I was never great at thermodynamics or physics, but when you say amps sit in vehicles at high temps, I feel like you're not taking into account that those amps aren't running when the A/C isn't running. I could be wrong, but amps put off a lot of heat. That combined with a non-ventilated insulated box mostly sealed shut could cause a pretty good heat buildup. Again, maybe I'm totally off on that, and you've run it several hours already. Good luck!

That's all definitely doable, I just wouldn't be able to tell you how to wire all the speakers up properly without seeing it all in person.

And having a separate battery for the sound system would be great. A battery like the size of the one I got, you could easily run two amps off it all day long and be fine. If you want to be fancy you would need a way to tie it into the charging system so that it's is getting charged while the boat is running, yet isolated so that when your stereo is running it's only drawing from that one battery. I'm sure there's a way to do it, I'm just not sure off the top of my head. Or the easy route would be to not connect it to the other battery or charging system at all, and just charge it with a plug in trickle charger before you go out, similar to the way my cooler stereo is charged.

But why a cooler?

I bet Ray Price, George Jones, and Waylon Jennings would sound great on a rig like that. Neat idea, but sadly this thread made me realize just how out of touch I am with music technology.

Hahaha! This thread is desined for greatness

https://imgflip.com/i/2dhiru

http://www.motorboatyourself.com/forum/

Here's a forum dedicated to stereo coolers for more knowledge

It's durable, very rigid even after you cut holes in it, comes with wheels and a handle, can be made somewhat waterproof relatively easy, and was relatively cheap. There's not another container type item I can think of that offers all of this at the same price point.

If you can think of something then I'm all ears on ideas for my next build.

AgEng06 said:

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Well done, Max.


Although it's "youthful" expectations.

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YUTES!

Where ya located?

Houston area. (Katy)

I am in copperfield. Buy you a case of beer for a consult.

Ragoo said:

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I am in copperfield. Buy you a case of beer for a consult.

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Another successful TexAgs hookup. Drummer - be aware, I think he was trying to sell a truck box on Craig's list last week.

I'm kind of with you. Starred the post for ingenuity motivation and technical execution. 7/10 OP well done.

drummer0415 said:

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AgEng98 said:

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How are you rejecting excess heat? Any fans or bass ports? Insulated box + devices that can overheat easily + combustible material seems like a good way to burn a vehicle/boat/cabin/tent down. Battery fires aren't high on my list of things I'd like to happen.

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See answers above. It gets hot in there, but not hot enough to do any damage. Amps sit inside cars/trunks that get REALLY hot all the time. Same thing with batteries. How hot do you think it gets under the hood of a vehicle in stop and go traffic in the middle of summer? The battery is fine.

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He is talking about the amp and air capacity for the sub. Amps over heat and shut off in a truck also if you run them long and hard enough. There is no issue with the battery.

Late to the party, but man it's been great.

Isn't*

And I think the stereo cooler is a novel idea, but I'd rather just use my Bluetooth speaker. It's nearly as loud, but doesn't have the bass that his does.

Note to confuse things with an outdoor comment, but that would make a nice varmint call.

Ragoo said:

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I am in copperfield. Buy you a case of beer for a consult.

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I can definitely do that, no beer needed.

Ekuhrt@gmail.com

Shoot me an email and we can figure out a time for me to come over and check it out.

Man, OP should have posted this in the nerdery, OB has no appreciation for this sort of ostentatious ingenuity.

Good job OP, that's pretty cool.

drummer0415 said:

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Ragoo said:

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I am in copperfield. Buy you a case of beer for a consult.

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I can definitely do that, no beer needed.

Ekuhrt@gmail.com

Shoot me an email and we can figure out a time for me to come over and check it out.

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Helping people for free!?

This is NOT the type of behavior this board needs, Op. Kindly find a thread someone else started to crap on instead. It'll get you more stars.

drummer0415 said:

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Houston area. (Katy)

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Loud and obnoxious radio?
It's beginning to make sense now

I need to know what will be playing before I know how annoying this thing may or may not be...

Take it to the Cooler Forum

PFG said:

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Hmm. I think you meant #math.

But maybe your too busy post stalking my responses on other threads and beating off to hitting reply to anything I post.

The OB appreciates your forum modding and citizen policing. How's the plastic badge holding up?

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I'll throw you a star if you'll go back, learn the proper use of your vs. you're, and correct every misuse in your posts in this thread

You're a (grumpy) grown man for God's sake.

drummer0415 said:

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That's all definitely doable, I just wouldn't be able to tell you how to wire all the speakers up properly without seeing it all in person.

And having a separate battery for the sound system would be great. A battery like the size of the one I got, you could easily run two amps off it all day long and be fine. If you want to be fancy you would need a way to tie it into the charging system so that it's is getting charged while the boat is running, yet isolated so that when your stereo is running it's only drawing from that one battery. I'm sure there's a way to do it, I'm just not sure off the top of my head. Or the easy route would be to not connect it to the other battery or charging system at all, and just charge it with a plug in trickle charger before you go out, similar to the way my cooler stereo is charged.

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Blue sea system add a battery kit. It comes with a selector switch and the charging relay to charge both the start battery and house battery while keeping them both isolated under load.

If y'all do some digging, they even make a selector that uses the same bolt pattern as the existing perko switch so you don't have to make new holes in the boat.

Also, the boat is probably a freshwater boat, but I'd still go with tinned copper of any wire has to be replaced. It'll last much longer in a corrosive environment.
https://www.amazon.com/Ancor-Marine-Grade-Duplex-Cables/dp/B000NV2ATU/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1531057370&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=Ancor%2Bmarine%2Bwire%2Bduplex%2B8&th=1&psc=1

Better Project for a cooler, and this one can actually hold beer:

The add a battery kit looks awesome

I used the mini version in my boat since my alternator doesn't put out a ton of amps. It's been solid so far. Switch on the back panel and charging relay on the left between the aluminum battery mounts.



The charging relay clicks over to share charge while the motor is running and turns off to keep the start batter fresh while accessories are draining the house batter.

If you want to get really fancy, you could also install a 2 bank on board battery charger so you can plug the boat in at the house/storage and always be ready to go. NOCO genius has some nice ones at a reasonable price on amazon.

[We have cleaned up this thread but if you instigate anything else, we will delete it the entire thread. -Staff]

How old are you?

I used my UE Megaboom at the lake today. I filled the cooler with adult beverages and ice. That said, I still like what you created. I just can't find the room for another cooler on the boat with all my family.

Cool project whether there was a real "need" for it or not. Nice job! How much money do you have in that setup?

I could have used a rig like that when we were on Crystal Beach on Memorial Day. We had tunes with a bluetooth speaker that was plenty loud under normal conditions. But could have used the extra power and speakers to combat the constant parade of vehicles with really loud systems. OTOH, I don't believe I'll be spending any more holidays on Crystal Beach.

Since I am a constant tinkerer and can't ever leave anything alone, I'm still working on this little project and trying to improve it as much as I can. I really like this thing but it had one huge flaw.... it was heavy AF. So here's the summary of what I did to the cooler stereo to make it lose weight. Basically I knew there were several things I knew I could change to make it lighter, but I wanted to know how much lighter each change was, and what my total weight savings was so I also took a bunch of notes on individual components weight as I went.



First I changed the battery. When I first built the stereo I wasn't sure how much power this contraption would pull, so I went way overkill on the size of the battery. After getting an ample amount of R&D time with it, I knew I had way too much reserve capacity in the battery, and this massive battery was the biggest weight killer. So I definitely wanted to change it out. For reference, I played this thing for three weekends in a row (probably 12-15 hours of actual run time) without charging, and it only went from 13.0v to 12.1v the whole time. Considering audio equipment is made to play down to 10.5v, this let me know I had way more reserve capacity than I would ever need.


Picture comparison of old battery with new battery:




Next I changed out the subwoofer amp to an amp of the same wattage, but like 12 years newer so it was much smaller and lighter.

Picture comparison of old amp with new amp:






Changing that old big amp to a smaller and lighter one allowed me to mount both amps directly on the wall inside the cooler, and ditch the wooden shelf I had made out of plywood and 2x4s. This was a direct 100% weight savings since it wasn't being replaced with anything.

Here's a pic of how the inside is setup now with smaller battery and amps mounted on the walls:




(Yes I am aware the wiring is a spaghetti bowl of terribleness. Eventually I wlill go back and clean it up better, just don't have the time right now)


Lastly, I changed out the huge heavy duty ratchet straps I had holding the lid down to some much smaller pull style straps. Not only are they lighter, but they are red and black so they match much better. They are also quicker and easier to take off if I need to open the lid for anything.

Pics with new straps:










So for the TL;DR crowd, here's the data on each component and how much weight I saved total. Overall I'm happy with the changes made.






Conclusions: I can already tell the difference in ease of portability is going to be huge. I could lift it into the bed of my truck before, but it wasn't fun by myself. Because of how big and awkward shaped it is, the weight was a killer. Now picking it up is no big deal. Also, when I took it on the river, it was kind of a PITA because of how heavy it was. I had to have somebody help me walk it down the stairs and help me set it into a tube. Then I had to have them help me get it back out at the end. Now that it's much lighter, I feel like I could do all by myself. I'm going back to the river in two weekends from now, so I'm looking forward to seeing how the experience is different now that it's much lighter. Also just wheeling it around in general is much easier.

Obviously the biggest sacrifice here is going to be less run time, but I'm pretty confident that even with the significantly smaller battery I should be able to get a solid 7-8 hours out of it. If I'm going on a multi day trip I'll need to charge it at night, but it should be able to go all day each day. I'm ok with that. I'll be doing some R&D with it these next two weekends so I'll have a better feel for it after that.

As always, questions, comments, and (constructive) criticisms are welcome.

In addition to the weight savings, I also made a few small changes to improve the sound quality.

The most important thing I did was add an in-line level control knob for the subwoofer on the outside of the cooler. This basically equates to being able to turn the volume of the subwoofer up or down independently of the four main speakers. I found that depending on the genre of music I was listening to, I would want to turn the sub up or down. Also when cranking the main volume if the sub got too loud, it would start to distort a little, rattle the box too much, etc.

So there is an input level control knob on the amp itself to adjust for this, but it was inside the cooler and was inconvenient to open it up and adjust it. Now with the knob on the outside of the cooler, I can quickly and easily adjust it when I want to.

Potato pic of added knob (pic was taken before I did weight savings stuff so old straps are still on):





The next thing I did was drill some holes in the lid (it's hollow), and spray a bunch of self expanding spray foam in there. The goal was to make the lid more solid to reduce rattle and improve sound quality of the box overall. I got a very dense foam specifically for this, and it worked quite well. Nothing to really picture here so no pics.

Lastly, I bought a bunch of Poly Fill and stuffed it inside the cooler. This is an old school thing that audio guys have been using to put inside speaker boxes for years. It seems counterintuitive to take up air space inside the box, but it really did help improve the sound quality. It sounds much more "solid" and the bass response improved noticeably as well.

Overall it sounds much better and the improvements have been working out well. Also, I actually did these sound quality improvements before I did all the weight savings stuff up above, so they don't skew the numbers at all. They have already been accounted for in those numbers above. I just posted the weight stuff first for some reason.