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What is a Good Capacitor?


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dxav 
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Posted: October 19, 2004 at 8:23 AM / IP Logged  
speedwayaudio1 is right people. There are only 3 or 4 capacitor manufacturers in the country. They all are made the same way (just increasing the density for higher ratings), and they put a sticker from any brand on them and ship them out. I have found capacitors at just yards that have outperformed some brand new caps from big name companies. Capacitors aren't component driven (a capcitor is just 2 plates of metal with a dialectric in between). There is only one way to make it. So they make them all the same way. You are simply paying for the name.
DXAV
DukeDuke 
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Posted: October 19, 2004 at 10:56 AM / IP Logged  
Has anyone heard of Tsunami or ever delt with them?
Duke Duke
fatgotti 
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Posted: October 19, 2004 at 11:13 AM / IP Logged  
Tsunami is made by Metra which is the best in the business if you pick up any car audio magazine you will find at least 5 cars with Tsunami accessories in them they have some of the best interconnects I have ever seen..
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DYohn 
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Posted: October 19, 2004 at 11:24 AM / IP Logged  

dxav wrote:
speedwayaudio1 is right people. There are only 3 or 4 capacitor manufacturers in the country. They all are made the same way (just increasing the density for higher ratings), and they put a sticker from any brand on them and ship them out. I have found capacitors at just yards that have outperformed some brand new caps from big name companies. Capacitors aren't component driven (a capcitor is just 2 plates of metal with a dialectric in between). There is only one way to make it. So they make them all the same way. You are simply paying for the name.
DXAV

That's not entirely correct.  One critical parameter of capacitors (and what differentiates a poor one from a better one) is its ESR (equivalent series resistance.)  Look for caps with the lowest possible ESR.  This enables them to charge and discharge faster (and thus perform better in high frequency operation.)  Cheap caps have poor internal construction and higher ESR values.  The most common method for determining capacitor failure is measureing high (sometimes infinity) ESR.  You need a specialized tester to measurte ESR, by the way.  It cannot be done with a standard multimetrer.

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boxmaker85 
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Posted: October 19, 2004 at 11:35 AM / IP Logged  

Has anyone ever discharged a fully charged 1 farad cap?  LOL that would be a site to see.  I've played with microfarad caps but nothing big.  Anyways.  What's probably the minimum wattage that a cap would do any good?  500 watts?  1000?

DYohn 
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Posted: October 19, 2004 at 11:46 AM / IP Logged  
My personal opinion is a stiffening cap in a power system never does much good and in fact often does more harm than good, but many people swear by them.  To each his own.  :)
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hurtado_roberto 
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Posted: October 19, 2004 at 12:23 PM / IP Logged  

Does anyone how many amps a battery can instantaneously discharge?  It's not the CCA rating is it?  If it cannot discharge enough amps than what the amplifiers are demanding then connecting batterys in parallel like the pro's do will give you more amps thus eliminating the need of a capacitor right.

A guy at interstate batteries told me that the optima blue top I have acted as a big capacitor.  Do the optimas have a lower internal resistance than stock batteries?  How does the internal resistance compare to that of a capacitor?

Poly Dollies
fatgotti 
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Posted: October 19, 2004 at 12:48 PM / IP Logged  
Whats a good standard for ESR rating's?
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DYohn 
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Posted: October 19, 2004 at 1:13 PM / IP Logged  
Less than 5 miliohms.  Less than 2 miliohms is ideal.
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dxav 
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Posted: October 19, 2004 at 2:34 PM / IP Logged  
DYohn, good call on the ESR. Being in the EE industry, I have a tendency to explain topics to death. I tried to keep things simple here.
Do I bore people, or flex my brain?
DXAV
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