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pic taken from http://www.mozbike.com/build/speaker-box/
digablesoul -
Hmm... I need to do a seperate sub and tweeter thing. That would pretty sweet. I like this guys set up. I'm still curious on the mounting... I think the hooks hang on to the front of the rack (near the seat) but I'm curious how he stays on the rack. No straps.
http://atxbs.com/?q=node/19
Me -
Al if you look at the tabs on the opposite end of where the hooks are, you'll see that they are rotated 90 degrees. This looks like it pulls the hooks tight over the rack. Pretty cleaver design really.
-digablesoul-
-bigbikedan-
-eddieboyinla-
-anyone who has a sound system-
Eric was thinking of fm broadcasting the playlist for the Bomchickawahwah dance/ride, in that way we would have stereo sound throught multiple sound systems (or anyone who would bring a fm radio) If we all get together on this, we are gonna have a full-on concert!
Hell yeah Brian... I was talking to Eric on the last spoke n art ride about doing this and it would be crazy awesome. My mp3 player can pick up FM for sure. I'm totally down.
Since we've got a thread going on systems... I've been seeing some stuff on the net for the past couple months. This guy's got a full car stereo on his bike.
@ digablesoul, yeah that guy from the London CM got a bad ass system!!! That's not bad for ~200 lbs. I'm not sure he's quoting the weight with the battery or without.
"Man... I want an accent. "
Me-
See Madonna!!! Apparently she had an accent after visiting England briefly!
@ Thrasher, right on man!!! MTB dudes always seem to have a much better sense of humor than the roadies!!! Need to see your shit on the rides more btw!!!!
@ Brian, I want to build a system that can go on a rear rack. I'm also kicking around the idea of building a system that can be strapped down on a burley trailer. I want to tailor make a wooden cabinet for the subwoofer. I have the skillz to make the cabinet, I just don't have the plans. My idea is to design the trailer one to be able to swap out the 12 volt battery in less than a minute. I would have two or more batteries, and have other ridazz helping with the carrying. The system would be about a 1/4 of what that guy has in London. BTW the light system he has is sweet. Doesn't use hardly any power either!
-user1-
thats cool that you are building a sound system trailer. its about time peeps step up and improve the quality of our rides with music!
I am also building a trailer and sound system in the future, but wont have it ready till january. this would be a stand in system, so when bigbikedan comes over the hill to the valley rides, he wont have to lug his trailer over the hill.
let me know how u are going to build yours, because i need some ideas . i was thinking aluminum/wood with a simple hitch.
We need to find a forum that we can pick the brains of these masters, like the English chap above. I think we should all get an English accent and start looking for some bad ass sound equipment!!!!
Or not!
Maybe we should start small and work up? I was looking at http://www.propertyroom.com/ and they have sound equipment that goes pretty cheap. Go to Automotive and find it from there. BTW, that site is operated by some pretty fuckin lame azzis. The site freezes and shuts down and all kinds of other shit. But their prices are right!
Lastly I found this while searching. They also have a vid on youtube.
Beat-Bike v.1 is a bicycle-controlled drum machine.
Eddie... all good dude. Does your mp3 player pick up FM?
Here's a Flickr group dedicated on sound systems.
http://www.flickr.com/groups/503215@N24/pool/
The green Sekat fixie w/ the red pannier is Eric Hairs system that he let me use that i eventually fried up the amp on the sub. It didn't sound bad at all. BBD's pic is also in the group
I'll check out that website once it works. It was down the last I checked.
Oh.. check out this crazy system at London Critical Mass. It has this subwoofer canon thingy that seems to bump like crazy.
we are gonna do this on the Bomchickawahwah ride, sat nite, nov 24th, It might be a good idea, if you guys wanted to, you could do it on any ride before then, as long as Eric brings his fm transmitter, and everyone has a radio connected to their system.
Excellent sound quality, combined with high efficiency. Excellent performance to price ratio. For audiophile HiFi amplifiers, active speakers and quality PA.
The idea of swappable batteries is deff neccesary for a big system, especially when you start pushing subs.
I would stay away from wood. Subwoofer enclosures require a minimum plywood thickness of 1/2", but 3/4" is ideal. Not a problem in a car, but heavyness on a bicycle. I would recomend fiberglass.
When this starts to take shape keep me posted, I'll be glad to help out where I can.
What up Al, good to talk to you. I been outa the loop up here in SF and Korea for a while.
Those little amps are sweet, now if they could just break that 100w mark. Lithium Ion is a really good idea; they're coming down in price and the performance to weight ratio is bike sexiness.
Check out this little amp.
Motorcycle Amp There's a bunch of these on ebay, but I have no experience with them. Their output to size is awesome, if it's not being embelished a bunch. I suspect we're looking at a max power rating instead of a real-world continuous rating.
Hey Eric!!! Good to see you're still alive!! We've been wondering what happened.
The idea of having a fiberglass box sounds like a good one. I haven't seen anyone post about doing that yet though. The dudes in the UK used plywood that was about 1/2 inch thick. As they were saying, it all depends on proper bracing. They had a pretty big box for using 12mm or 1/2 inch.
BTW, when they were talking about getting the volumes right, they could have used packing peanuts to get a real good idea on the volume.
Al, there was some pretty good links from that ladyada link, take a look here,
http://www.41hz.com/main.aspx?pageID=105
Also there is a 100 watt hi efficiency amp, again it was on the ladyada page above,
http://groups.google.com/group/class-d-amp/web/100w-mhz-class-d-amp-mcd-v100
-erichair-
where have ya been man?? do you still have your system? can you join us with the fm transmitting on the bomchickawahwah ride? we are trying to get the full-on surround sound going with as many systems as possible!
What's up Brian. Yeah, I'm game so long as I'm back in LA at the time. I think I may upgrade to a lithium ion before then also.
Damn, look at the input power for those 100w mini amps......25v!! The one rating says max power w/ fans gives you 130w...but we all ride 12lbs heatsinks...yes, we could probably use the frame or rack as a heatsink and skip the fans!! haha rad
I'm still figuring out how to integrate a stereo-system into a backpack.
This is so we could have some tunes on Juggernauts, CubCamps, Wolfpacks, and other fast-rides.
If I could get it between 10-15lbs, I'm good.
The music usually makes myself and the rest of the group fly faster.
I use a boomtube. It works fine for solo or small group rides. The amplifier, power, subwoofer unit goes in the bottle cage, the speakers are strapped under the seat. 20W per channel, 3.2lbs The built-in battery lasts 3-4 hours at full blast.
Your Boomtube system is awesome for what it is. I got to look around for one of these on ebay. The reviews were for the most part, in the 8/10 - 9/10. I thought the reviewer was a bit low on their rating. Much better to read the reader's feedback.
@marino
That device looks pretty tight for the price.
For those weekly Juggernauts that usually have 25-30 of us, it would make for good background track supply.
Pluggin' and chuggin' up a steep one and playing some old-time, railroad worker music!!
OTOH, I usually just use my earphones when riding alone, or working out at gym.
Yeah, that's me and my bike with its bottle-generator powered sound system! That's right, no batts! Sounded _terrible_ compared to the cool systems you and all are building now, but hey, it was fun!
As for the hair... to everything... turn turn turn... there is a season... turn turn turn...
@overthehill
-And all this time I thought that was just a random, stock photo.
Bottle-generator w/no batteries, eh?
Y'all were creative back in those days.
I guess we're more along the lines of resourceful now, picking and plucking parts from different sources, and interchanging them.
As for the hair, you look like a "Zappa" fan in that pic.
Guess the opposite will go for me.
Shaved head now, "Jesus-Dome" 20 years later.
OTH.... since I've got you here... on your foldies... do you have this standard on your bike? It's a saddle/seat post w/ a built in pump. I've never seen there before and thought it was cool.
Yup. They're pretty limited. Here are some caveats I found:
* They put AC, not DC, so a bridge rectifier and filter cap are needed to start with.
* One pole of the gen is grounded to the bike frame, so *all* your electronics must _always_ stay electrically isolated from your bike frame, else you've just shorted out your rectifier diodes. Not good that.
* The VDC out after rectification and filtration will vary as your bike speed and your load current vary -- Zero to 15 VDC isn't an unreasonable range to expect. Regulation is needed for anything that can't tolerate that.
* Don't expect more than a few Watts of unregulated power (half an Amp while loading it down to 6 VDC isn't an unreasonable expectation).
Thus: Don't apply such power to anything you can't afford to smoke, crater or otherwise lose.
That my system ever worked was more luck than anything else. The horn loudspeaker (from the back lot at Apex Electronics in Sun Valley) was very efficient tho crummy sounding, and the discrete transistor amp and tuner (both scavenged) were tolerant of the lousy power.
@digable,
Dunno about the pump, tho it looks cool. My year 2006 Speed TR foldie came with a Thudbuster seat instead of the seat post pump. Dahon changed out the Thudbuster for the pump with the 2007 model.
user1-
hey Al, did you ever get your sound system together? Im having some problems with mine (very low volume) and wondering how you hooked yours up and how it sounds?
Speedybrian,
Try using a mixer - could be your audio source is too low for your amplifier. I have an extra mini-mixer I could give you (mono out, 4 channels in). I've had a similar experience with some MP3 players when hooked directly to my amp. With a mixer I can boost the signal enough to get full volume out of any player.
bentstrider,
RE: stereo system backpack
Search eBay for a 15-watt class D amplifier. There's some $15 ones from china based on a pretty good quality efficient chip. The Sonic Impact 5065 has similar specs and includes an enclosure, but sells for $65.
I suggest a NiMh battery pack for power. 3500 AH should last you for 4 hours at 15-watts full volume. Check All-battery.com (also on ebay) for NiMh battery packs, battery pack chargers, or tabbed batteries to make your own packs.
For speakers, make your own to fit your back pack, or look for some plastic detachable speakers from a broken boombox.
You could also buy a ready-made system, but where's the fun in that?
Oh, and bring your sound systems to the Doo Dah parade. I'll bring my FM transmitter.
Give me some more info of how your set up is looking. Battery... speakers... amp... and all that. Like all the specs...
I had that same issue when I was puttin my stuff together... but it was different from what thinkpeace went through... I had an old amp.... and had do some tweaks to it.
@ Eric
thanks for the info. i would be interested in checking out your mixer. How many watts are you running?
@ Al
Im using two small car batteries (can i get away with using one?) a ipod nano, my friend's 1000 watt car amp (but only 1 side 500w) a home 3way speaker w/12 woofer, and a microphone that plugs into rca inputs. the next time i see you guys, can you take a look at it?
for being 500watts, im getting little volume, sounds only like 20% and the ipod is fully cranked.
I'm sure you mean 3500 mAh, not 3500 Ah. And 15 watts isn't gonna power poop. Eddie prolly pushes 15-30 for his handlebar speakers and those are just for personal enjoyment.
Your dream battery is gonna be a Li-ion. You get about 2x energy for the same weight of a lead acid battery and about 1.5x that of a NiMH.
Speedy, I suspect you have your gain turned down or possibly a filter/crossover needs to be adjusted. It's also possible that your friend's amp is a subwoofer specific amp w/ no output past 120hz or so (not likely though). Even with a floorstanding speaker with a 12in woofer, 500w is probably overkill, unless the impedence is mismatched or too high(greater than 8ohms) for the amp.
Speedy, also, if you're only using one side of that 1000w amp, make sure you have it switched to mono or are using it in bridged mode so that you're not just reproducing one side of a stereo signal (that would be possible half the music).
Lastly, personal mp3 players are not capable of producing a signal as strong as that of a CD deck; for this reason your volume could be low.
speedybrian2000,
i would be interested in checking out your mixer. How many watts are you running? Come by my place in Pasadena to get the mixer - or I can bring it to an event (Pasadena Critical Mass/Pimp Your Ride/Doo Dah for sure). The mixer runs off 12 volts, no power converter needed if you've got a 12V system.
I'm currently using a 120 Watt 2-channel cheapo $25 car amplifier. It can overpower my 80 Watt Polk Bookshelf speakers - works great.
Those 15Watt per channel amplifiers based on the Tripath TA2024 chips put out a fair amount of sound if used with reasonably efficient speakers. I just got one which I paid $20 for, including shipping from China. I was able to drive my 80-watt Polk bookshelf speakers almost as loud as I can with the 120 Watt amp. How can that be? First of all, when using the 120 Watt amp with the volume turned up as high as it can go without loosing significant fidelity, the current draw is about 1.25 amp (about 15 watts). I can push it to 20+ watts, but the sound is distorted by then. When using the Tripath amp, I can run at about 7 Watts with setup I tested with. Because it is twice as efficient as the car amp, it is the equivalent to a linear amp running at 14 Watts. The Tripath TA2024 based amp is twice as efficient as my linear (non-digital) car amp. This means my battery will run twice as long!. I verified this with an amp meter. I'm still running the amp at only 1/3 of it's rated capacity. This is probably because of low power input from my MP3 player (could be boosted with a mixer) and because I'm using 8 Ohm speakers rather than 4 Ohm.
Battery Power: For my current sound system trailer running at 15Watts, a 3500 mAH battery should last 2.8 hours. A 10000 mAh (10 AH) battery pack should last 8 hours (I built one using 10 10AH tabbed NiMh size D batteries from all-batteries.com for about $80).
I need to do more testing, but with the TA2024 I should be able to run just as loud a system with 7.5 Watts rather than 15 Watts and get 20 hours run time from a 10AH battery. Also, I should be able to push the TA2024 to 20 Watts (10 Watts per channel) with the right speakers and build a louder system. You could push the amp to 30 Watts (15 Amp/channel) but you would loose significant fidelity.
Sounds cool. I have no experience with that kind of amp, but now I gots to see it. Another option for boosting your mp3 output is to use an inline headphone amp. There's a technical on instructable.com I believe.
The most innovative bicycle speaker cabinet I've seen was done by some dude here in LA. In the empty space between the top tube, seat tube and down tube, he placed a sheet of corrugated plastic on each side. These acted as the diaphram. Then he had mounted drivers to the inside back of the plastic. Not sure about efficiency or fidelity, but an A++ for creativity, DAMN!!!!!
To the other Eric, this guys system sounds like this one,
http://www.instructables.com/id/Bike-Stereo/
I'm going to have to take another looksie at the make magazine site and the instructable site, both of them have had bicycle related items added since the last time I looked. Lots and lots of stuff now!
Thanks for the props Eric, but I can't take responsibility for the idea. I did get the basic idea from that instructables link posted above but modded it a bit to make the surface bigger and more stable. I'm pretty happy with the results, though the volume is hardly enough to match BBDs trailer... Though the setup that I have only adds about 5 pounds to my bike so that is a plus.
Is there any chance you will be attending ROBOTZ this saturday? Not sure but they may still need your gracious help as a music flinger if there is any chance you'd be interested!
User1, Eddieboy, EricHair, ThinkPeace, Diagable, BigBikeDan, Limefly, Barleye or anyone:
Can I use a motorcycle battery for my sound system? Will it last more than 3 hours? Im using a 150watt amp. Is there a better battery than a motorcycle battery? Just wanted a lighter weight and smaller compact unit.
The car-battery attached to my system lasts 10-12 hours on one charge.
A motorcycle battery could give you 5-6 hrs depending on how long you've been charging.
As for you're 2 month old, message jonnyboy, I had that one covered!!!
Just like Adam said.. motorcycle battery is fine. Just make sure you keep it upright. Seal lead Acid batteries you can lay down and stuff. to accommodate space if you need it. When are you going to debut it? Next barchopz? Bring it to SFV critical mass!!
If you have a battery now, just use that. If you're shopping for a battery, go to that swapmeet I just went to. They have all size batteries You can get a 12 volt battery the size of a VCR tape. What's nice is if you have a smaller 12 volt battery, is that you can put them in series if you want longer life on a ride. For best results, have them indentical.
The best way to get the most use out of a battery is to always keep it charged, and to not let it drain past 40% of it's capacity.
Do some reading up on seal lead acid batteries to get an idea on maintaining them.
Ok.. I've got a 18ah SLA battery that I've been using for like over a year now... Anyone out there... Cesar... Eric Hair..? do SLA batteries eventually lose it's capacity. Mine barely lasts the 2 hours now. The RWNN (btw great ride and route brad/louis) and these batteries aren't cheap. Should I just buy a new one? Maybe I'm just losing capacity. I do run it low... to the point where it distorts... Jeff!! We're did you get you humongous battery?
Jeff's battery is from an electric wheelchair/scooter thing. It looks really effin heavy and is probably a deep-cycle SLA.
Al, I would recomend a deep-cycle SLA. You can read about the differences between a deep-cycle battery and a starting battery at How Stuff Works . COM
In short, they're less likely to fail after repeated discharging. Idealy we should be using some form of lithium ion batteries for our sound systems. I had no luck with a quick search for suppliers online, but will investigate further.
In that case, I'm going to go hit up the local EZ-GO place in town.
Apparently, I'm shivering from the thought of my current battery winding down after the repeated charging.
I used it for the first time this past weekend and noticed it only lasted for CRANK Mob and part of the 420Mob yesterday.
This new speaker system is pretty happenin. It's only 88mm long (3.5") and has built in memory, speaker, lithium ion battery and handlebar mount (and lanyard?)
Regarding batteries, I've used 18AH SLAs and have had some wear-out on me. Not being extra careful may be part of it - you need to be very careful not to run them much below 11 volts, and charge them up after every use.
I'm now using a 10AM NiMh battery pack. The pack costs about $110 and has been working great for over a year. It runs at least 8 hours with my 2 15-Watt digital amps driving my 4 100W bookshelf speakers at high volume. With an analog amp it would be at least 4 hours. They are much lighter, and less sensitive to overdrainging, or lack of keeping charged up after use. With the SLA, to get longevity out of the battery you should avoid discharging them more that 50% capacity (down to somewhere between 11 and 11.5 volts, I don't remember exactly). So when comparing the effective capacity of a NiMh and and SLA with the same AH rating, the NiMh will give you more AH than the SLA.
I bought the NiMH batteries at http://www.all-battery.com/ (along with a battery pack charger).
I bought the tiny 15-watt digital amps from eBay (from China) for about $25 with shipping. Search ebay for T-amp or 15W digital amp or ta2024. By using two of these and four bookshelf speakers I get a fairly loud quality sound and double the run-time (or half the battery weight) over using an analog amp (such as your cheap 150W car amps).
Be extra careful to never connect the power to your amp backwards. You will FRY your amp! I did this once, as did a friend on mine.
I did hook up one of my 15W digital T-amps backwards once, and nothing happened. It must have circuitry to protect against this, but apparently many amps don't.
I did not want a rack on my bike or any stereo equipment so I put it all in a messenger bag.
1) I got a bag from target ($14)
2) built a plywood inner frame with a hinge lid
3) cut out hole for a 6x9
4) dropped in a small jump box, you know the kind that can jump start a car...
I chose that cuz it was $35 and you can recharge it easily, and has a 12v outlet.
5) put on the speaker and wired it to a small 180w amp I got on ebay for $20.
It is cool cuz it has a jack for an mp3 player, and bass, treble, and volume too!
6) BUMP DA TUNZ!
It weighs about 10lbs and doesn't throw my bike off balance, and I can jumpstart a Honda, LOL!
I can post pics of it if anyone wants of just hollar at me on a ride.
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Ridazz Roulette!
~~~~~~~~Started from another thread~~~~~~~~
Allen...
keep me posted....
English chaps with a forum!!!
Nice little DIY kit for the bike.
I was surfing the web and found these kids in NY that have a crazy setup.
Great article! I like this pic!
I use a 
There's a bike with a folded horn loudspeaker somewhere in this picture.... circa 1975....
For those of you who like wearing safety vests.
Here is pavetheplanet's speakers
