info for new car audio people

hello people this is from someone who has been there. most people think that adding power or stiffening caps help well guess what they dont. this is in reference to a 1 farad cap. save your money most of them cost over 60 bucks and your not getting to much play. the reality is that a one farad cap does not hold enough juice. for example if you have an amp (any amp) and you bridge the speakers thats giving a big drain on your car (noticable from flashing or dimming of interior and exterior lights.that means that your driving your system to hard and eventrully something is going to give. plus your probable not getting that much better sound especially since your heating up your amp and lets face it most dont work well under pressure. any ways a one farad cap is not going to help your problem it actually making it worse. so save your money picture this.you can buy a optima red top battery which is dry cell for close to the same price as a 1 farad cap. plus thats really it cause you should have a fuse in the car from the battery already so thats takin care of. now you just have to split the power wire in the back cut it and put two connectors on the ends and then ground the battery the the chassis. or go a little further and get a 200 amp stinger relay used to isolate the two batterys when car is off or radio is off. and you will see and here a big difference.but back to the begining if your seeing your lights dimm. everytime the bass hits that rewire your subs eample you can take two subs and wire them in series and then bridge the terminals to the amp and your amp works a lot less harder still gives good base but difference is your lights will usually stop strobing or at least as much. info on this post email me how to whatever.Jon

Installer/Help Technician

---coral springs florida---

mecp certification is not always needed. I have it and it has not helped me out at all. my experience out shines it.

I couldnt disagree with you more. Adding a bigger battery will not help as much as a stiffing cap will. I speak from experiance on this. Picture the situation this way. A cap is like a super-charger. Both require power to run but both produce more power than they draw. Now its true that a stiffing cap will not fix all of lifes problems. All it will do is give you that extra burst of power you need when your music hits a very demanding bass note. A bigger battery gives you a bigger reserve which means that if you only run your system for a short time it will help but eventually you will drain that battery down to the point of your lights flashing again. The real solution to the problem is to get either your alternator rewound, or upgraded or add a second one. If you couldnt charge a small battery and run your system what kinda sense does it make that you could charge a bigger battery and you system witht the same altenator. Rewiring the subs will also help but then you are sacrificing preformance. As well I have to dissagree with the above statement about amps heating up. If an amp runs cool than it means that either its not being used to its pottential or in the case of cheap stuff, its not dissapating heat properly. A Rockford or a Kicker or a MTX amp will heat up when running a set of subs in two ohms where as a Boss Audio amp running the same subs wont. Is it because the Boss is better. No its because the boss is not dissapating the heat, it builds up inside which is why the amps fry far more often than something made by a more reputable company. Im not trying to rag on you I just felt the information you provided was incorrect and since you acctually targeted newbies with your post I did not want them getting the wrong Idea.

Totally disagree 2 battery's same alt still = lights still dimming, why becasue now you have 2 batterys that the alt is trying to charge taking away more voltage from your amp. A cap helps a little but the only real way to get your light to stop dimming is to buy an upgraded ALT! you can put battery after battery after battery in there red top yellow top does not matter! blue top what ever color it is unless your ALT can supply the juice your light will dim! Please correct me if i'm wrong!

Chucksnee is right on.  Batteries only help if you play your system when the car is off, but they will do nothing but add extra load on the alternator.  Same for caps, they only add extra load.  A high-output alternator is the ONLY way to upgrade your electrical supply - and be sure to upgrade your cables to handle the higher current at the same time.

The only reason that you need a redtop / YELLOW top is if you are going to be playing your system with the car not running! Go to wal-mart and get a maxx batt. 3 year free replacement

chucksnee was dead on. I still have to point out that a power cap does serve a usfull function. As I stated above, its like a supercharger on a motor. It does addd load but it gives back more than it takes when its most required. I still hold true that the alt has to be upgraded for a long term solution.