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pleae i need to know how to hook my capacitor up? any diagrams???? please help asap

 
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positive terminal on battery --> fuse --> capacitor (ground the neg terminal) --->amp

 
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^ i concur

 
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power wire to cap +, cap + to amp, cap - to ground

 
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Am i the only one that thinks a capacitor is just a complete waste of money? It just helps to cover up a problem you already have. If your lights are dimming its because your electrical system can't keep up with the load its being given. A cap just allows you to use more power, which just stresses your system that much more. Capacitors are just bandaids for a bigger problem

 
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the right farad cap = less load on the battery and the rest of our electrical system.. Second battery for the real audio freaks but its unneccessary...maybe if u park and play ur **** too long

 
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no. if your lights always dim u have an issue. if they only dim on real hard hits. then you dont have a big issue. jsu the amp wants to much for a splti second.

then the cap comes int o cover that and stops the alrge hits from raping your battery/alt
thus saving them. it doesnt cover it up. it sovles teh issue

now if your lights are pretty well always dimmed. then you have an issue and a simple cap wont do it

 
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i have 3 batteries and 2 BatCaps

 
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its all in the eyes of the beholder. Two days ago i put a full system in a clients car and tuned it to where it sounded great on the inside, but not outside of the car. I pull his car out and tell him to have a great day. Not even five minutes later he comes back saying his car sounds awful. Turns out he wanted it to sound awsome from the outside but didnt care how distorted and clipped it sounded while sitting in the car. go figure.

 
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yeah alot of people down here are the same way, they got the gain at max, the crossover at all pass, and they have everyting at max. Then they crank their system and get out of the car and listen to every part that is rattling and thats how they judge if their system is good or not. (idiots). People like us take the time to install their cheap setup and try to set it as good as we can set it, then they not satisfied and crank everything at max

 
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i just wish they would tell me that ahead of time, woulda saved me half an hour

 
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actually a capacitor is good for sound quality, and stabilizes the electrical system in the car. that way the amps dont put a strain on your cars electrical as much. it could also eliminate those nasty alternator whines if you ahve them.

 
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stabilizes it for a split second and then acts as another drain on the electrical system.

 
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Big cap. Like the Alumapro's. I have the 15 Farad, made a world of difference. Stiffens up everything, everything will run at its peak performance because there arent any drops. Its worth the money. Ive never found the 1 Farad, etc. caps to help a whole lot. In certain situations they do, in other high power apps they dont. Just my .02

 
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thats not correct at all. caps wont save anything unless there are magical caps that produce power now. they TAKE power and RELEASE it to the amp.

the only purpose a cap serves is to reduce dimming and NOTHING else

 
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yes drain, but its a more gradual drain, instead of heavy spikes. thats the main difference when using a cap and not using one. its the spikes that kill your car and whatnot, but a slowing down of the voltage drop is much easier. its like falling off a building and going splat on the ground.. or falling off using a parachute and landing softly. what would you rather do?

 
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dont really agree with that, but im not going to argue.

 
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If you guys wanna see what bass can do to strain a car. All of you that have a vafc/safc. Turn to the numerical readout and watch you rpms drop when the sub hits. Its not that much but it does happen. Problem is now gone with two caps for bass and one for highs.

 
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heres what im trying to say, having a capacitor allows the amps to draw power from a closer source. think of it as a reservoir. since its close by, and there is less resistance between the amps and the cap, than there is between the amps and the battery, the amps feed off of the cap. once the amps keep continuously draining power from the "reservoir" and the line that keeps the reservoir full is already pumping out maximum power, the vehicles system voltage starts to lower along with how full the reservoir can get.

 
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try upgrading the engine grounds, theres also upgrading the power wire from battery to alternator. these upgrades are the most beneficial and will usually reduce if not eliminate the dimming. also using too small of a power wire (cheap kits are notorious for having teeny tiny power wires with huge plastic insulation ) anyways, try a good set of power and ground wires. and also make sure your ground connections are just as good as your 12v+ connections. the ground carries just as much power as the postitive lead.

 
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that i agree with

 
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Yeah you would be the only one.

I love people who just jump on the 'capacitors in cars are useless' bandwagon because they do now understand what a capacitor truly is, why it works, or how it works. If you had a second level physics class you would understand all these things about capacitors. After that you would understand how it benefits a car audio system.
I am not going to waste my time typing 5000 words telling everyone here why it works, but in a car it does help.

 
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im in third year and ive done quite a few electronics courses.

caps in cars arent totally usless, they are only sueful to stop the lights from dimming and as a voltage stabalizer so your voltage doesnt drop too much on hard bass hits

other than that its not needed

 
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but they look cool

 
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Tell ya what, anyone that says you DONT need one, do this. Go spend the $100 on a decent one, install it. If you have half way decent components in your system, you WILL notice a difference, not just in lights dimming, but sound. (when I say components, some idiots might think im talking about speaker components, NO. Im talking the components that make up your entire system). $100 is not a lot of money for an improvement.

 
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you dont even need to spend 100 dollars on a decent one. they are all the same really, just go by the number of farads that it produces. even the cheapest of the cheap 1farad cap still puts out 1 farad. it just depends on what looks better to you.