Inexpensive Homebrew Electronic Q. Anbody else tried this?

[AFD511]

Video of my Homebrew Electronic Q.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulepNeLfcEE

Siren consists of a 600 watt PEP stereo amp, a cheap MP3 player, and 2 - 1oo watt siren speakers.

Amplifier is fed with an MP3 player with 45 minutes of a recorded Q looped. Amplifier out put is mono bridged with RMS output of 240 watts.

Since the speakers are 11 ohms and run paralell, the speakers are 5.5 ohms. Since the amplifier is a 4 ohm output to the speakers, it will handle the 240 watts.

Sorry for the second post, I forgot to check the NOTIFY ME box on the original post

[thunderbolt69]

Thats really cool. a big money saver

[JasonC]

Hah! I love it! I hope you don't mind, but I posted this video on the elightbars.org forum...those guys will get a kick out of this!

[djscrizzle]

This is certainly a nice piece of home-brew engineering! Kudos to you.

[Fire32NJetta]

Very cool. How loud is that thing at full volume?

[AFD511]

Not really sure yet. It has a 20 amp protection fuse. I am going to have to get out in an open area and gradually turn it up, using an ampgauge inline, to prevent overdriving it. Once I figure out the drive level, I can tweak the treble and bass controls on the amp, and then increase the gain up to about 19.75 amps. Hopefully output will be about 238 watts RMS.

Ricky

[JasonC]

Not really sure yet. It has a 20 amp protection fuse. I am going to have to get out in an open area and gradually turn it up, using an ampgauge inline, to prevent overdriving it. Once I figure out the drive level, I can tweak the treble and bass controls on the amp, and then increase the gain up to about 19.75 amps. Hopefully output will be about 238 watts RMS.

Ricky

Turn the bass knob completely down, as well as any bass boost control if the amp has one. Siren speakers are nothing but giant tweeters and cant take the high harmonics at lower frequencies or else they'll blow. Also, make sure you set the gain knob right, or they'll blow just as quick.

As a side note, that 600w the amp has on it might be a peak rating. Look for a CEA2006 compliant RMS rating (I'm sure you know all this though).

[AFD511]

Hah! I love it! I hope you don't mind, but I posted this video on the elightbars.org forum...those guys will get a kick out of this!

I have tried to register on elightbars.org

I click the 18 & older link, and it doesn't give me an option to register, it says that name is already taken. I haven't even put in a user name.

HELP?

Ricky

[JasonC]

Hah! I love it! I hope you don't mind, but I posted this video on the elightbars.org forum...those guys will get a kick out of this!

I have tried to register on elightbars.org

I click the 18 & older link, and it doesn't give me an option to register, it says that name is already taken. I haven't even put in a user name.

HELP?

Ricky

I posted a reply there to let one of the admins know and help you out.


Edit: Try re-regestering again. Their board was down in part due to hurricane Ike, so they've had some issues.

[Robert Gift]

Video of my Homebrew Electronic Q.
Siren consists of a 600 watt PEP stereo amp, a cheap MP3 player, and 2 - 1oo watt siren speakers.
Amplifier is fed with an MP3 player with 45 minutes of a recorded Q looped. Amplifier out put is mono bridged with RMS output of 240 watts.
Since the speakers are 11 ohms and run paralell, the speakers are 5.5 ohms. Since the amplifier is a 4 ohm output to the speakers, it will handle the 240 watts. ..

How much would this cost?

Might be fun to build.

When nearing a hospital, since our electronic siren is always at full volume, to be quieter I hummed into the Unitrol microphone to imitate a Q.
Everyone cleared out of the congested intersection.
An ambulance crew at the hospital wondered where the Englewood firetruck they had just heard, stopped!

Would be nice that this amplifier could be turned down for Quiet Zones.

Would 150-Watt Chinese siren speakers work OK?
Or are they simply Federal Signal speaker copies with exaggerated wattages?