Capacitors

[Dre L]

Okay, so when should someone use a capacitor? Should I install one as a precaution, or hook everything up and see if my lights flicker?



Thanks.

 

[shawn stonbraker 2]

Depends on what all you are running.

 

[Jacob Dryer]

On all the car audio forums I have read they all say do not use one. It is a bandaid.

 

[jason nguyen]

I used a capacitor in my old car when I was running 3 12's and 4 amps. As Hoaxci5 said it is somewhat of a band aid. Ideally, for my old car I should have put in another battery rather then a cap.



I would use a cap in a situation where you are drawing too much power but not enough power where a seperate battery is needed.



Jason

 

[Andy G]

Caps help high power audio systems because they can charge/discharge very fast, and this helps reduce "pulsing" your electrical system. That is what causes the flickering lights.



I would not totally agree that they are a bandaid; they can dramatically improve the bass response and punch in a high power audio system, esp when the battery is more than 10' away.



As far as if you need one or not, if you hook everything up and your lights flicker, that would be an indication that a cap may benefit you. Also, if you notice your bottom end (bass) dropping out when stressing your amps, that may be another indication it may help you.



The reason it may be considered a bandaid by many in the car audio crowd probably has something to do with the fact that caps are rather pricey, and you could just put another (cheaper) battery back with the amps and get the same result.......



cheers,

Andy

 

[Todd Z]

But on a small system and the lack of need for an extra battery, or on a daily driven car, could it not be just a little added insurance??...

I only have 600 watts total in my ST, but I put in a 1 farad cap any way. I have no need to upgrade the alt, or battery, nor did i have any problems before that, but I thought it was a little insurance, not a band aid..

Todd Z

 

[Jacob Dryer]

Caps are not ment to stop lights from flickering, and really they don't all that happens is the cap takes the burst instead of the lights. The better answer is to upgrade your electrical system. That doesn't have to mean new battery/alt just upgrading the major wiring under the hood can/will help. Car audio calls it the big 3. The ground wire from battery to chassis, the ground wire from engine block to chassis, and the positive from battery to alt.



If you look at the stock wiring on the ST it's 8 guage (if I remember correclty) if you ran anything larger than that to run your audio system how would you expect it to work correcly? The power has to flow from the battery back to the battery and it is bottlenecked by the stock wiring.



If your system draws more amps than the stock alt can put out adding a cap is a band-aid. If your system draws less than the stock alt, upgrade your wiring first and I bet that fixes your dimming.



(I'm by no means a car audio god but I enjoy it so don't take any of this the wrong way and do whatever you want )

 

[Jason Wilson]

Perhaps I am a little confused. But why does it matter what guage your stock wiring is? Aren't you running whatever guage you want from the battery directly to the Amp? And the only guage that matters is that your power wire from the battery to the amp matches the ground wire from your amp.



And honestly being a car audio guy I have never heard of the big 3. Why would this make any difference unless you upgrade your altenator. Furthermore running two batteries is a bad idea unless you are running a super big system and you compete with it. Running a second battery means running isolators that are closely matched to prevent charging imbalances and it changes the ground currents flowing over the chassis and can lead to noise problems



Caps are not band aids. They do what they are suppose to if they are hooked up correctly. Most people don't slowly charge them like they are suppose to when they first get them and they don't see the gains.



I am running close to a 1000 watts rms in my system and I have a cap, I have it because I don't want spikes happening to my electrical system. Generally .5 farads is for 500 watts, 1 farrad for 1000 watts etc. Usually I do not install caps in systems of around 500 watts. But we do suggest it for 1000 watts or more.



Just my 2 cents.

 

[Jacob Dryer]

Your electrical system is a comlete circuit. That requires electrons to flow from neg to positive. If you run power from the battery to an amp with 4 gauge wire and then ground it at the back within a foot or so of the amp with 4 gauge wire and your factory grounds are only 8 gauge where is your bottleneck for power? In the factory wiring. So you upgrade it, so now your complete circuit is all the same size wiring providing the same flow.



I am running two alpine amps, totalling about 900 watts with no dimming what so ever even when running test tones at peak volume. No capacitor.

 

[Rainbow SportTrac]

I have 2 Kenwood Excelon amps.. with 4 door speakers, 2 tweeters and 2 Infinity Kappa Perfect 10... The Amp for the door speakers is the X541 and the amp for the sups is the X621.

I have a Lanzar Cap. I want to run it, band aid or not, but I am having a problem figuring out where to and how to mount it. The brackets have screw holes on each side.. I can't figure out how to mount this to a flat surface..

Does anyone have pictures of how they mounted their capacitors????

 

[Doug Watts]

This is how I mounted mine.



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