Making a killswitch

[acex1138]

as you saw in my other thread doing amp/sub inst

anyway.. the amp is extremely powerful. so i thought of putting in a killswitch, so if i am cruisiing past a patrol car can turn the rear amp/sub off to avoid being pulled over for it, and if i havnt got the engine running be able to turn it off so i can have some sound on without the battery being drained in 10 minutes.

Had 2 suggestions on best way to do it, first was to put a switch under the dash to 1 or 0 the remote connection from teh head unit, i dont know how effective that would be to stop power going to the amp tho, and the other suggestion was to put a switch on the actual power cable for the amp.

Anyone got any experience or ideas or guides for this?

[Ozzie]

If you cut the power to the remote wire it cuts power to the amp.
The power to the amp will still be active but the amp will be turned off so it wont drain power.

[Not_An_Abba_Fan]

The most effective thing is, believe it or not, already a part of the head unit. A feature not many young people are aware of, it's quite simple really, it's called.....












wait for it......











the volume control.

[Ozzie]

Ignore him.... lol

Turning the volume down may help avoid being pulled over but it still wont cut power to the amp which will drain the battery.

[stocky]

yeah i had this years ago. just hook it up to the remote wire. i never actually found a need to use the switch ever

[acex1138]

yeah cheers guys.... and yeah volume helps, until you go to the drive in.... and u wanna go 2 hours with the sound unit ON without draining your battery lol.

Any guides on doing it, suggestions where to mount it?.... im doing my electronics diploma atm and we havnt covered switches of any kind yet.

What one to buy, how to wire it etc, im guessing just a two point switch from dicksmith, cut wire, solder end onto each point, mount it and your good?

[stocky]

actually yeah thats another time when i did use the switch. the drive ins

[Ozzie]

You can mount it anywhere really.

If I was to put one in my VT i would install it in the glovebox roof. That way its out of the way.

All you need to do is cut the remote wire and connect each side to the switch.

[stocky]

i used a factory switch for mine so i didnt have one that stood out. i grabbed a radio surround out of a wagon. they have 3 buttons on them, instead of sedans just having one for A/C. i hooked it up to the rear wiper button

[acex1138]

pretty classy effort stocky

[D-Man]

on most they will have a button - ATT i think it's attenuation? no idea anyway.

this will cut it from 80db or whatever down to about 10db as soon as you click it.

so if your lucky and drive with the remote sitting in your hand... button and done.

safe and sound (however this means yes that the amp, car, sound and whatever are still running...)

however if you get pulled up... what does it matter? just have it down.

if he pulls you over for a loud sound system by that stage that you realise a killswitch wont matter.

[acex1138]

nah its just certain places you dont wanna be driving thru with a sub turned on, with p plates up, or in a reasonable car, just get pulled over if the music coming out of your speakers wasnt coldplay, the police or olivia newton john.

And then being defected if you dont declaire that you were on your way to pickup your pushbike for your cycle through wine country on the weekend.

in all seriousness.. only police uses with it would be driving thru city, defect points or ghetto's full of unmarked cars... sometimes they are just looking for excuses, so i dont really want to give them any, so would rather just turn off the subwoofer.

On top of that, from time to time have kids in the back of my car and dont want them being uncomfortable in the back, and im being responsible so yeah i think this is a great idea for it.

[acarmody]

Most decent H/U have a sub on/off button/switch. Basically just cuts the sub RCA I think. No signal, no amplification, no massive power drain.

[stocky]

Most decent H/U have a sub on/off button/switch. Basically just cuts the sub RCA I think. No signal, no amplification, no massive power drain.

cutting the RCA doesnt cut the power to the amp itself, so yes there would be a power drain

[calais_cruzin]

my mono blocks cook like all hell when i kill the RCA signal, bein the amp is still on without signal.

It got hotter in 30min sittin there, than driving around havin it crankin.

I jsut puta switch next to me seat in a nice lil jaycar jiffy box, reach down push the button, switch on or off

[acarmody]

cutting the RCA doesnt cut the power to the amp itself, so yes there would be a power drain

I said I think it cut signal to the RCA. The power drain would be very minimal just enough to keep the circuitry charged. Maybe I'm talking shit, wouldn't suprise me . All the H/U I've had have a button that stops the sub so I'm just going off my experiences.

my mono blocks cook like all hell when i kill the RCA signal, bein the amp is still on without signal.

It got hotter in 30min sittin there, than driving around havin it crankin.

I jsut puta switch next to me seat in a nice lil jaycar jiffy box, reach down push the button, switch on or off

I'd be worried if the amp heats up without it actually amplifing anything. It shouldn't be drawing much power without a signal. I could be wrong but I thought amps heat up because they aren't 100% efficient, so like engines they produce heat. But if they aren't drawing much power than the amount of heat should be smaller.

[shiftySLE]

cutting the RCA doesnt cut the power to the amp itself, so yes there would be a power drain

correct me of I'm wrong these are my thoughts, but if the subs are not running, then the only power the amp is running wouldn't be enough to drain the battery, as for the the police thing, if they hear the sub, turning a switch off isnt going to help, they'll just ask to look in the boot so they dont look stupid and I used to use the whole stereo for drive-in double features which is about 4 hours only turning it off in between movies and never got a flat, just get a better purpose made battery. Doesn't matter how good the amp is, you could run it for hours on end at low-medium volume and its not even close to running it at full volume.

[acex1138]

ok the guy with the heat issue when cutting out the remote signal has me worried... wouldnt it just be easier to kill the power cable, cant i install a switch on that safely that will just have hte unit competely isolated?

[calais_cruzin]

just put a switch on the remote line to the amp.

Amp being used for Sub only??? if so then its easy to kill.

If ur running a 4ch, 2ch for sub other 2 for speakers, then yea no real way to kill it, besides puttin the switch on the speaker cable for sub

[acarmody]

Sure you can put a kill-switch on the power cable. As long as you use the same gauge cable to the switch, and its a very high rating switch so the power flowing through it doesn't melt it, and also so the resistance from the switch doesn't limit your amps. You said the amps are very powerful, well if your running 0gauge or similar, its just not practical. Do-able but you will need a really good switch.

The easiest way is definitely the +12v accessory wire. Any switch should do it and you just need to run two lengths of wire from the switch mounting position to the accessory wire before it goes into the amp, but after the other amps(?).

I was just pointing out the sub control on the H/U to save you a bit of work. I myself was thinking of doing a kill-switch for my two door speaker amps so that if I go to a competition I can "turn off" the two amps I don't need.