Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Ken Gray on February 4, 2010 at 5:26pm

Permalink Reply by Ken Gray on February 4, 2010 at 5:41pm

Thanks! That sound great. Sorry about the dead space. I was trying to add a picture of the trike. Messed up somewhere, no pic.

H3N3 said:

Good timing Ken--
If you can make it to the swap/expo on Saturday Alex and Todd will be giving a presentation on this very topic:

2:15 PM: D-I-Y Bicycle Sound Systems!
Alex Wilson, West Town Bikes & Ciclo Urbano
Todd Allen, electro-geek, Break the Gridlock
Tunes on a bike? It's easier than you think. See, touch and listen to two sound systems. Learn how to select, connect and mount the basic components: sound source, power source, amplifier and speakers.

http://www.thechainlink.org/events/bike-winter-swapexpo

Permalink Reply by cutifly on February 4, 2010 at 5:45pm

What is a little $$$$$ mean ? $10 or $1000 cause it is all relative. I mean you can Jack a car battery, steal some speakers and a power amp from the same car too. An old Stereo Amp from the thrift store, Some Battery Pc Speakers, etc .... It's really not complicated, fitting on a bike is, fitting on a trailer is not. When is someone gonna offer real compensation for things or at least try and trade it out with time or something worth equal. You might get lucky and someone will hook you up, just try to make it worth their while.

Permalink Reply by Mike Schwab on February 4, 2010 at 5:59pm

Boom box would be easiest. Wooden box or plastic cooler can work. Inside you would have the battery, music source, and wiring. Cut holes in the side and mount the speakers.

Wiring. You will have to figure out the wiring harness. search google with the model number, you should find a wiring diagram. You will need to find 5, 6, 9 or 10 wires. Positive power source, Ground wire (or attach ground wire to screw on the player).

2 or 4 pairs of speaker wires. Left, right or left front, right front, left rear, right rear. These are A/C at low volts and music frequency (20-20,000 Hz). However, one way will produce a louder bass, this is the correct connection. If you hook up just a left speaker, you need to connect it to both left front and left rear, with the same loudness orientation.

Often, you will have another connection for power while the key is off to maintain user settings and to run the clock. You will not need to connect this wire.

Please post the make and model number if you need more assistance.

Permalink Reply by Mark Kenseth on February 5, 2010 at 4:03am

At the Halloween Mass, the guy with the sound system was pulled over by bike cops and told to turn it down...way down. I wish cops would do that to thrumbing and thumping cars.

Good luck.

Permalink Reply by Ken Gray on February 5, 2010 at 12:31pm

Thanks for all the info. I am going to go to the bike swap tomorrow. H3N3 and others, you might hear from me when I need HELP. Thanks for the offer! And if I pull this off myself, well then you'll "hear" me at a Critical Mass soon.

Mark Kenseth said:

At the Halloween Mass, the guy with the sound system was pulled over by bike cops and told to turn it down...way down. I wish cops would do that to thrumbing and thumping cars.

Good luck.

Permalink Reply by alvin mitchell on February 5, 2010 at 5:16pm

First dump the cd player.Buy a small mp3 player it wont skip when you hit bumps then go to swaparama on 39 or 40 on the south ashland ave..Buy a small car amplifier 20 or 30 bucks.Then you buy a cord with a stereo headphone plug on one end and and rca jacks on the other.Connect your well charged car battery to your amplifier and your speakers to your amp plug the mp3 plyer into the amplifier and you got music.I did my sysytem with nice computer speakers that had a good sub-woofer.My system is on youtube.Look up bike stereo system.its the black Spaulding leaning agaisnt the a brick wall.the Handle bars are the first thing that your going to see in the video.Let me know what you think of it.

Permalink Reply by Anne Alt on February 6, 2010 at 5:54pm

Cool idea. Good to see you at the bike swap. Did you get the info you needed?

Permalink Reply by Primitive Don on February 6, 2010 at 6:09pm

That's cool Alvin! Compact but effective.

Permalink Reply by Fat Tire Frank on February 7, 2010 at 2:21am

Oh, Just give up - it'll never happen unless you find a pro.

Permalink Reply by Ken Gray on February 8, 2010 at 12:34pm

Frank, I think you must be trying to fire me up so that I will really do this... or are you right? Giving up just sticks in my craw! I've got to try. Seems there is help out there! Thanks!

Permalink Reply by GP on February 9, 2010 at 6:22am

There are 3 things you need for a sound system:
1) Battery
2) Amp
3) Speakers
... and a music source (any MP3 player will do, read:iPod) would also help.

First determine how powerful you want the system to be. I got a 240W stereo amp (120W per channel) which is pretty loud, but in a mass will only be heard by people within a 10ft radius, which is fine with me.
Then, determine how long you want the system to run for on the battery. According to the amp's manual (which I looked up before buying the product), it draws a maximum of 5 amps of power at any given time (has a 5A fuse). I want the system to run for 3 hours. Therefore, I needed a minimum of 15 amp-hour battery (abbreviated 15ah).
The cheapest way to get a high capacity battery is to buy a lead-acid battery, commonly known as the car battery. I have a jet-ski battery for mine that has a capacity of 14ah.

I used two old computer speakers for the output - they don't sound great, but they get the sound out. That's my sound system.

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