I have some questions! Almost done with everything!

[KeithPuetz]

Okay, I have some various questions about hooking up a Nintendo speaker from my Donkey Kong cabinet to my amp.


So I bought this AMP system. Turns out there was a defect. Some of the metal on the button came off. It looks ugly, it's kind of depressing I want to return it.


I can't seem to figure out how to get this damn thing to work.

I have a bunch of metal plugs with a hole in it, it looks like they are supposed to be grounded. So I just ground those right? There is a bunch of them. I imagine I ground them.
Right?

Than there is a plug like this.

I guess that's to give it power? Right? I just plug that into my PC?

Than there is the back..


I imagine I get a red 2-sided audio plug and plug one into the amp and the other into the computer right? I don't know what the input hole is for, I imagine that may have to be plugged into the computer as well? What is the plug I need to make this work called?

Here are some other questions. I got to plug two different led light systems into the power supply (for the CP) will there be enough room to plug in this one for the amp?

Another question is, is that all the plug that need to be plugged in to make this amp work? Currently there are many wires in the cabinet and the speaker system is still grounded to the cab and I have no idea if there are more plugs to be found. Sorry I haven't done more looking into the cabinet but I been real busy as of late. But does what I said seem to be accurate?

Currently I have one of those power strips that will turn on everything once one thing turns on, the electronic that's currently in the a activation outlet is something that has a SWITCH to turn on and off. Everything that I tried that has a switch does not work to turn everything on.. My only guess the only thing that will work is something that is turned on and off by a button. Is that true? And if so, what do you suggest I use besides the PC itself (it will be deep inside the cabinet.) I was thinking maybe I can just get a different amp with a BUTTON that turns it on and plug that into the activation outlet to turn on everything, since it's up front. Would that work? Or do you guys have another idea?

[KeithPuetz]

Can somebody help me please

[matsadona]

Ok, I'll try to answer some of your questions.

First you need to specify the model/brand of the power strip, since there are different types. Some are smart and can handle "master" equipment that goes in standby, but they need to be calibrated with the idle current etc.
Some that are not that smart really need to have the "master" to turn completely on or off.

Connecting that amp to the PC isn't any rocket sience - just find any 12V source (there are plenty within a PC). Just make an adapter from standard PC connectors for the harddrives etc to the amp power plug. make sure you dont swap the positive and negative wires.

The audio signal can either be input through the jack labeled MP3 with a standard 3.5mm (I believe that is 1/8" in US) stereo plug cable, like this one:
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=13249206

Or you can use the RCA inputs with a cable like this one:
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=16055126

I believe the two inputs are parallel.

[KeithPuetz]

This is the powerstrip I purchased.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000P1QJXQ/ref=oh_details_o03_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

As far as the plugs go, I'll purchase the MP3 stereo plug. Will the sound be considerably good?

I have an AC adaptor on the Amp that I bought. So there is no need to plug that into the power supply of the computer, correct?
As far as the nintendo speaker, do I have to plug that into the computer power supply. And what plugs do I put from the speaker into the amp? Some of the plugs are GROUND looking plugs, while the other coming from the speaker are colored wires. Are the colored wires the ones that go into the amp? How do I make sure I put them in correctly?
The colors do not match up to the amp. As far as the ground looking plugs, do I need them? If not, should I cut them off the speaker as they are no longer needed?

Here is the AMP I purchased.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0049P6OTI/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Thank you for helping me!

[Drnick]

You need to look at the Speaker itself and only the speaker. Ignore any boards that are connecting to the speaker, if you are using a PC then these will not want any power and will be doing nothing.  The speaker itself  should have a positive and a negative terminal, these are pretty much guaranteed to be marked on the speaker itself.  You need to run a pair of cables to each of these. so you have 2 cables going to + and 2 to -.  These go to red+ and black- on the Amp accordingly.

The sound itself will be nothing fantastic, it depends on the quality and  condition of the existing speaker. You are going to get Monophonic stereo sound as you only have 1 speaker although you are sending left and right channels to it.  To me this has never seemed like a really good practice as it can muddy the sound a bit.  especially if left sends a signal to push out whilst right is sending a signal to pull in (I have no idea of the scientific terms for this).

I would personally replace the Single original Speaker with a pair of smallish 8Ohm 20W speakers.

Still don't understand the some of the plugs are Ground looking plugs? please draw on picture to further illuminate.  Thanks.

[CpCaveman]

looks like you have the 12v transformer (can see it plugged in and the amp lit up) the red+ and black- are run to your left and right speakers with speaker wire (any wire) , and to connect it to the pc use the headphone socket and (after 5 seconds of typing found this for 99p on ebay) its kind of what i`m using in my cab works good, if youre taking the 12v supply from the pc not 100% sure its standard but the cables split from were yellow and black for 12v and red and black for 5v

sorry didnt put the link (well i dont know the seller do i, they could be crap ) , took the picture just to show what you need the 3.5mm jack is the ONLY part that needs to touch the PC, just do a search for "3.5mm jack to rca cable" (and select cheapest )

[KeithPuetz]

Okay so this is the wire coming out of the speaker so are the ground looking plugs.
The ground looking plugs look like metal circle coming out the end, that look like you're supposed to bolt down (ground) to some metal.

What do I do with these wires. The rest I understand.
Is one of these the speaker wires your talking about? Or do I have to cut all of these wires out and purchase speaker wires?

The speaker does not say whats negative and positive.. 

[Drnick]

If that is the only cable that goes to the speaker and it goes directly to the speaker. and there are only 2 cables of which one is white and the other is red then it will be

red = +
white = -

So chop off the end and attach 2 cables (Its speaker cable, so doesnt really matter what cable you use)  from each of those and put them into the relevant sockets on the back of the amp.  Red to Red and White to Black. Ignore the grounding cable you shouldn't be needing it.

[CpCaveman]

drnicks right (a few pics of the actual cable going to the speaker might be a bit more useful to be certain) but if its just a speaker and theyre the only connection to it, it will work whichever way around its wired, there might be a slight drop in quality (not that you`ll notice with arcade sounds) if the + and - are reversed but it will work, just cut the connector off with enough spare cable so you can reconnect it again later or use the connector for something else in the future. I used some old doorbell cable i had when i was setting up/testing everything before my build, didnt notice any difference when i used actual speaker cable.

[KeithPuetz]

I got it from here. Thank you everybody! =D

[matsadona]

Great. Keep us posted with the results.

[MTPPC]

I've connected the amp to the PC 12vdc in the past and didn't care for the result. What I found was that it worked perfectly at a specific volume level but if you changed the volume, you could hear some kind of feedback from the PS like when the disk was accessed or other computer operations. I tried this on two different machines and they both did the same thing.