I was wondering who all has a farad cap! I don't know if this is the correct name of it. It is big and stores energy so when your bass hits your car don't dim down. My car is at the point that i can't even enjoy my bass and i only have 2 Kicker Comp. 10's. I was wondering if these really help. How much they cost, best place to put them etc...any help would be great! Pics would be good too! Thanks guys!

 

99.9% of the time, you do not need a capacitor.. so tell us a little more about your situation, and we'll be able to better help you make a decision...

 

hes right, you usually don't .... the alternator is the deciding factor of your lights dimming.

first of all, its a "power cap" or "monster cap". The term fared is the rating system on it. There is a 1/2 fared which is good to like 500 watts (dont quote me cause im very unsure, some here should have the numbers). The 1/2 fared is about 6 inches in length. The one fared cap is self explanitory.

I notice a little difference with my lights dimming but not much. All they do is store power and give it when the amp really needs it, but still you'll need a more powerful alt or get your alternator rebuilt with better brushes and coils by a shop and they can give you more amps.

~Tim

 

Actually, it's farad. When it's installed properly, it can help with the dimming lights, although it's not going to help if your alternator is consistantly being overdrawn. To get the most benefit from the cap, you'll want to have it wired as close to the sub amp as possible. 12" of wire between them is the absolute MAXIMUM distance, but if you can get it closer, do it.

Wiring one in takes some special attention, and if you're not pretty familiar with wiring and electronics, pay a shop to do it. Anyway, the first thing you have to do is hook up the ground. You can run the ground to the same spot your amp is grounded at. Then you want to charge the cap. Place the live +12 wire right next to the power side of the cap, but DON'T LET THEM TOUCH. you need to use the supplied resistor and touch one side of the resistor to the wire, the other to the + terminal on the cap. The resistor is going to get hot. Pull it off, let it cool, then repeat. Do it a bunch of times. Eventually it won't get hot. Leave it there for 30 seconds once it stops getting hot. If you've got a digital multimeter, put it across the cap terminals and verify that you've got at least 8 or 9 volts. Then you can take the +12 wire and attach it to the cap, as well as the short lead that goes between the cap and the +12 terminal on the amp.

 

Another way to charge a stiffening capacitor is by using a 12v test light.Once you connect all wiring,WITHOUT the fuse in the fuse holder at the front,you can run your test light leads across the fuse holder.The light will light up from the heat of the current running throught the bulb filament. As the cap charges and less current is drawn through the filament,the bulb will dim.Once the light goes out,the cap is fully charged.This usually taked about 15- 25 seconds depending on the size of the cap.

 

Yeah, the test light is actually a great way to do it, because when the light goes out, you know it's charged.

Unfortunately... my experience has shown that most people that are this "green" to car audio tend not to have too many tools, but all caps come with the necessary resistor.

 

I was told too that it could be my alternator. But i don't know so that's why i was looking into this. I have a Alpine CD player, alpine 4x6 plates, alpine 5 1/4 (in the 6x9 area) with bass blockers going to these 4 speakers, My amps are a MRV T500 V12, this powers my (2) 10" Kicker Competition subs. Then my other alpine amp (3522S) powers the plates and 5 1/4! So nothing major, i just hate when my lights dim. My gauge reads a good bit over 13 until the fan kicks on then it is barely over the 13.

 

how long do your lights dim for? also, when does it occur? when a big bass note hits, or is it pretty random?

 

one thing that helps a lot and is a cheap fix is upgrading the wiring under the hood. think about it. you runn 4 ga from the battery to the amps and the amps to the ground, but the stock wiring to the alt is still only 8 ga. upgrading the bat. to ground and the bat. to alt will have a nice improvement over stock, especially with a system. i saw an increase from mid 13v to 14v when i upgraded. if this is not enough (which it should be), then think about either a better alt (best choice) or a cap (bandaid for the system)

 

do you need to use special wire to do that, because of the heat underhood? or does regular 4awg wire from, say, partsexpress work just fine?

 

Any 4 gauge audio wire will suffice, but I haven't found a satisfactory way to terminate the wire to the little tiny pin on the alternator yet.

 

man the wiring on my car from teh alt. to battery was like 12g. its so fricking small. now I have some 8gauge going, helped alot.

 

tiny pin? i had the nice screw post on the back that i ran off of. just made sure to fuse it before it got to the battery

 

I had my car sitting for like 9 months, would the farad lose its charge in that time ?

 

they do have a shelf life, even if you dont use them.. i dont remember what it is, but i think its around a year..

 

Can they just be recharged ?

 

my information may be wrong, but i believe that after a year a capacitor will no longer do its job.. so no, a simple recharge won't fix it.. i dont have any facts to prove this with, so maybe somebody else could enlighten us.. but im pretty sure thats how it is

 

if you search around on other audio boards, you'll find that most people will tell ya caps arent worth the money. they are only a quick fix for the bigger problem. i myself have been running two amps off my stock alt with only upgrading the under hood wiring to 4ga and have never had a problem with lights dimming. the best solution to the problem: buy a higher output alt. they arent too much more than what a cap cost. if you cant afford it, go to walmart (and this is the ONLY time i'll recommend this place for audio) and pick up one of the 4ga wiring kits they have. only $25. it will solve many of your problems. caps arent necessary.

 

i defintely second that.. caps are only really needed about 0.01% of the time, but nobody seems to understand that.. oh well

 

Caps last longer than a year, and yes, they'll need to be "recharged" if they sit a long time. It takes 30 seconds with a test light or the supplied resistor.

 

i read *somewhere*... have no idea where.. they they do lose their usefulness after a certain amount of time, regardless of whether or not you use them.. is that true, or was that wrong info? if so, how long will they last?

 

There's no ticking clock inside. How long do cars last? It's an impossible question to answer. Every electronic product you own has a ton of capacitors inside it that are used for a mirad of different reasons, and your electronics don't all self destruct in a year, do they?

 

nah, my stuffs not blowing up just yet but i know that in order to make such large value (1.0 farad) capacitors so small (well, relatively..) you have to use some special material as insulation between the two plates which is very thin.. or something like that... which i thought i heard was prone to breakdown after a year or so.. it made sense to me, but if you say no then i definitely believe you.. i take you to be a pretty qualified person when it comes to these areas, so my apologies, i was mistaken

 

Let "some" chics drive em and they've got a lifespan.