Power Supply

But if you have a clean, heavy-gauge connection between the alternator and the battery (as you should), than the quality of the DC voltage will be identical at both spots.  Try it out sometime with an oscilloscope.  Electrically, the positive terminal of the battery and the positive terminal of the alternator are equavalent points.  If they aren't , then you have a poor connection between the two.

Scott Gardner

Aight Ive takin it off the the alternator. But my battery is all the way under my strut bar, fuse box, and window washier fluid reseivor. But there is a terminal that is used to make jump starting easier. So can I hook it up to this? It should still be the same thing as hooking it up to the battery but in a different place. Ohh and by the way my car is a 96 Buick Regal. Damn I hate the way they hid the battery.

Durwood that is what my uncle was telling me and that is why I hooked it up to the altenator in the first place but as of right now its not hooked up to anything. I just need to know if it would be alright to hook the power up to the terminal which would be ohh so nice if I can without there being any problems. But the rest of my install peices will be here tomorrow so I will be able to test and find out..

Yes, you can hook up either to the jump-start post or to the positive terminal to the alternator.  They are all electrically equivalent and will provide identical "quality" power, IF YOU HAVE CLEAN, HEAVY-GAUGE CONNECTIONS BETWEEN THE THREE POINTS!!!  Sorry to yell, but that's a very important point.  If you use the alternator or jump-start terminal, make sure that the connection from there back to the battery is clean, and at least as large as the power wire you're using for your amplifier.

As for there being "ripples" at the alternator, but not at the battery, that's impossible, unless there's a poor connection or some component other than a wire connecting the two.  For "ripples" to appear at one end of a wire, and not the other, would violate Kirchoff's Voltage Law.

Scott Gardner

As long as it's a short, clean 8-gauge connection, you're probably okay.  How much current do you expect your amplifier to draw?

Get a multimeter and take a resistance measurement between the jump-start terminal and the positive terminal of your battery.  If the reading is zero, or at least less than a few hundredths of an Ohm, I'd say you're safe.

Scott Gardner

The distance is like 1 foot so it should be pretty good. Im hoping if not I can always connect it to the battery some how later.