General Installation of Blaupunkt sub Thb200a = Interscope?

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General Installation of Blaupunkt sub Thb200a = Interscope?

Well all I can say is after two years of owning a 500 with the sub installed as I said I have not blown a fuse, or for that matter been electrocuted.....to death.

Whether you accept it or not your method of installation is bad practice, potentially dangerous and ill-informed. Nowhere will you find in any fitting instructions a recommendation to tap into a cigar lighter feed for the purposes of powering a subwoofer. The closest you will ever find is a suggestion that a tap is made if there is no accessory switch feed from the head unit (and only for the puirposes of obtaining an accessory feed, not the main power source), and even then it's not ideal as your subwoofer will be on whenever the vehicle is running - not the end of the world, but not great.

No doubt you will continue to argue otherwise until you are blue in the face. May it be on your own head
 
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No doubt you will continue to argue otherwise until you are blue in the face. May it be on your own head

Made me think of this :p

thesimpsons-devilandhomersimpson_1162263663.jpg
 
+1 on not using scotchlocks- terrible, bodgy things. Surely have a negative effect on sound quality too.

I for one did not know what a scotchlock was .. sooooo

Looks like a device to quickly chain one connection to another, ie. to take the same feed

scotchlok2.jpg



The other option mentioned, was the cut and insulate can be seen here
splices.jpg
 
So, how do you/them/it propose to get the heatshrink over the wire in the loom (in the sills) using that method?

What you'll have to do is cut the loom wire, strip both ends and the parasite wire end, slide the heatshrink over one of the loom ends and solder the whole lot together, then shrink the heatshrink. This is something I wouldn't do as an MEng Electronics student, even assuming there's enough slack in the loom to get the needed overlap and the wire is easily accessible.

Also, I should have qualified my statement on scotchlocks. They do not physically bond to the wiring, all they do is cut through the insulation with an edge (possibly through some of the strands too), touch to the conductor and snap shut.
 
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Wow, I've been gone for one day and what a storm came over this thread :)

And getting back to my original thoughts - I was only asking if the good way to connect the sub with the radio is to pararelly connect it with two channels. I already know that I'd better get the 12V from the battery or eventually cigarette lighter and that the first method means that I have to find a hole in the firewall, fuse the wires, etc.

And in the mean time I've mailed bluespot and had an answer. They said, that I was right. Connect it pararelly, and I'm done :)
 
Just to let you all know I'm still alive & haven't been killed to death by my wiring yet.
Killed to death :ROFLMAO:

That's a bit like a line I always use with a friend when he encounters some minor setback in life or at work "Kill them! Kill them all till they die of death!!!!!" :mad:
 
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I can't remember, I think it was about 1/2 the fuse rationg for the 12v socket.

I was going to mention the multiway adaptors you can get, but I kind of lost the will to live.

The fuse rating for the subwoofer fitted to your car is 10amps (assuming you've gone to the trouble of fitting the correct fuse...)

The fuse rating for the socket is 15 Amps

The fuse rating for the multiplugs is usually around 10 amps

It will therefore be very easy for you to blow the socket's fuse, should you plug anything with a bit of "oomph" into the socket.

Good luck!
 
Just for information.

I had my Blaupunkt installed at my local Car Audio place (ICE Direct) - I printed this thread and have it to them - and below are observations on the thread they had, which I thought would be useful (these are not here for people to bash over the head with)

- The sub fitted well under passenger seat, with the hole for cables in place
- They stated they would never use a scotch lock solution
- They were shocked regarding using the power from cigarette lighter
- Other parts of thread were cool, i.e. cabling at back of head unit etc
- sub can be visible from outside of car, depending on seat location

This had led to a vast improvement in the sound quality - especially as the bass is not lost by being in the boot.

Next job, speaker upgrades!!!
 
> I had my Blaupunkt installed at my local Car Audio place...They were shocked regarding using the power from cigarette lighter

Presuming you mean power-from-the-lighter-circuit, rather than a plug physically into the socket... :eek:

It's just a circuit. The sub's fuse is there to disconnect it if there's a short-circuit failure within it, just because it's 10A doesn't mean it will draw *anywhere near* 120 (or 144) watts in normal use. It might have a startup surge close to this of course.

I wonder if they would be equally shocked at having two (or ten) 13A outlets on a 16A radial in a house...
 
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Next job, speaker upgrades!!!

I've fitted a set of these: http://www.caraudiodirect.co.uk/hertz-dieci-dsk-165.html

I've found they give a much richer sound, plenty of bass (even when not amplified) and were a doddle to fit. Quite a few of the other quality aftermarket component speakers can be more difficult to fit than these, due to the use of single crossovers (which splits the frequencies between the main woofer and tweeter). This would mean that you'd need to faff about with running an extra cable up the A-pillars to the tweeters, which can be a bit of a hassle.
One benefit with these Hertz speakers is that they have separate crossovers for each speaker and woofer (i.e. two crossovers each side of the vehicle), meaning that you can simply feed the existing speaker and tweeter wires directly into them. The crossovers are quite small too - about the side of a matchbox, which makes it easy to find locations for them behind the door trims and a-pillar trims.
The tweeters also fit nicely into the a-pillars without any cutting or shaping - just use the appropriate mounting rings provided (there'll be a selection to chose from in the box). When looking into the tweeter situation I found that many manufacturers' tweeters were too large to fit, so this'll save you a bit of work.
When you fit the speakers ensure you use some form of mounting ring. I believe that Autoleads make a set which fit the 500, but they are listed as vauxhall astra parts. A better alternative is to use MDF - if you don't have a router or jigsaw don't worry, as there are plenty of people selling MDF rings on Ebay.
The rear speakers are very poorly located in the 500 - I'd not bother upgrading these, as you'll see little (if any) benefit.
One final word of caution - be careful if you're tempted to buy speakers from ebay. There are quite a lot of fakes on there - particularly if you're considering Rainbow brand speakers. I'd stick to the tried and tested suppliers - CarAudioDirect.co.uk (as shown in the link above) are good people - I've used them and found them to be very efficient. They can also offer you a lot of good advice too, so it's worth giving them a call or email
 
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