Good with Audio Wiring? Help me please.

[Rick]

I've seen a couple teams use boxes with speakers and cd players in them. I've also seen cart audio done. My real question is: How do i get my portable cd player to play through some car speakers(that aren't in my car).

What power supply?
How hard is it to do?
What supplies needed?

Thanks in advance.

[MacZealot]

Ok, I haven't done this before, but I can give you a bit of insight.

First of all, you will need an amplifier. Typically, to my knowledge, 'receivers' actually do act as amplifiers, so you will be fine there. JUST MAKE SURE THE OHM rating matches!

As I said though, a receiver depends. Now seeing that you want to stick this into a cart, (bot?), you will want to use a DC amplifier, be very careful with your choice.

To my knowledge, you might also need a console of sorts, not sure what to go about there, but good luck.

[Clark Gilbert]

This sounds like something that could be turned into a pretty good "white paper". Most teams probably know how to do this kind of stuff or know someone who can, but it would always be good to have this documented (even though each setup/speakers/player would be different)

Just an idea.\\

[rbayer]

If you get a decent pair of powered speakers, you can just plug them straight into your CD player and it should work just fine. You may need an adapter depending on the plugs on each end, but that shouldn't be more than a buck or two.

[Greg McCoy]

Yeah, pick up some PC Speakers or something. A portable CD Player probably won't be able to drive car speakers very well. If you had a car radio that you could probably pick up from a junkyard or something you could get decent sound out of car speakers. Make sure the impedance on the speakers meets or exceedes the mininimum on the amp too

[MacZealot]

NOW THAT I THINK OF IT...

You could probably get a small low-power set of computer speakers and rip the power adapter off, then use capacitors and plug it into the battery

[Jnadke]

Originally posted by rbayer
If you get a decent pair of powered speakers, you can just plug them straight into your CD player and it should work just fine. You may need an adapter depending on the plugs on each end, but that shouldn't be more than a buck or two.

Car speakers aren't powered speakers.

All you need is an amplifier and a power source to play your discman on your car speakers. You can actually play to the speakers directly, but an amplifier will make it audible.

[Matt Reiland]

If you want to make the sound louder than that of a computer with the little 5 watt computer speakers you are going to go to a car system like many of the teams have. Most portable CD players will have a line out jack or an adapter to take the headphones to a variable line out with RCA's. You most definately will have a 12 power source similar to the robots or as big as a car battery. Next will come a 12v car audio amplifier with something in the range of at least 30W probably just a 2 channel, finally the speakers, automotive 4 ohms will work the amplifier better than home 8 ohm speakers. The amplifier and speakers can be found at most stores but better yet go to ebay and buy it on the cheap. Hook it all up, use the CD player for the volume or the amp might have a line level adjustment. A good speaker size would be 6x9, they have OK base for their size but if you want more get at least an 8" sub also (10-12 prefereable)

[Andrew Rudolph]

Also you could just buy a face plate for a car stereo, then get a few 3 way speakers anda battery to power it all from. Faceplates have built in amplifiers, i know sony ones get up to 50 watts for 4 channels, that could be enough. A good thing to do would be find a car audio place in your town and talk to them. Usually they are very helpful, specially if you make it seem you are going to buy stuff from them. Maybe they would be willing to help you out and you can make a sweet system for the cart, not just some wimpy system. But if not im sure there are tons of things on the net to help you out.

[evulish]

Go rip the speakers and HU out of a Chevy. Those things have nice OEM stereos. Then just get a tape adapter for your cd player. All you would need to rig up is the power supply. That would most likely be the easiest and cheapest way to get the job done. If you want something to annoy the DJ playing the loud music at the regionals, expect to pay like $300+ (For that, I would get Kenwood 3-ways and a 12" sub along with a Pioneer HU and a Blaupunkt amp)

[dixonij]

i know nothing about speakers but i did see a team who rigged up their prevous year's bot with a huge woofer and two 3 in. tweeters. they also put a cd faceplate on it and put neon lights in it to make it look all cool.