Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Todd Allen on May 24, 2009 at 6:02pm

I recommend you start out with whatever you have or can scrounge. The more experience you get before you start buying new equipment the better your odds of buying stuff that will make you happy. And when you do start buying stuff, keep in mind what your weight tolerance is. What trailer are you going to use and how much weight can it handle without breaking? Once you have the trailer you might try loading it up with a dummy load such as boxes of books and going for a couple rides. Your personal load limit might be lower than the trailers. Once you have your weight limit, try budgeting it out between your major components, batteries, sub(s), main speakers, amp(s), mounts for all of the above and keep a small reserve, say 10% for whatever else you might add such as a mixer, lights, an inverter, rain cover, lock, etc.

With battery powered mobile sound efficiency is a prime concern since batteries are heavy and/or expensive.

To get good efficiency from a sub requires a fairly large enclosure, especially if you want good response in the bottom of the audible range, ie 20 to 40 hz. And the enclosure must be made of stiff material. Cheap stiff material like particle board is very heavy. Birch plywood, which I used, is a better choice and will save about a third of the weight for about double the cost. If you have too much money, composite panels such as carbon fiber with a balsa core will save a lot more weight.

With a good enclosure you can get plenty of sound from a single 10" sub. That's all I carry and my one sub is more than a match for my 4 full range speakers. I wouldn't want to carry a second sub even if I already had it because of the added bulk, weight and the need for more power. And it would overwhelm my main speakers unless I "upgraded" them too.

Permalink Reply by rik on January 4, 2010 at 9:17am

Josh
how is the sound system doing?

Permalink Reply by Fat Tire Frank on April 6, 2011 at 9:42pm

 You need an input source (like an iPod, cd player), Amplifier, and Power source that can supply enough power (measured in watts) to efficiently carry the load of power required to drive the speakers/subs. Powered Wheelchair batteries are pretty powerful, and most likely rechargable. A car battery might also work, but keep in mind in a car the alternator keeps charging the battery. I would definitely try to get powerful rechargeable batteries , like the ones that power mobile scooters older people use. You have to figure out the current flow in a simple diagram and then all you have to do is hook it up. Basically it should go , Batteries> amp > Speaker> and the speakers have to be connected to the the ipod or whatever. A couple of tools, skinning wires and making the proper connections and using electric tape or shrinkwrap to patch it will do the trick. You're biggest challenge will just be figuring out how to mount it, provide some sort of shock absorbancy, and keeping the wires nice and neat.