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Installation
Installing the AmiMPC system into my car was fairly easy. The computer unit was placed in a metal case and mounted in the boot. It sits with the HD enclosure and PSU. Later I may build a wooden cover for the entire unit which I can then carpet. That way I could still store things in my boot on top of it without risk of causing any damange. Power comes to the main unit directly from the car battery, on the same power line as my amp. A switch mounted in one of the spare slots in the dash turns both the computer and amp on via a relay and the amps remote turn on wire. The main power line has a 20A fuse, which is just about enough for my current system. The earth wires are all connected to the same place on the car body, which helps prevent alternator whine and other noise getting into the audio system. The audio itself has a ground loop isolator between the computer and amp to clear up the last bit of alternator whine I was getting. All the cabling for the audio and power runs along the right hand side of the car, under the door trim pannels. The RS232 serial, LED and volume control lines all run in a similar way along the left hand side of the car. All the control wires end up just behind the head unit, and are mostly held in place with lots of cable ties. Finally, the head unit is mounted in place of the radio. I will hopefully have a radio too once the MK2 head unit is finished, but for now I only have the AmiMPC. The box is held in place by small screws which fit where the radio mounting points are. It's well wedged in anyway, and doesn't move when the volume is being fiddled with.
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Audio System
My car audio system is fairly modest compared with some of the beasts out there, but it's definatly well above the average. The system is built around a 400W 4 channel US Blaster amp (100W RMS). It's nothing special, but gives a good sound. It is mounted under the drivers seat and bolted to a metal pannel I placed under the carpet. From this I run three sets of speakers. The main ones are the front door mounted Sony 16.5cm two way units, rated at 120W peek. These give a nice clean sound and decent bass. They are on low pass 2nd order crossovers at around 4000Hz, giving a 12dB/octave drop off. These take up two channels of the amp. The other two channels are split between the rears and the tweeters. The rears are JCB 150W 6x9s, mounted with the help of my friends Paul Harding and Mike O'Hara in the parcel shelf. They have 1000Hz 2nd order crossovers and are mainly to beef up the bass a bit and provide a bit of rear fill in the mid range. The tweeters come in at about 3500Hz and have 21ohm resistors to keep them from being too bright.
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