Rep Power: 0

Okay ive been trying to figure this thing out for 3 weeks and still no luck....
Anyways i noticed my amp kept going into protection mode when i had the base turned up.... turned out the power was dropping to 11v at the cap. So i replaced the battery with an optimum one (or however u spell it). Anyways i still have the same problem. Every now and again the power drops below 12, like 11's and 10's if i turn everything on (i have a lot of electrical gadgets). So im wondering if i slap another cap in parallel with the one I have, will that solve my problems or should i buy like a 24v battery and relocate it to the trunk.

Please constructive help only.... if you think i should relocate it, how much are relocation kits and which battery should i get?????

Thanks in Advanced

 
Rep Power: 323

It sounds like you need another battery - based upon other threads with system drain topics. what electrical gadgets are you powering? With my stock battery and alternator I'm running My entire aftermarket system plust my Ipod and A Sirus Tuner. with no issues.

 
Rep Power: 0

Well im running my radar detector, an inverter for cell phone, my ipod with the car charger, my interior lights - i took em out, but i want them back in, oooo and yea my 1200 watt system (which i can only pull the gain up to 1/3 of the maximum).

 
Rep Power: 323

1200 watt RMS?

 
Rep Power: 0

I don't mean to be an @$$ about this but its a pet peeve.. so I'm going to have to whip out the bullsh1t meter and the needle is pegged at... BULLSH1T. 1200 REAL watts? Or 1200 watts as stated on the box? What kind of system are you running? How loud is your system in dBs?
Watts=Voltage^2/Resistance
According to the boxes on my amps, I'm only running 600 watts but I'm really only getting about 400-450 depending on the frequency and I hit about 145dB in my sealed box tuned at 47hz and about 147-149dB in my ported box... (Yes I have about three or four different enclosures.. a competition box, a sound quality box, and a couple other custom enclosures that are more for show than performance.
SO, knowing that it takes double to power to gain 3dB, and taking into consideration the AVERAGE sensitivity of a given subwoofer is about 87db @ 1w/1m.. with the math, you should be running one HELL of a loud system. Inform me please because wondering minds are wondering how you even ran 1200 watts on a stock battery/alternator without already starting an electrical fire in your car. Voltage drops create heat, the heat sinks can't keep disapate the heat fast enough, the power source in the amp gets really hot, therefore, your amp wire to your battery gets really hot. The shielding on the wire will melt, and the wire will eventually start a fire. Well.. worse case scenerio I suppose.
Wow, that really had nothing to do with your question so I apologize for that.. I'm crabby and I'm venting lol.. ANYWAYS, no, another cap won't fix your problem.. if you're really running 1200 watts, I would upgrade your alternator and buy at least two more batteries. It doesn't really cost anything more than how much the wire and terminals cost. I would assume you're using 0/1 awg wire and that stuff is pretty pricey.. around here it's about $4 per ft so you do the math.. After you upgrade your batteries and alternator, you shouldn't even need that capacitor anymore. Using a capacitor is like putting a band aid on an infected cut in your arm. The band aid covers it so you don't see it, but it doesn't fix the problem. I don't know who started the rumor about getting a capacitor will fix voltage drops because it doesn't. It should be the last thing you do. Anyways, good luck man. I am done now.

 
Rep Power: 0

Is the amp going into protect, or is it draining the power so bad that the HU doesn't have enough power. Then the HU doesn't send a strong signal down the remote wire. This would cause the amp to turn off when the bass hits really hard.

 
Rep Power: 337

voltage drops can be caused by a vareity of issues..... 8 gauge power wire on that 1200 watt amp, for example.

your capacitor might be useless if its ESR is too high. it wouldnt do anything for your bass hits!

Ive found that a solid 2 farads of capacitance really helps smooth voltage spikes in the kilowatt range, assuming thats the bottleneck. But I would go through everything in the system bit by bit, determine really what is causing the dips, why your cap now does nothing, and if there is anything you can do to fix the causes rather than spending hundreds on a solution that will jsut compensate for the existing problem.

kind of a vauge answer and I apologise for that, but there could be SO many causes for the dipping! good luck

 
Rep Power: 0

In response to the middle rant - no its not 1200 watts rms, thats the peak rating, the rms is like 6 or 5 something... (if you want my friend has a expedition with 2000 watts rms in it, i could get a list of parts for that if you want. 4 Cerwin Vega subs, each with its own amp ....) i forget --- Physics is keeping me up at night, and i need to graduate, but thats another story....

Anyways.... If i remove the power from the cap and all, and measure the voltage on the power lead with respect to my rear frame(for ground), ill get the 12 - 13v all day long. Now that i've been constantly obsessing with this, i think it could possibly be a short somewhere along a wire, or the amp is overheating. No the headunit isnt loosing power, and no none of the other components in the car are, thats why I upgraded the battery and through a cap on it, just to make sure the amp wasnt draining the power.

On a side note, i do recall that another time i had problems in this setup i switched out the amp for a less powerful one (yea i got crap laying around my room), and it worked like a charm. The base wasnt hitting as hard but it was consistent ... So ill check these things out when i get a chance ... but right now PHYSICS should DIE A HORRIBLE DEATH AND THE PLANETS go into chaos and lets remake everything with donuts in mind ..... mmmmmm Donuts

 
Rep Power: 0

ok...well if you come to the conclusion that your issues are being caused by a power shortage, here are my $.02...alot of people are probably going to rag on me about this, but i recommend using a BatCap...you may not have heard of them, so just do a search on eBay for them, and read all the specs...i would say a BatCap 800 (the model that i am currently using) would be perfect for your situation...they're supposedly like 800 farad capacitors, and alot of people say they're crap, they'll burn out, or whatever, but i absolutely love mine...i've been running a KX1200.1 (1256 watts, to be more precise) to a pair of S12L7s, 2 KX350.4s pushing 8 K60 coaxials, a Rockford Fosgate Punch 50.2 running a pair of Kicker R19 tweeters, a Pioneer AVIC-N1, an external DVD/MP3/etc player, and a 5.6" monitor with no upgrades to my electrical system (alternator, Big 3, etc....although i will have a H.O. alt and Big 3 upgrade soon for added protection...) except for an Optima Yellow Top and a single BatCap 800...and even with both monitors, my amps, LEDs/neons, headlights, windshield wwipers, heater, etc. on i have no headlight dimming, amp shutoff, etc...granted, you may not have the same results, but i've had my Optima and Yellow Top running similar setups for over a year, and the performance has been flawless..anyway, hope this helps...if you need it, i can send you a wiring diagram of how i incorporated everything together with the fuse and distro blocks...anyway, good luck!

 
Rep Power: 0

Alright, so I'm confused. You said that you're getting 11 volts-ish with the capactior. So if you're getting 12-13v all day.. well, then again that still isn't the 13.7-14.5 volts you're car should be running at all times anyways.. But I think that if you're still getting below 13.7 volts regardless if you have the cap or not.. but it's worse with the cap, I would ditch it. I don't know, I guess it doesn't help any that I'm giving a biased opinion just because I hate capacitors with a passion (I don't really have any reason on why I do but that's okay) But I guess you can try whatever you want just because it is your car.. this is just my $0.02 cents.

If a customer brought this to me, I guess I would try a variety of different things just to see what gives the best results.. so that's my advice to you.

Sorry about my rant..

 
Rep Power: 0

Toss the amp. It sounds like your amp is shorting out internally.........