How to make a Car Power Amp work on AC power using a PC power supply
I saw a thread where people were asking how they could make their Car Amp work in their home, I found where someone had managed to make one work with a PSU from a computer. People wanted a tutorial on how to do it, so I played with the idea and came up with this. I am NOT responsible if you BLOW something, or if you start a fire, but This is a fairly safe project. Use a standard computer PSU, no internal modification required, remember if you open a PSU, there are parts in there that WILL shock you, even un-plugged. I cut one of the molex connectors off of the PSU, but there are ways to do this without damaging the psu. On higher power PSUs there are more than one rail inside the psu for power, each providing only part of the rated wattage, so, I made sure I hooked both strands of molex connectors to the amp. Im only average in Electronics, so if some guru out there wants to correct me, by all means PM me, and Ill make sure I put a warning here in the description :P Just common sense tells me DO NOT HOOK UP MORE WATTAGE TO THE AMP THAN YOUR PSU CAN PROVIDE! and remember that the amp itself wastes some power for the LEDs and about 30 percent in heat, so, dont connect 650w of speakers with a 650w psu. I would stay below 450w on the speakers. I dont know much about how these car amps work, so make sure you know what speaker impedance is, and how to figure it, and make sure you dont under power the speakers Hope the video helps! feel free to email me with questions/requests …
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25 comments
Kokujinkotei on February 4, 2010 at 2:16 pm
i know how 2 do it i have a car amp runnin till this day its rather easy pm me andill give you an esay guid to doing so :)
coolaidkiller101 on February 18, 2010 at 6:14 pm
why dont you use a car battery it suppleis 6000 cranking watts
coolaidkiller101 on February 18, 2010 at 10:08 pm
i have a 480w psu that wheyes 5 lbs and have a 250w psu that wheyes 12 lbs
JonTheLostVirgin on February 24, 2010 at 5:36 am
Yes. Rem is 5v, I believe. Not 100% on the amps, but it’s very low as well. Low current, like you said, just tells the amp to come on when the head unit does.
igot2buttcheeks on February 26, 2010 at 1:47 pm
are you an idiot it would be better to underpower than anything the only way you can blow your amp or speakers on a atx is running the wrong ohms most car audio uses anywhere between 1 and 6 ohms and you wont blow anything if you wire it right as a atx have a automatic surge proctector oon it btw i know i didnt spell nuthin right but i dont care if yall wanna wire a car audio system the right way hit me up
igot2buttcheeks on February 26, 2010 at 1:51 pm
@wrxsti111 all atx psu have them
TRAxXxk1ng on February 28, 2010 at 12:50 pm
wus the name of tha song
ldragonheart on March 7, 2010 at 8:12 am
@coolaidkiller101 because it leaks co2
coolaidkiller101 on March 7, 2010 at 2:24 pm
@ldragonheart car battery leaks hho
ldragonheart on March 7, 2010 at 9:37 pm
@coolaidkiller101 ya hydrogen my fualt!!
kearney36 on March 14, 2010 at 11:34 am
awesome vid
smallville0forever on March 15, 2010 at 1:27 am
ok guys i need serious help
i will buy logitech z530 7.1 sound for pc i need to know how to connect it to my car and i have sony amp 220 watt so its good because the logitech dont use more than 120 watt so any help i will aperciate it
claud122003 on March 17, 2010 at 7:09 pm
dont you think its a little risky using the 18g wire instead of something bigger?
canwebreakit on March 18, 2010 at 2:33 pm
i love that song i was just listening to that song before i watched this no lie
eswi1 on March 28, 2010 at 5:26 am
does it work if it doesnt have a switch cuz im nt havin any luck and mine dont have a switch and is there any way out of not havin to get another one
ubuntututorials on April 2, 2010 at 10:40 am
A good power supply should automatically switch off when its ratings are exceeded. It should not fail in any way to provide clean power to the computer – if it does so, then it could damage a computer.
I use these PSUs all the time. They’re cheap, they have very high outputs (especially for the price), they’re usually short-circuit, over-voltage and over-power protected. But they do have a lot of noise on the output (usually beyond audible, because of how a switch-mode PSU works.)
ROByoCAY on April 7, 2010 at 3:09 pm
My PC power supply puts out 157 W and I have a 200 W amp. Would that still work?
Azteka on April 24, 2010 at 11:38 am
well if u guys wanna use a computer power supply use a 400 watts or higher one, they give u around 15 amps, thats what u need 12v and more than 15 amps, and use all the yellow wire togeter and all the black together too, chech out my video a have a 500watts psu modded, and i don’t have all those wires everywhere, plus it was a temporary if u really want something stable get a 12/14 volts at 25 or 30 amps power supply like mine
Azteka on April 24, 2010 at 11:41 am
im serious, my power supply is a 14 volts at 30 amps power supply , it has a big tranformer and 2 big capacitor so i can hook a good size amp with a good sub or subs, i will make a video later so u guys can watch my power supply working, but just check my video so u guys can see the difference between a psu and a real power supply
KnockBeforeYouClick on April 29, 2010 at 9:00 am
i have everything hooked up it powers on and my speakers are hooked up aswell…i have a rca cable that goes to one jack and when i plug it in my comp and turn it on nothing comes out, i have a 200 watt chaos wired 2 channel amp hooked up to a 200 watt computer psu …whats wrong lol
manuel9521683 on May 2, 2010 at 12:00 am
what kind of pc power supply would i need to power a 1500 watt amp
harper9494 on May 2, 2010 at 9:22 pm
just wondering can you use more than one psu to get more power from it as iam wanting to build somthing like this in my garage for a tester as it costs a fortune in keep charging car batteries and its a fourtue to get a proper converter
vm756 on May 2, 2010 at 9:59 pm
i really need your help. i accidentally cut off that connector….. what colors would the wires have to be to turn on?
btsouthmost on May 4, 2010 at 3:39 am
would adding a capacitor help?
nickschmidt101 on June 14, 2010 at 4:54 pm
great video! I want to connect a 12″ 1200 watt peak power sony xplod subwoofer with a 500 watt bazooka amp to a dell inspiron 550 pc. I have a logitech z cinema sound system if that is important, however what kind of power supply would i need? Please reply thanks, and again, great video