitting in a box for a couple of years that I never installed, it powered up.
Seeing as that PSU was only rated at 120 watts, it was not going to drive the 400 watt amp on a speaker box which was sitting in my garage. I looked online and purchased a DiabloTek 600 watt PSU for about $30 with free Amazon Prime shipping. Received that new PSU today and hooked it up, again jumpering to power up. Let it sit spinning with just the load of the radio for about 30 minutes just to confirm it's not completely DOA, then I went to cutting.
I probably could have used just the one 600w PSU, but I was thinking this would be less strain on the 600w by letting the 120w drive the radio.
It sounds great and no line noise at all!
As the 120w PSU is so old, I don't want to leave it running all the time. The only downside of this is that I have to manually change the radio to the aux input every time so I can listen to my iPod... and its remote does not have an input change button.
And in case you were wondering, I secured everything to the top of the box loosely by driving 1 5/8" screws in next to everything at an angle. You couldn't pick up the box by any of them, but they won't immediately fall off. Also, I put a wall switch on each PSU to turn them on and off.
I've run it for maybe 15 minutes so far and none of the wires got warm.
- Oh never mind......) like you've got a great solution there.