merzbow

Rob I'm curious why the waterjet-cut brackets turned out to be junk, isn't waterjet cutting supposed to be superior to everything else?

Don't turbos get very hot? I'd be wary of adding so much more heat when you already have added multiple alts.

Mechman is the only other company I'd dream of considering, because of the number of satisfied customers on his forum. But I actually emailed him while researching alts, and asked about a triple or quad-alt bracket, and the response was a flat-out "no", he didn't even bother referring me to anyone who could build a bracket. But even if you just want one alt, he's still a one-man company. Who knows why Iraggi and Tejcurrent decided to disappear? Maybe Mechman is immune to the same temptation but the track record of one-man companies in the high-output alt world is absolutely terrible long-term. If Mechman is smart he will lay out some expansion plans and become a real company, and give DC Power some competition. Choices are always good. But as it is now, DC Power's products are flawless... nobody has complaints about their performance. They are the platinum standard by every measure. Just goddamn wait. Is it really that hard?

Iraggi and tejcurrent were also "one-man" alt companies like Mechman and Signer, and they were "the shit" for about two years, until they started putting out shit product and then disappeared from the scene leaving hundreds of angry customers. Not saying this will be the case with Mechman and Singer, but anyone paying big bucks to a one-man company is taking a huge risk. DC Power isn't going anywhere, from what I hear they have big contracts from military customers and the like. So you have a local alt guy who makes brackets? Good for you! Want a cookie?

This: Took about 8 weeks, and is working awesomely well (I can pound 10k watts at idle on a V8 - 600-700 RPMs - without dropping to battery power). There's a REASON people wait for the products from the smaller companies. In fact, when it comes to alts, you have absolutely no choice. I can give you the name of a company that will build and Fedex you a high-output alt in less than a week, advertised as 300 amps, that will not do even 50 amps at idle. Nobody's stopping you from walking into the nearest car audio shop and buying a 1500 watt JL Audio system for 5 grand.

The answer is yes, call them directly.

Legendary thread is legendary...

Did you buy it from Woofers Etc.? Use the contact form on the website for a quick response. http://www.sundownaudio.com/index.php/contact-us.html Contact form works well. For the 200.4 -- it has to be repaired under warranty as we don't have any to replace it when. http://www.db-r.com -- repair service request -- tell him it's for warranty -- send copy of original invoice. I used the contact form on the weekend, no response. Yeah it was from woofers etc. I will do as you recommend here. Can you send an email to the guy at dB-r and tell him to repair my amp? He is being a dick and saying he isn't going to touch it unless you contact him. And yes, I sent him the invoice from woofersetc.

Did you buy it from Woofers Etc.? Use the contact form on the website for a quick response. http://www.sundownaudio.com/index.php/contact-us.html Contact form works well. For the 200.4 -- it has to be repaired under warranty as we don't have any to replace it when. http://www.db-r.com -- repair service request -- tell him it's for warranty -- send copy of original invoice. I used the contact form on the weekend, no response. Yeah it was from woofers etc. I will do as you recommend here.

Someone post or PM me Sundown's phone number... my SAX-200.4D was blown right out of the box and they are not responding to my warranty request over email.

Make absolutely sure you're accounting for the volume of internal bracing (budget up to 0.5cf), port wall, double baffle, and a properly-sized port (which means you need to decide on your desired tuning and port area now to do your calculations). If that pushes net below 5cf, go with the 15 for sure.

Problem seems obvious to me... if you are jacking the gain to 100% and still volume is much lower than you expect, the problem is with the RCA input voltage from your HU to your amp - it's not high enough. Double-check the wiring between the HU and your sub amp, and your HU's settings (sub channel turned on? sub channel level set to low? EQ issues?). Check the voltage on the RCA itself while playing a 0db sine wave at 50hz at 3/4 volume on the HU, it should be anywhere from 1-5v.

Please test the power wire from Powerwerx.com, I'm using that in my install and it's outstanding wire, pure copper and very flexible, yet only $2.50 per foot.

I have four BTL 15 N2s, all ordered and received a couple months ago. The web site claims a cutout diameter of 14.125 inches. Well good thing I measured before I cut, because that's too big for any of my subs. And what's more, the subs all differ from each other! One sub takes a cutout of 13.75, another a cutout of 14, and the final two a cutout of 13.825. (I verified these exactly by cutting different-sized holes in scrap wood with my router, then fitting the subs). All subs have the same outer diameter of 15.5 (again not like the website, which claims 15.625). I must say I'm kind of surprised the manufacturing tolerances in the basket can vary this much? Is this expected?

More details after working on my box more... the diameter of the sub as measured from one screwhole to the opposite screwhole is the same, thankfully, so as long as the sub fits in any given cutout, you can match it to any predrilled screwholes. (I imagine if it was otherwise people would have noticed before!) The variance is strictly in how much the basket arms "flare" outwards - that is, if I put one of my subs in a smaller cutout, it "catches" on the arms and won't go in more. Odd, but in my mind, the smaller the cutout the better since that leaves more wood between the cutout edge and the screwholes - more space for tee nuts, less chance of breaking the edge of the MDF, etc. My suggestion - make all the baskets to the 13 3/4" cutout size (or smaller if possible) and mark as such on the website as "minimum cutout". If people want to add wiggle room because they've got shaky hands, they can do so on their own.

I always like to make the smallest cutout possible for extra stability. Most people just assume wiggle room, I guess, and don't bother to measure it exactly.

I made three different cutouts, one 13 3/4", one 13 7/8", another 14". I turn all four subs upside on the floor. Then I take the 13 3/4" cutout and place it over the back of each sub in turn, seeing how far down it will go. It goes down to the gasket on only one sub, for an exact fit (no wiggle room). The 13 7/8" cutout goes down on three subs, two for an exact fit. The 14" cutout goes down on all subs, one for an exact fit. I verify the result by placing all the subs upright, and repeating the fitment tests by putting the subs in the cutouts and lifting the cutouts, seeing how far up they will go. I checked if there was any foreign material between the gasket and the metal that would throw off the results, clean. There's definitely a manufacturing tolerance issue here. Anyways, people can choose to believe me or not, I don't really care since I'm just making holes of different sizes in my box for each sub specifically.

So... I just ordered four XP 270 alts and a bracket for my Tahoe. For batts I've got an S3400 for the front and four D3100s for the back. To start with I'm planning on running 10kw to the subs, maybe 1100w to components. So I need wiring advice. Do I: 1. Run the positives from all four alts to the S3400 positive post, then go from there to the D3100s (which will be connected with a bus bar)? This is the "single pool of power approach". Or: 2. Run the positive from one alt to the S3400, then run the positives from the other three alts to the D3100s. This approach completely isolates three of the alternators and the four D3100s, which will be used exclusively to power the sub amps. The other alt and the S3400 are used for everything else in the vehicle. On the phone Kyle suggested option 2, but I didn't entirely understand why. Kyle if you're reading this can you elaborate? To the layman it would appear option 1 would be better because with option 2, I imagine much of the power of one of the alternators could go unused. Don't the voltage regulators in the alts ensure that 14v (or whatever) is always being produced?

270*14*3 = 11340 so the alts should be providing just enough power at full-tilt RMS to not draw from the batteries. This is, of course, at ideal RPM and assuming very efficient amps, so in real-word scenarios batteries will still be drawn upon a bit, I imagine. In your scenario you will be relying a lot more on battery power, so load up on the D3100s (I have 4, you should have AT LEAST 4, but ask on their forums).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFYfGpUpTGo Fixed the bracket alignment by putting a washer under each of the three bracket bolts, pulleys all now line up. Also got the new "Green Line" Gates belt in. The roughness I was experiencing when revving from low RPMs while moving is now greatly reduced. After some driving, the tension ended up a bit tighter than the OEM position, but not near maximum tightness. Now when I put the belt on, it was near maximum tightness. I think this is just due to simple physics - objects will take the path of least resistance - driving around and having the belt rotate will automatically cause it to "optimize" its path around the idler pulleys reducing tension as much as possible. I have no complaints here, in fact if it was any shorter, there was NO WAY I could have gotten it on in the first place. As it is, I had to loosen all the bracket idlers and remove one of the OEM idlers (temporarily) to do so. Anyways, I have all the 1/0 hooked up to the alts, and the harness hooked up, but the harness is not powered yet because I don't have my battery bank installed (or any amps or subs for that matter, lol). Going to be interesting to see how they perform when I finally get music playing at max. I suppose if there's belt slippage then, I will be hard-pressed to hear it with 10k watts of sub stage crushing my eardrums, heh...

Wow that's a retarded amount of power. Other manufacturers have some catch-up to do, only that new DC Audio amp comes close.

Alright ordered. Actually I plan to run each channel at 2.67 ohms (3 8-ohm speakers in parallel).

I am this close to getting one, but can it REALLY do 4x320w at 2 ohms clean across high freqs (80hz on up)?

It did work in the end (and quite well, final tension ended up to be very close to OEM), there were just two bolts in the way, both relatively easy to fix with Dremel/angle grinder: Bolt 1: Bolt 2: It wasn't a big deal, everything about this is highly custom and there are so many vehicle variations, so I didn't come into this with the expectation that everything would be a perfect fit from the get-go. But in the future you may want to look into moving the top pulley a tad (there is a second hole for it but that puts the pulley right on the bolt) and providing a shorter-head bolt for that bottom location (or insetting that bolt hole into the bracket a bit). Overall I'm very impressed, there are ZERO clearance issues with the alts as they sit, everything seems solid. All that's left is to get to the point where they are providing power and see what they can do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wiuS-KEbD8 No problems in the end that I couldn't fix with a Dremel and an angle grinder (see the build thread, heh.) Nothing blew up, shattered, caught on fire, or otherwise summoned demons from an alternate dimension. (Actually I was kind of hoping for the demons, but oh well.) No harness or wires hooked up yet so right now all they do is spin and look pretty.