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Hi guys,
I just bought a capacitor for my ICE setup. I am just wondering what yur experiences have been with it for those who have it. How often will they need to be charged if at all after the initial charge, and your over all thoughts on them. Any input would be welcomed. Thanks.

 
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you charge them once... after that the alternator gives it juice... and the purpose of the capacitor is so that your lights don't dim out when the bass really thumps... good idea if you are running a lot of power from your amps...

 
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If you are running your stock alternator and stock wiring, you should not be using a cap. Dimming lights is a symptom, not a cause of a problem. Lights dim because when your bass hits a deep note, your alternator is unable to deliver the amount of power that your system is demanding. This is what is commonly called "voltage drop". You need to upgrade your "big 3", and if need be, upgrade your alternator. Adding a cap may stop your lights from dimming a little, but it is not curing the problem. In essence, you are just placing another piece of equipment onto your electrical system and therefore you are only straining it further. If you are running a lot of power from your amps without any of the real electrical upgrades I suggested, then this is especially true. Caps are a waste of money IMO and are only going to cost you more in the long run unless you know what you are doing. The fact of the matter is, you are always going to experience dips in electricity when a big bass note hits because of modern car computers, there is always a slight delay before the command to cause your alternator to crank faster is put out from the computer, therefore there usually is a slight delay before the electrical system responds. I can tell you that 99.9% of the people out there who own caps dont need them, cant tell you what they actually do, and only have them because they think that it really looks cool with those glowing blue/red/green leds in their trunks. I would return the cap and if you need more power, buy a bigger alternator.

 
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NAhhh..CAp does help lill bit but changing the alternator gives U more time. jaz consider changing ur fuses to set everything in ur ECU.. gud luck guys..

 
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Not even sure what "changing the alternator gives U more time" means , but as I said before, a cap only solves one symptom of the real problem, and only makes the REAL problem worse in the long run on OEM electrical systems. And why would changing your fuses have anything to do with a cap? You would need to fuse the Big 3 with a larger fuse and you would need to change fuses if you get a larger alt, but for a cap?? I dont think so. The fact of the matter is, as I said before, caps on an oem electrical system are a waste of money, spend it on a bigger alternator instead if you need more power.

 
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No love for that stabilized cap voltage, huh?

 
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Nah, just no love for wasting money on trinkets that arent needed and only serve as dead weight and bright led trunk lights . Capacitors are a marketing gimick for the most part, I mean, Ive seen a van running multiple incriminator audios 40.1's and countless RE XXX's, in a totally custom wall and I didnt see any caps stuck on there. Look those up if you dont know what they are, because if you can run that much power without a cap, you dont need one for your amp that pushes 400watts RMS, or as most people who have caps often say "1500 watts....dude it says 1500watts on the face of the amp, so it must be pushing 1500watts!!" . You should have any need to stabalize voltage unless you are running a ton of power on your stock alternator, which is unhealthy for it anyways. I get 14.3v at my amp with a simple big 3 upgrade and it never dips below 12.8v, even on bass mekanics songs.

 
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I agree that most people don't understand/appreciate them.

 
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i didnt even think about it till a few months after 2 yellowtops and a 170amp altinator. the only thing it does is slightly and i mean slightly reduce the huge spike on large power demands of deep notes.

instead of a 14.4v to 12.0v drop in a split second it slows it down to about 1.5 to 2 seconds slowly trickling the voltage.

im iffy on them.

 
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I just got an Optima Yellow top gel battery and put it into my trunk because I've had too many issues with caps.