Date: August 11, 2000 at 12:59:07
From: Bonzo, [205-189-60-85.ip.bestnet.on.ca]
Subject: It's not a stupid idea

My friend runs his 650 watt car amp off of a trickle charger for a car battery. If you already have the amp and the woofer/enclosure, this is not a bad way to go. I'm sure that this kind of use is hard on the trickle charger, and it'll probably burn out after a while if you go nuts with the volume. My friend likes to pump Crystal Method pretty loud, and the charger draws about 8 amps, and it spikes in time with the beat (obviously, he doesn't run the amp at full power, or it would draw even more). If you don't already have a car amp kicking around, I would recommend getting an amp like Apex Jr., or one from Parts Express, or whatever. Any of those amps can handle either an 8 ohm or 4 ohm load, and you don't have to worry about burning up trickle chargers. If you do use a car amp, make sure to hook up the little wire that runs to the car audio deck to the positive terminal, in addition to the positive cable. The signal from that wire switches on the amp. Good luck.