car stereo

[Danny_374561559]

hi all

we have a lunar clubman van. instead of havin a radio cluttering the van we are thinkin of fitting a car stereo/cd player and a couple of speakers.

just a couple of questions with fitting, would i just pu the 2 positives to the + on the battery and the negative to the - on the battery and link the earth through to the chassis?

got rough idea of the fitting just want to make sure. im going to put the speakers in the doors of opposite overhead lockers and thread the speaker wires through to the end cupboard where i would keep the stereo so i would just have to thread the wires from there down inside the wardrobe and through into under the seat to the battery.

Danny

 

[Lutz]

If you are using a car radio there is no separate earth because with 12v car electrics, negative (-) is earth.

 

[Danny_374561559]

so would it all be ok just connected to the battery then? we would just keep the little stereo but its just more clutter in limited space so would rather do it this way and just pick up the stereo and a couple of speakers for

 

[SBS]

The chassis of a caravan is not used as an earth in the same way it is on a car. You may find that there is a lighting circuit nearby that you can pick up the +ve and -ve power from or you could run them from the battery - don't forget to put a fuse in line.

Mike

 

[Danny_374561559]

hi, mu uncle has a few in-line fuses already. so if i attched the to + to the + on the battery and the - to the - minus on the battery where would i place the inline fuse on the wire?

would rather just connect it to the battery so if in the future we wanted to take it out we can instead of leavin snipped wires etc

 

[Gareth9495]

Hi Danny.

Put the fuse in between the positive of the battery and the positive of the radio.What about your aerial.I've just fitted a radio in my van and used the status aerial to get a reception.I even managed to get a reception by just plugging a coax cable into the back of the radio.I bought a pair of new speakers in Maplins for

 

[Woody3]

Think carefully and research well before fitting a car radio into a caravan. A radio fitted in a car is usually in a relatively noisy environment, whereas a caravan is more often than not very quiet. As a result any mechanical noise from the CD player (if you use it) and particularly any residual amplifier noise (hiss) may be at an objectional level.

As for signal, the radio may work under some circumstances from a fitted caravan aerial, but there will be a substantial impedence mismatch between the aerial output and the radio input which will result in signal loss. Additionally the fitted aerial is only designed to supply VHF/FM signals and it is unlikely the radio will work at all on MW or LW if you listen to them.