Speakers in my truck tool box..... (?)

[tyler_fitz 10+ year member]

Alrighty, I've got a 05 dodge dakota ext. cab that i'm planning on putting a system in (one of these days). I'll be replacing the door speakers and I was thinking of what to do with the stock ones... so I figured I'd just slap em in my toolbox for tailgating or camping. But I have some questions......

Would the rear channel wattage of my HU be enough (18-22w rms)? I'm sure it'd be plenty for the stock speakers... or should I get a small amp to run some low budget co-axials?

IF I use the stock speakers with no amp, i'm pretty sure I could turn off the rear speakers via the HU. But if I can't how could I turn the rear speakers on and off independent of my cab speakers?

Should I get marine speakers? It's not like I'll be outside wanting to listen to music when it's raining, and I don't see how moisture could get up under the lid of my toolbox... I'm planning on rhinolining (or at least a good coat of paint) the enclosures for the speakers.

I'll probably just run some conduit under the truck for the speaker wires, between the cab and bed, and then up and into the back of the tool box. Any issues with this? Things I should look out for?

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[Side Show 10+ year member]

Nah should be fine, just keep the speaker terminals dry and away from moisture.......... might be able to put a relay in and a switch to turn them on and off too.

 

[bbeljefe]

Personally, I'd put all that time and effort into building a good sounding front stage and then when you want to listen to music on the tailgate, open the doors. Or even leave the doors shut and roll the windows down. If you have a nice front stage with plenty of power, you'll get plenty of good sound from there to the tailgate with no worries.

And no head unit ever has or can produce more than 18 watts. Because they don't have room for the power supply components to boost the rail voltage, they are stuck with using 12 volts split down the middle, which is only 6 volts above reference and 6 volts below reference... and that equates to only 18 watts RMS. So you can ignore everything any head unit manufacturer says about 50 watts this and 45 watts that... unless they show you a head unit with a 30 amp fuse and a 10 gauge lead on it.

All that said, if you want to build speakers in your toolbox.. go for it. The worst that can happen is that they won't sound worth a shite or the factory drivers will eventually fail. With what you've said so far, it sounds to me like you've thought it out well enough to make a good go of it.

 

[jrdnhsnbrg 10+ year member]

Would you be cutting holes in the toolbox and mounting them to the box itself? That sounds like a good idea. What I'd do if I wanted to go all out is get a small 2 channel amp and some decent 6x9s and mount a switch next to the speakers between the remote wire and the amp, so if you have the switch on but the radio off it won't drain your battery. That's just my suggestion though. Let us know how it works out for you, definitely interested in it //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

 

[tyler_fitz 10+ year member]

Personally, I'd put all that time and effort into building a good sounding front stage and then when you want to listen to music on the tailgate, open the doors. Or even leave the doors shut and roll the windows down. If you have a nice front stage with plenty of power, you'll get plenty of good sound from there to the tailgate with no worries.
And no head unit ever has or can produce more than 18 watts. Because they don't have room for the power supply components to boost the rail voltage, they are stuck with using 12 volts split down the middle, which is only 6 volts above reference and 6 volts below reference... and that equates to only 18 watts RMS. So you can ignore everything any head unit manufacturer says about 50 watts this and 45 watts that... unless they show you a head unit with a 30 amp fuse and a 10 gauge lead on it.

All that said, if you want to build speakers in your toolbox.. go for it. The worst that can happen is that they won't sound worth a shite or the factory drivers will eventually fail. With what you've said so far, it sounds to me like you've thought it out well enough to make a good go of it.

I'll be getting some ID ctx components powered by an alpine 150.2. I'm sure that'll be plenty loud, but I'd like the option of only powering the tool box speakers to save some battery.

 

[bbeljefe]

I'll be getting some ID ctx components powered by an alpine 150.2. I'm sure that'll be plenty loud, but I'd like the option of only powering the tool box speakers to save some battery.

Well in that case, you'd need to put a switch in the remote lead so you could turn off the amps inside the truck. For turning on and off the outside speakers, you could run them on the HU rear speaker outs with the inside speakers on the fronts, that way you could fade to the front to turn them off. Or, you could run them on a small amp and use an SPDT switch to toggle between internal and external amps.

 

[jrdnhsnbrg 10+ year member]

Well in that case, you'd need to put a switch in the remote lead so you could turn off the amps inside the truck. For turning on and off the outside speakers, you could run them on the HU rear speaker outs with the inside speakers on the fronts, that way you could fade to the front to turn them off. Or, you could run them on a small amp and use an SPDT switch to toggle between internal and external amps.

Or a SPST switch on the internal amps remote wire and another SPST switch for the toolbox amps remote wire, in case he wanted to use both at the same time for some reason.

 

[tyler_fitz 10+ year member]

I think i'll get a lil amp for the tool box, and rig it all up so I can run the front and sub, the sub and tool box, and just the tool box...

 

[tyler_fitz 10+ year member]

Or maybe get a 4ch amp for the tool box, and bridge two of the channels for a small sub so i wont have to use the subs in the cab....

 

[bbeljefe]

So you decided against worrying about battery voltage?

 

[tyler_fitz 10+ year member]

So you decided against worrying about battery voltage?

If I were to worry about battery voltage, what would I need to do about it?

 

[bbeljefe]

If I were to worry about battery voltage, what would I need to do about it?

Your original argument against using the system in the truck was that you didn't want to run the battery down. Now you're talking about amps and subs for the outside system so, I'm wondering if you decided not to worry about running batteries down...

And I understand that the outside system will be smaller but a high powered system on low volume won't draw any more current than a low powered system on high(er) volume. Matter of fact, inexpensive small amps will almost always be a lot less efficient than higher quality larger amps so to get the same volume level, you'd be using amps that would likely draw more current than the one's inside the truck.

And understand, I'm not saying that's written in stone. But I am saying it's a high probability.

 

[jrdnhsnbrg 10+ year member]

Hell, if you're worried about battery voltage why not get a secondary battery?

 

[tyler_fitz 10+ year member]

I don't think a second battery would be out of the question...

 

[Side Show 10+ year member]

i'd get a nice 4 channel and bride it to two nice speakers that'll play fullrange, like tsa2011 (10"fullrange 3 ways speakers)

pioneers or some nice 6x9s