capacitor wiring question

Printed From: the12volt.com
Forum Name: Car Audio
Forum Discription: Car Stereos, Amplifiers, Crossovers, Processors, Speakers, Subwoofers, etc.
URL: https://www.the12volt.com/installbay/forum_posts.asp?tid=24811
Printed Date: May 16, 2025 at 12:27 AM

Topic: capacitor wiring question

Posted By: JustDoIt2
Subject: capacitor wiring question
Date Posted: January 18, 2004 at 9:36 AM

Hi, I have 1.2 farad capacitor.. My question is this, can i wire from the ground (metal of my car) to the negative of the capacitor and from the capacitor to the amp?

Replies:

Posted By: JustDoIt2
Date Posted: January 18, 2004 at 1:05 PM

anybody knows....

Posted By: auex
Date Posted: January 18, 2004 at 1:09 PM

You need to hook power upto the + terminal of the cap. You can either cut the power wire going to the amp and put ring terminals on both ends of the power wire and hook it to the cap or you can run a power lead from the amplifier directly to the cap. For ground you would just use the same gauge wire as the power from the ground terminal of the cap to chassis ground.

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Posted By: JustDoIt2
Date Posted: January 18, 2004 at 2:23 PM

OK, thank you for answering ,, but my question is this.

can i wire the Negative (ground) chasis ground to cap and cap to the amp

because i was told to do it, cap to chassis ground and amp to chassis ground ...

Posted By: Teken
Date Posted: January 18, 2004 at 2:45 PM

JustDoIt2 wrote:

because i was told to do it, cap to chassis ground and amp to chassis ground ...

Either method is fine, so long as the proper guage of cabling is used for ground termination.

Regards

EVIL Teken . . .

Posted By: JustDoIt2
Date Posted: January 18, 2004 at 3:02 PM

ok, thank you

Posted By: superstreet786
Date Posted: March 14, 2004 at 9:21 PM

yea u can do it that way

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---- 1996 Chevy S10 ----
1 Lightning Audio S2.600.2 Amp
2 Lightning Audio 12" Subs
1 Lightning Audio 1 Farad Cap

Posted By: giffer87
Date Posted: March 14, 2004 at 9:30 PM

I was told to use separate grounds for the cap and the amp

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Vendetta

Posted By: Ketel22
Date Posted: March 15, 2004 at 12:08 AM

it doesnt matter which method you use as long as the impedence on the ground is equal to almost none.

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Posted By: brux
Date Posted: March 29, 2004 at 8:59 PM

We questioned the why you should ground the capacitor in our bay for quite a while. we came up with this answer

you should ground the capacitor and the amp seperate to the same grounding point, the reason for this is we all know the the amp should have equal gauge power and ground, when you hook up a capacitor as the system demands power the capacitor shoots its stored charge into the power wire which is needed for the increase in current draw as this happens it also causes an increase in ground current which is why the seperate ground is needed it also helps the capacitor run more efficiently

PS. you should always upgrade the ground wire on your battery to the chassis of the car using the same gauge wire as the power wire, otherwise your return ground path goes through that little 8 gauge wire which is also shared with all of your vehicles OEM electronics. it is by far the best electrical upgrade you can make on any system

hope this helps all who are curious

your happy installer

BRUX

Posted By: Jay T
Date Posted: March 29, 2004 at 9:59 PM

Good point brux

Can I just take a connector on each end? one to chassis (say 1ft or so) and one to the negative battery terminal and voila?

is that what you mean?