Deciding proper capacitor with Amp

Alright, im in the middle of my system. (although it's goin to be a while before it's finished due to the fact that I;m deployed) regaurdless, I've been buying equipment to finish my system and i was wondering what farad would be good for my amps. I always have a bad habit of over dueing my projects, which i guess really isn't a bad thing. Just what I do. Anyways, I currently have 2 0/1 AWG power wires running back for my amps, and i was goin to have each one have its own seperate capcitor. Here's my question. I've seen them all the way from 1 to 50 farad. What would be the required or recommened number. I know it depends on my amp output, but if someone could possibly give me like a base line, that would be great. Oh and also, when i get the caps. I know you have to do something with them to charge them. But if someone could please tell me what that was that would be great as well.

Thanks.

Dave

Second is to think about how many amps your alternator is and how much it needs to be. Look at all your amps and add up all the fuses together + 35 (average vehicle draw) + 15 (average factory HU) this is the minimum your alternator should be in order to keep it hitting hard continuously.

If you are a bit on the shy side (30 amps or less) a cap will work fine. It doesn't hold as much energy as your average vehicle battery, but it dissapates the stored energy faster with little to no fluctuation in voltage and without deep cycling.

If you are 30 amps shy, for example, @ 14.4 volts, expect a 1 farad cap to hit full power for about 2 seconds. It doesn't sound like a long hit, but humor us and hum for a full two seconds... How often have you heard a bass hit that long and that hard. For most songs running at about 120-150 bpm (average HipHop, Rap, R&B song), the cap should be recharged by the next hit.

As for charging, the cap charges as the system plays and then discharges when it senses a slight drop in voltage. Caps are good if you have short bursts of high energy sound, but they do not maintain sustained energy draw for any longer than a second or so when the amp is running 1000 watts through 1 farad cap.

Caps do have their place in systems. 1 Farad is the equivilent of giving your average car (at 14.4 volts) a 70 amp boost for 1-2 seconds. Enough for a heavy hit on your subs primarily. The application will determine whether or not you need them.

We hope this clears up and gives you a bit of guidance. If you follow the math we offered, that will tell you whether or not you need caps or another alternator upgrade more.

If you have any other questions, please don't hesistate to ask.

Good Luck!

I've been wondering about this, so just humor me...

Are you a group of people or are you one individual doing a Gollum kinda thing?

There is a group of us. The primary team consists of 3 girls and 3 guys followed by our support team and secondaries (outsourcing). Snow, Kit, Kei, D, Tek, and myself (Bry) make the primary team. Most of us can do it all but each of us specialize in a particular area.

Primary Team:

Secondary Team is our business side of the shop. They ask that they are not mentioned in here.

I'm usually on here between jobs and once and a while, some or all of the team will be with me.

alright, sorry it took me so long to get back. but as i already said, im in Iraq and the internet sometimes goes down for days here.

alright, you said that i need to take all the fuses from my amps and add them, then put it against the alternater to see how it adds up. i understand that part. but with the amps im useing (MA Audio products), i dont know if they over protecting they're product or what, but it has 3 30s in each one. I'm useing two. And for the four channel it's useing 2 20s. so you can see where this is going in a hurry. 3X30X2= 180.   2X20 =40.  plus the power the engine needs to run. 35+15. add them all up and I'm getting 270. My alternater is rated for 160 amps. unless I'm doing this all wrong i have a differance of 110 amps. So, now my question is again. how would i offset this to make there to be less drain on my electrical system in the car, and keep the amps to their maximum effeciatncy.

also, would caps be more useful then the Kinetik power cell? like aznboi suggested? i've built systems before (not the im a pro or anything. so im not saying that) but ive never had to deal with this before and sorta new to the caps and extra power cells so be easy on me.