Tater Rocket
Enlightened
So I recently bought some speakers from compgeeks.com for $15. They weren't bad. They got quite loud for the two little 3 inch speakers, but my major complaint was the bass. It was there, but it was unresponsive when the volume was down, you had to turn it WAY up to get the bass to go (it too was only a little 3 incher). So, I went to bestbuy and bought a couple 6.5" pioneer's for $20. Stuck those in a small wooden box I had. They were 4 ohms each, the sub that it came with was 8 ohms. After some fiddling around with the things being in parallel then realizing they should be in series, I put them in series. Ok, now I have some pretty good sounding bass. Then I realize that the main 3 inch speakers are still getting WAY too much bass so they sound bad. I don't know how to eliminate the bass from those speakers only, and they are prettty good for the middle ranges, so I bought some more of the pioneer's for $20 more because I figured they would do good on middle and decent on the lower.
Ok, so I tested the speakers with my new 6.5 inch subs and the stock 3 inch mains for a while (10 minutes maybe, on fairly loud). The little cooling fin things got QUITE hot. I turned it all off, cut the wires to the 3 inch speakers, hooked the wires to my pioneer's. No go. I think I fried the little power supply for it. The power supply for this is a standard wall plug with the converter in the subs (now sitting on myh floor with loose screws, so it is POSSIBLE I fried a capacitor, but I don't think I did). I got my dad's multimeter, hooked it up to where the converted AC (the supply is 15 volts DC, 1000 mA) goes, got about .05 volts AC (when I wasn't touching the wires I got .002 volts, so I think this is a valid reading). I hooked it up to the solder pads after the diodes and got no reading. Then I realized "duh, diodes drop the voltage around .3, and this is under .3 volts".
My speakers are putting out a VERY faint sound, as in, you almost have to touch your ear to the speakers to hear it. I am guessing that is because of the very slight voltage. Now, my problem is what to do? I have $40 in pioneer speakers sitting here, and another $15 in computer speakers and electronics that I cannot use. I have a 12 volt 1000 mA wall wart that I am thinking about hooking up after the diodes to see if that will give me some sound, but I don't want to get the polarity wrong (I assume I can as the plug is a polarized plug that can only go in one way on the original speakers) and fry the electronics completely.
So, my needs are this: How would I go about making a cheap amp to run these 4 speakers that will give all the bass to two of them, and everything but the bass to the other two, for under $20.
And: How would I go about fixing the coil that is supposed to be converting voltage, or should I just spend another $9 and wait a week to buy a 16 volt, 1000 mA or 1.5 amp wall wart from allelectronics.com and hook that up?
Any advice or cheap kits to let me run these 4 speakers off the headphone output jack on my laptop would be great. Or, if any of you could easily fix the coil or make a new one for 15 volts AC at 1 amp or whatever for pretty cheap, that would be great too. Anyway, I guess I'll be packing up these speakers and heading back to school in a couple hours.
Spud
Ok, so I tested the speakers with my new 6.5 inch subs and the stock 3 inch mains for a while (10 minutes maybe, on fairly loud). The little cooling fin things got QUITE hot. I turned it all off, cut the wires to the 3 inch speakers, hooked the wires to my pioneer's. No go. I think I fried the little power supply for it. The power supply for this is a standard wall plug with the converter in the subs (now sitting on myh floor with loose screws, so it is POSSIBLE I fried a capacitor, but I don't think I did). I got my dad's multimeter, hooked it up to where the converted AC (the supply is 15 volts DC, 1000 mA) goes, got about .05 volts AC (when I wasn't touching the wires I got .002 volts, so I think this is a valid reading). I hooked it up to the solder pads after the diodes and got no reading. Then I realized "duh, diodes drop the voltage around .3, and this is under .3 volts".
My speakers are putting out a VERY faint sound, as in, you almost have to touch your ear to the speakers to hear it. I am guessing that is because of the very slight voltage. Now, my problem is what to do? I have $40 in pioneer speakers sitting here, and another $15 in computer speakers and electronics that I cannot use. I have a 12 volt 1000 mA wall wart that I am thinking about hooking up after the diodes to see if that will give me some sound, but I don't want to get the polarity wrong (I assume I can as the plug is a polarized plug that can only go in one way on the original speakers) and fry the electronics completely.
So, my needs are this: How would I go about making a cheap amp to run these 4 speakers that will give all the bass to two of them, and everything but the bass to the other two, for under $20.
And: How would I go about fixing the coil that is supposed to be converting voltage, or should I just spend another $9 and wait a week to buy a 16 volt, 1000 mA or 1.5 amp wall wart from allelectronics.com and hook that up?
Any advice or cheap kits to let me run these 4 speakers off the headphone output jack on my laptop would be great. Or, if any of you could easily fix the coil or make a new one for 15 volts AC at 1 amp or whatever for pretty cheap, that would be great too. Anyway, I guess I'll be packing up these speakers and heading back to school in a couple hours.
Spud