How many farads(?) is enough for a system with 2 12's and a 1000 W amp?

 

1 farad for every 1000 watts...... while we're on the topic do you have to charge a cap prior to installation? if so how do you do that? i have a 1 farad rf digital top cap and it came with a small board with caps and lights and wires on it....the instructions are a little to technical for me....would like some answers if they are avail....thanks

 

one end of the charger to the poss of the cap , the other end to the power supple


then ground the neg of the cap


i think theres a light idicator on the charger

 

i had a one farad cap on my last system and it didn't do anything. This time around I got a 15 farad. No dimming of the lights or weird electrical gremlins. My system is very stable. Why 15 farad you ask. Well, the PG Titanium caps were 1 or 15 farad, plus my 15 looks like an amp, and it weighs like 25 pounds, so I knew it wasn't some junky tinny thing. Plus, I knew it won't be overworked, it's probably not breaking a sweat. Plus, a round cap just wouldn't fit well into the design of the amp rack I had built.

Mike R.
rolex87

 

One other option you can go with instead of a regular 1 farad cap is a batcap. It's basically like a second battery it has 300 cold cranking amp on this thing and it's as small a a regular cap but has a 100 farad.

check out the links...

http://www.batcap.net/

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...ore%20pictures

Hope this helps,

 

Capacitors don't really do anything but place another draw on your electrical system.

Sure, they attempt to normalize the voltage and buffer any spikes or dips... BUT they can only do so much.

 

I agree...Bat Cap is the only way to go!

 

Caps are a waste of money in my opinion and I have been building systems for years. If you have a good quality amp you shouldn't even need a cap.

 

Quality has nothing to do with it, either way... caps are a waste of money.

 

Everything I know adding a second battery is better than a cap.

 

sounds like you're a pro.....on the other side, your headlights dont dim, and a nice cleaner bass



why did they invent the cap btw? a gimmick? i guess its there for a reason

 

Thats a lot of it, I think it was Richard Clark (of autosound 2000) and David Navone (of Stereo Review then Car Stereo Review magazines) that had 1st popularized the notion during the fledgling years of IASCA in the late 80s early 90s. Richard used his own design of capacitor claiming 300 joules of energy stored within. It may have really been effective back then.

Automobiles/car audio and practically everything else in the world has evolved tremendously since then. His car was a 1984-1986 (not positive on year) Buick Grand National with the turbo 6 in it. 80 amp alternators back then, could have them rewound to 135 amp but that was about the limit.

Richard also the one that brought the "aperiodic membrane" speaker technology to the car stereo realm, something that you could definitively measure using a few not-purchaseable-at-radio-shack instruments, but that was nearly impossible to tell whether they were present or not in the car were you not informed of such. $200 for one mat for one speaker, $225 for a pair. Twenty five bucks for the second should be somewhat telling of the effectiveness and complexity of the items =)

Anyway, audio is a science of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. Every little thing you add to it maty not make a difference in itself, but that all added together may be better than what one would expect. I'm not one for smoke and mirrors myself though. When I was in college I worked at a car stereo shop where we focused on competition-level vehicles. We tended to sell items that would bring the person additional points were they to take it out and compete. I think that a lot of the items back then that are still around today are carryovers from the "gimmicks" we sold back then.

To address the original post 1 farad per 1kw is correct. What the cap will do is smooth out some of the "ripple" left in the factory charging system due to the conversion of AC (from your alternator) to DC (as in a battery), they may also prevent dimming of the lights on hard bass notes, etc. But if thats happening then you should be looking at upgrading your charging and or battery systems. Keep in mind that two batteries in the car will increase the load on the alternator, ask a shop that does them since its been too long to remember specifics there (and that I've only done one additional battery vehicle, ever).

Caps should have a charging resistor included with them, if you charge it without it, its a short really, and the current flowing may be hard on the wiring that you've chosen or may blow the inline fuse. Its all good.

Sorry about the rambling. Rainy day here and the lot is empty =\

Mike

 

Well said Sciomodr welcome aboard.

I would also recommend running a nice guage power wire...
I usually run a minimum of 4 guage for every 500 TRUE watts... (80 amp draw)
for 1000 TRUE watts I would recommend 2 guage (~100 - 160 amp draw)
anything more is just uncalled for.. Unless you are one of our customers

 

the hidden truth to caps is they really dont do anything that great for your system ask any audio installer that knows his/her ___ from a hole in the ground he/she should tell you the best thing to do would be to upgrade your alt and forget about buying a overpriced bandaid for your battery

scionmodr hit a lot of very good points

look at the actual specs on a cap say you have a bass note that 5 sec long for instance how long do you think that caps going to hold enough juice to power the bass note not long my friend what it does do is when the amp see a heavy load the cap charges and disapates xtremly fast so in one bass note the cap will charge and diapate many many times.. feel free to correct me if im wrong but i have been told this but numerous audio installers...plus another thing about caps is most of them are made by the same company just the people that sell them slap there label on them and charge you more for them