Yeah we did this in a honda accord i'll post pics as soon as possible i'm doing one in my truck now but i wont be as nice we wanted to put it in my truck but we though it would not fit we measured last night and it would have fit but o well.

 

Yes I have. You know what happens? It produces less power. Thats it. I don't know of a single competitor that uses a capacitor. Capacitors actually lower the voltage going to the amp. This means the amp will produce less power. Why would they do that?



Take it from someone who has been an audio nerd for the last 4 years, caps are just about useless. If you want to fixa voltage drop you need a larger power supply or reserve power supply.That means a biggeralternator or bigger/more batteries.Don't believe me? Go join any of the audio forums out there and do a search for capacitor. I don't suggest posting though because as you will see from the search people on audio forums are getting tired of discussing capacitors.

 

But Andrew, all of these in conjunction with each other is good right? If you have the larger battery & alternator to give a consitent power supply and a cap for those breif intervals where the amp is drawing more current, there would be no detriment to having a capacitor...right? You did say at the begining of your post that capacitors do what they were designed to, provide more current during peak use.

 

Amen brother. I feel your pain. I've been in the car audio world for amost 13 years....and have even competed on the amature level for a short while.

All people need to do is go search on termpro and they'll quickly find the answers from people who do this stuff for a LIVING.

 

Honestly, capacitors are nearly worthless. They will smooth out very small dips in voltage. Take the cover of your amp off and look at all of the little can looking things on the board. Those are capacitors designed into the amplifier to insure that each stage of the circuit has what it needs to perform. Amplifiers have all the capacitance that they need.

The detremint to a capacitor is that it creates just another link in the chain that can fail. By adding that link you will also lose a bit of voltage going to the amp so it will produce less power. For someone listening to music with their stereo and not measuring SPL numbers it is an inaudible difference so it doesn't really matter. You are also out $50 or whatever you paid for the cap that you could have put toward your components or other part of your system.

They do have their place but that place is very small and it can be ignored. You really can just skip getting one and you wouldn't know the difference. I was just trying to be subtle on how useless they were in the beginning with hope that after reading a little bit of background people would be able to come to that conclusion on their own. People tend to get defensive of their purchase of a capacitor and even convince themselves that buying one actually did something for them when the reality is they wouldn't know if it did or not. The only people that really do see a difference are people with small amplifiers just barely starting to tax their alternator. They are dropping from the usual 14.4v to 13v or so for fractions of a second and they see this in their headlights. The capacitor smooths out this voltage drop and maybe lessens it a bit and their lights do not flicker as bad. Like I have already said though flickering lights is not a sign of a problem.

If you want to know if you have a problem get an RMS volt meter/multi meter and measure your voltage during your regular use and follow the guidlines i put forward in my other posts. For the price most people pay for capacitors you can add a second battery to your truck and you will gain so much more.

 

im pretty sure when he said smaller gauge he ment go from 8 to 4...make the gauge numner decrease which equals bigger wire. i run a 4 awg wire and im pushing 1000watts. nothing crazy. mine interior lights dim a little if i have the sub turned all the way up. a cap would be a great fix. the reason your lights are dimming is because the amp is drawing a lot of power in a short period of time. if your gonna run those subs, your going to need bigger wire and a nice capacitor. if your lights still dim then you need a higher output alternator. i know around by me i can get a 1.5 farad cap brand new for $80 and thats more then i would need and should be fine or your set up.