Your setup looks great!

The only thing I would do right now is bench the cap. They provide no benefit to your charging system, and actually they put on more strain.

Most amps say not to mount them upside down, but I did the same thing in my wife's bimmer with no problems. During the hot texas sumer, if you have any amp overheating problems, it might be a god idea to add some fans to circulate the air around the amp.

 

my lights were dimming i did need the cap, the amp that i have wasnt enough for the whole system. but i got the cap and it works fine now, cause i have the speakers and sub powered off the amp, the cap is only a 1 far. but it was enought to stop the charging problems

 

Did you upgrade your battery, alt, or big three? Those are what will solve a charging system, not a cap.

Read the link in the information sticky if you don't beleive me. I don't want to get into the science.

 

not my 1rst choice for product but if the price was right I could rock it.

you should be happy with it.......

 

WHY WOULD I PAY ALL THAT MONEY FOR A BAT, ALT. WHEN I CAN SPEND 40 BUCKS ONA CAP THAT FIXED THE PROBLEM? LOL WOW

 

Why would you spend $40 on a cap, cheap capacitor at that, when you could have spent an hour and $15 in wiring and connectors to upgrade the big three. Then if that didn't solve your problem, then it would be time to move onto upgrading, and yes paying a significant amount of money ($300-400), to upgrade your alternator and battery.

Now since I know you wont go out and jump into the Information thread and just read this I have copy and pasted it for you. Now once you get done reading it, ask us again why you have a capacitor. I haven't edited any of this, Pay special attention to the part I underlined and have in big text...





Wait, what about getting a capacitor? I heard it increases SPL and SQ.
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[/align]There has been several debates within these forums about the effectivness or lack thereof of the said to be amazing capacitors. This artical below is being posted to end all debate about them period...
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[/align]After studying a little history on large 1 Farad capacitors in car audio, you'd be amazed that they even sell at all. How useful are they? What do they really do? Will a Cap 'improve' my sound quality? Will it Prevent my lights from dimming? Will it audibly affect my audio system in any way?

Before you get the truth to any of the above questions, chances are, you've probably spent $100 or more on one of these devices. However, let's study a little history regarding this issue.

A long time ago, in a land far away, 2 elves...Ok, Richard Clark & Wayne Harris (Carsound magazine and the inventor of DB Drag, respectively) separately came up with a solution to preventing their lights from dimming.

WHO WERE THESE GUYS?

As you may know, Richard Clark is one of the founders of autosound2000 Tech Briefs, Carsound magazine, and a published author of the industry of mobile electronics. In SQ competitions, he posted a record of 1234 1st place finishes, and only ended up NOT 1st in his first event. I've heard that he had minor system problems, but judging by his record, he must have corrected it. (evidently, he needed a Capacitor)

Wayne Harris was previously a leader at Rockford Fosgate in their development. Later, in his free time, he created the organization we call DB DRAG. Wayne was the first SQ World Champion from the organization we know as IASCA (International AutoSound Challenge Association).

Both of these gurus are both legends, and considered the leading experts in the field. During their competition days, both guyz came up with a way to assist in the prevention of voltage drops. In SQ competitions, the look of your system is actually more important than the sound, and having your lights NOT dim under high playing levels is a competitive advantage.

As you may know, an amplifiers is made up a battery of little capacitors, resistors, etc. What has been common engineering knowledge is that capacitors store energy, and more or bigger ones assist in balancing the power supply.

Wayne came up with the idea of putting several dozen 'little' (approx 100uF) capacitors on a circuit board to 'extend' the power supplies storage. At about the same time, or shortly afterward, Richard came up with the idea of one huge mondo capacitor (I believe it was 800,000uF or 0.8F) to do the job.

Eventually, Richard won. The large cylindrical tubes won over the complicated 48 caps strapped to a circuit board. However, what did this really accomplish? Let's start here:

WHAT IS A CAPACITOR?

Basically, capacitors are an energy storage device. Large, 1 Farad or more
capacitors store energy (electrons) between their plates. Capacitors differ
from batteries because batteries store energy in the form of chemical
energy--and rely on acid as the place of storage. For a more detailed
description of a capacitor, go here:

www.eatel.net/~amptech/el...raudio.htm

Then on the right hand side, scroll down to CAPACITOR. Keep in mind the use
of capacitors in an audio system.

WHY DO PEOPLE BUY CAPACITORS?

The number 1 reason would have to be because their lights dim when their
system is playing HARD. In car audio, we are told that a capacitor is
designed to prevent the voltage drop associated with your lights dimming.
The number 2 reason is that it is rumored to 'improve' sound quality or
'stiffen' the power supply/source.

WHY DO MY LIGHTS DIM?

Headlights brightness is in direct proportion to the source voltage. For
instance, if your car is running, system voltage is ~12.5 -14.4 VOLTS. Your
lights will be much brighter than when your car is turned off--where battery
voltage is ~12V. Most car alternators put out between 75 to 120 amps of
current. When this current draw threshold of the charging system is
exceeded, system voltage will drop as power demands are now shared by the
alternator and the storage devices (battery & cap). We are using battery
reserves beyond this point until the demand lessens

When playing your system really hard. Your lights dim because your
alternator can't keep up it's charging voltage (around 13.8V) and therefore,
demand exceeds output. When this happens, your electronic devices are
dipping into the power storage of the battery. Since the battery stores
power at ~ 12-12.5V, there is a 1.3 to 1.8V drop in voltage available. This
in turn is why your lights dim down.

HOW MUCH POWER DOES A CAPACITOR STORE?

1 Farad = 100 joules or 100W/second
850cca battery = ~2,200,000 farads

For storage purposes, you'd need ~2,200 1 Farad capacitors to equal the energy of your battery.

Due to its impedence (ESR & ESL), a cap's energy is only 50% available. What's worse, is that in order for a 1 Farad cap to discharge, first the alternator output must have maxed out, and the voltage must have dropped around 1.5 volts. But I thought a cap was supposed to prevent that (voltage drop)!!!!!????? Yep, you got the point.


IF A BATTERY = 2,200 CAPS, THEN WHY BUY A (PUNY) CAP?

My question exactly. Marketing is the reason why people buy caps. In many cases, upgrading wiring will help your system get the maximum transfer of current. Once that has been reached, adding a capacitor may have a minor effect on your system. 50W over the course of a second is not a lot of power considering an amplifier may draw 2000W to put out 1400 watts. Let's look at the situation from a resources standpoint.

Alternator 80 amps
Car accessories (minus stereo) 40 amps
Car Audio system (DRAWS ) ~200 amps AT FULL OUTPUT

In this case, you have 240 amps of draw, but only 80 amps of current from the alternator. In your case, you need 160 amps x 12 volts or or let's say 1920 watts of energy. Since a cap stores 50W, how much of a difference do you think it's going to make? A cap is a peashooter, and we need a Howitzer 150 calibre cannon.

Also, Once a cap is discharged, where does it get it's power from? The alternator, which is already overloaded. Once a cap is dis

 

lol well i dont care wat u say it fixed the problem so [sm=shutup.gif][sm=shutup.gif]

 

What don't you understand.

You are obviously challenged.

 

So you had this system installed, and then later added the cap?

What charging problems, you never had to charge anything in your system until you added a capacitor. So are you admiting that the capacitor is creating a problem?

 

Hoss302,

I have now decided that you are being ignorant. Like the last couple paragraphs say... you are a "technologically ignorant person that is arguing with math", and physics for that matter.

What you don't realize is that if your alt dies, your cap helped with its destruction.