junk in the trunk, what's the best way to do this..

[masonholmes]

Oh yeah, batteries a brand new, 865cca Diehard. It's all good, lol.

[masonholmes]

Going back to the original reason I got my cap, it was to make sure I didn't put a strain on my alternator. Are you guys putting 500-1300w on your stock alternators, on a regular basis?

[lakersfan1]

Originally posted by masonholmes:
Going back to the original reason I got my cap, it was to make sure I didn't put a strain on my alternator. Are you guys putting 500-1300w on your stock alternators, on a regular basis?

Even when it works, you're not lessening the strain on your alternator. The alternator still needs to generate the same amount of power. It pretty much just stops the lights from dimming too much. The reason your light dim is because bass hits are so sudden, and it takes a second for the voltage regulator to sense the low voltage, and increase the alternator output. By the time your regulator tells your alternator to make more power, the bass hit has already passed. A capacitor helps keep the voltage high for that second until the regulator kicks in.

And I've done 2500 watts RMS in one guys car on the stock alternator (I think his car had 130 amp alternator). No caps. Dimming was pretty minimal with that car.

If you ground all your components real well and run sufficent gauge wire, you should minimize your dimming problems from the get-go.

<small>[ January 19, 2004, 07:48 PM: Message edited by: lakersfan1 ]</small>

[BumpNGlow]

caps just hide (for lack of a better term) your voltage problem, or rather your dimmage problems. They actually create more of a strain on your alternator b/c it's another small storage it must keep full. I am anti-capacitors if they are under 10amps, and I personally wouldn't use one unless they were 50+amps (Batcaps!!!)

[killerpickle]

how can you say a cap wont help? It almost always solves the dimming lights problem with deep base notes. I dont have that problem, I only run a 50x2 RMS setup with 2 tens so its no big deal. My bud runs 3 12's and had a problem with deep extended bass dimming his lights - intalled a 1 farad cap (not digital - nippon brand) and the problem was gone. However he also runs a performance battery. Redcap I think - but that was there from the beginning. I would agree with upgrading the battery and fixing any alternator issues first though...

[BumpNGlow]

it doesn't fix, it hides. The voltage drain is still there and in time it could add to alternator wear.

[honeybabes]

Originally posted by masonholmes:
Ok, thanks. I guess it must be ground issues, although I've had 3 GS's and every single one of them has dimmed the lights at least slightly, when stepping on the brakes. Wish my "stereo" buddy hadn't advised me to buy a cap, . Anybody here want a brand new, digital, 1f fosgate, lol.

i'll buy the cap...seriously