shizzzon

u can't have a complete circuit if you remove the ground off the battery because the ground has been removed out of the car. When you remove that wire, u can sit there and touch the power and ground to each other all day long on the amp and nothing will happen. I don't really understand why you guys think it's so bad to do this because back when i first got started in audio several years ago, lots of manuals to equipment i bought always said to install ground wire last so that's what users would do.

nah, i seen somewhere else it's pronounced as in "hifi"

Um... if removing the ground wire first from an installation is the wrong thing to do... Then what's the difference in removing the ground from the chassis vs removing the ground off the starting battery? Once the ground on the starting battery is removed, ALL grounds from all equipment in the car has been removed.... So, should we remove the fuse box out of the car before unhooking the battery? That doesn't make sense... I think some of you or i have misinterpreted what he meant by removing the ground....

Welcome's you to America's Largest Car Show every year! For more info - Carl Casper Official Web Site If you live close enough to the area, you may be invited to the Loudest in Louisville event 2-19-10 to prove yourself to see who's the loudest around this area. This is one of the largest and strictest MECA events every year. This show is extremely huge! Who's coming?

1 Week after Casper, there will be a 1x event back for another Madvette show. This show usually brings in about 12-20 competitors in a variety usually a little in every class here in there. Cliniques start at 10am Judging at 11:30am Time is CST so if you're in EST, come an hour later, Here is flyer- http://www.mecacaraudio.com/flyers/2-27-10TN.pdf

1150CAs on that tractor batt is pretty good. Are they brand new batts because if they aren't.. i'd pass.

man... according to my meter and the way the car is acting to the wall.. i dont know what's up... Meter says i'm not even breakin a 149 now... I dont know whats up. I hope it's wrong. If i do meter low at the show... i'm gonna cancel the next show or 2 and figure out why i'm failing all of a sudden... Last minute tuning suck and i may be a victim of a bad one.

the majority of the powr amps will receive power is from the alternator. Once that is depleted, it's the rear batteries. The front battery in my experience doesnt contribute that much because it's not in the path of least resistance!

something weird is happenin with my meter.. I hope it's the meter and not my score... Anyways.. because of it, all the testing i did tonight is kinda wack.... I dont really know what's best to do and they wont have 2nd passes on saturday so if i dont place within the top 3... oh well... I think after this show i need to take some time off and venture into what my new wall is doing for me cuz something is odd with it.

no, u should run from the alternator to the starting battery to the solenoid to the rear battery(ies). I have no idea why he thinks to run to the solenoid... But again, tell him that even though the charging cable is ran over the starting battery first, it WILL NOT ACCEPT CURRENT unless the battery is not fully charged! If that were the case.. then the starting battery would ALWAYS be pulling current into itself. If you want to test this theory then do this- Start your car then drive around for about 5-10minutes so the alt can charge the starting battery back up from the crank you just did. Now come back home and put car in park but leave car running. Get an ammeter and measure how much current is coming off the alternator's charging cable. Now measure the current coming off the starting battery's factory power cable. Subtract the difference and the remainder should be going to the starting battery... which isn't much. If he still doesn't understand\believe... ask him how i run over 10,000w of power on a stock alternator, stock battery and 2 extra batteries in the back with 2 200A solenoids in parallel(that's for use of an aftermarket alternator). The answer is- i onyl go to competition and blast for short periods. The battery's hold their capacity well. I pull about 1,100A of current for 1-2 seconds then let the stock alt charge all 3 batteries back up. that alternator isn't stressing because we tested it doing 58A at idle max and it only puts out 33A right after a blast it. 3.9A is what goes to the rear batteries so it doesnt phase them a lot. There is ONLY 1 type of load i am aware of that exists without the user knowing it and that's battery charging... That should be the only excuse of thinking current is being dispersed out of the alternator all the time... If the batteries are all charged up.. then there is no demand for current output of the alternator except for what's running the car. I've had people at Auto Zone tell me that there should be a se;arate charging cable running from the alternator to EACH battery in the car... HAHAHAHA That's wrong! That's why Auto Zone isn't in the car audio field. If that were true... then alternator's charging post would be like 6x taller than a battery post... impractical. IF he wants some more input... go here- www.dcpowerinc.com and give your dad their phone number. Let Dave tell your dad all about how it's setup.

I am going to the show... As long as they dont bitch about my wiring... i'll be competing.

The new wall is in and the amps are working... I hope the Carl Casper show doesnt give me crap over my wiring of the amps... I havent changed my wiring in all the shows i've been too and even had the commissioner verify it one time and passed... I was told by a competitor at the last show that they would make me disassemble the whole trunk to prove i'm not cheating.... I don't think so... I do not have time to rebuild the trunk in a day... I should be able to prove to them by removing the fuses in the fuse block and showing them the amps wont come on... simple as that. If they refuse this common knowledge... then i'll leave the show due to their stupidity but hopefully that competitor that told me that isn't 100% literal. Anyways, i got my peak note i'm gonna work with so i got one day to try and tune this thing as best i can for the show saturday, lol One day.. that's a lot... Actually 3hrs.... i still gotta work too.

Information and Knowledge? That's my guess...

if u are wondering in what order you connect your rear batteries up... do this as it will help alot- When installing fuse blocks, leave all the fuses out of the blocks and go ahead and connect all wires including grounding everything to the car's frame. That way, the only connections left are to install the fuses. They will probably spark but at least it's here at the fuse block and not on the battery's terminal. If you had a short and you connected the grounding wire to a battery with fuses in place.. that post would be arcing like crazy, i've seen it happen... NO.. not me... but is funny to watch, scares the crap out of people.

ok here u go. the following is what the car looks like stock- Notice the fuse in line with the alternator, that fuse is actually in your fuse box but everything else is dead on. The alternator's factory ground is ran through the mounting bracket that holds the alternator so there typically is no wire for alt ground. Now the following is more advanced wiring that u will need to do- ok, lets start with the alternator- First, you will want to upgrade your ground with a wire this time. If using an alternator which is rated for ~135A or less, 4awg ground wire is gine, otherwise 1/0 is highly preferred. To run this wire, make it less than 3ft long and connect it somewhere on the alternator's bracket via a bolt that currently exists and attach the other end to the car's frame. Some people will say to just attach it to the engine somewhere... Well, the point is to upgrade the alt's ground so by forcing it to go through factory brackets(multiple connections all joined together equals more and more resistance)... it's best to ground directly to the alt then to car's frame. Next, you will want to ADD, not replace, but add a new power connection from alt to battery. Same gauge wire recommendation as ground still exists here, however length can be as long as needed to reach battery's + post. MAKE SURE U FUSE THIS WIRE. Some people don't. If you do not and the connection ever goes to ground... your battery can explode or wire can catch fire, etc... fuse is best! Fuse this connection with either the fuse size of the factory fuse(if still a stock alternator) or the rating of the wire itself (4awg = 130-150A, 1/0 = 250-300A) Now you see another ground wire coming off starting battery.. that's necessary to decrease resistance. If you ever upgrade your alternator, It's MANDATORY that you do this or wire can catch fire if too much current is forced through factory wiring. Again, same gauge wire recommendation for this ground wire too. Now, the wire that joins the front battery to the rear needs to be big due to it's length. I recommend a minimum of 1/0 for this cable. Now you see how there is a fuse there right after the battery on this cable! Make sure you put that on there NO MORE THAN 18" from the starting battery! Now, we follow the cable on down to the SOLENOID. The solenoid is lenient on connection points so it's hard to goof this up. There are 4 points on a solenoid, 2 large and 2 small. the 2 large are POWER IN, POWER OUT. This is what the 1/0 cable is ran into and back out of. The other 2 points are ground and 12v ignition wire. It doesnt matter which one you use, just ground one with 18awg wire or larger wire and the other point MUST BE connected to 12v ignition wire using ~16awg or larger due to it's length to run from the back of the car to the front. 12v ignition wire is ran to the stereo so u can tap off that. This wire is usually the large red wire going to stereo but make sure it is before just tapping into it. Now, we go power out from the solenoid to another fuse. This fuse is the SAME SIZE as the previous fuse size on the same wire. Both fuse sizes can be either 250 or 300A. These fuses are to protect the wire and since this is 1/0, that is there typical current rating. MAKE SURE THIS FUSE IS WITHIN 18" OF THE REAR BATTERY! Now, after that fuse, it runs into the battery's positive post. If you have another battery back there, the positive on the first battery will run in parallel with the positive on the other battery. Also parallel all grounds to all rear batteries. It is NOT required to run a ground from the back battery to the front AND NEVER recommended to do that as a primary ground for the rear battery(ies). After all batteries are connected in the back, run 1 or 2 4awg or 1/0 wire grounds to the car's frame with each wire being no longer than 3ft. That's it! When connecting amps, try and run the amp's ground directly to the battery if it's within 3ft of length. If you think it's gonna be longer than 3ft to get to the battery's ground post from amp but u can run it to the car's frame in under 3ft, do that instead. When running power cable from all amps to battery(ies), make sure you put a fuse on EACH power run within 18" from the battery it is going to. that should do it.

all the roads are fine so no abnormal danger to watch out for. I'm still sick... but i'll let u guys know by tomorrow if i'm going or not.

ill try and get u a diagram this evening

the weather is fine but im sick hopefully im still goin if i get better i still havent tested anything yet

tell him devices only receive current when they need it. just because cuttrrent runs over something doesnt mean it receives it too

yea u let it cool down by removing the load. I dont think that information should be posted because i don't see how it could be proven that the front battery could ever attempt to charge the back bank for a split second. Even if it could be proven, it's so fast, the information is irrelevant for safe practices.

dekas that i've seen rest at 12.8-12.9v. kinetik batts i've seen rest at 12.9-13.0v XS Power batts rest at 13.1-13.2v

there is one thing i disagree with and that's when the rear battery(ies) discharge power to the amps the front battery will try n charge the rear and then the alt will charge the front in a fraction of a second... that's wrong. Whoever has the highest voltage level is in control so let's start with that first- The alternator supplies power to the stereo all the time. that's why when a user is jamming, his voltage still remains above the battery's rest voltage. Now, let's say a quick bass note happened and the voltage regulator couldnt respond quick enough. the rear battery would compensate for the drag and the alternator will still continue to power the car stereo and immediately give the rear battery a small charge back. The front battery has VERY little to do with the stereo system. I tested that one time wanting to know how much current the front battery sends to the back when the car is off. I had a consistent 235A current draw when the car was off from 2 amps so i clamped the link cable that combines the front and rear battery bank... the front battery only dispersed about 23A of current to the back... that's nothing. The amps will get power from the point(s) of least resistance first. The batteries closest to the amps will get worked more than the front battery will. That's why when using mult batts, buss bars are nice to have. You can attach amp power points on the bars in between batteries so you can attempt to evenly distribute battery drain. Understanding when an alt is stressing is good to know too. The lower your voltage is when driving, the more the alt is being worked. If you have a low or no aftermarket load on the alt and it's still sagging some on the voltage, it's because it's hot. If the alt typically runs around 15v and it's running around 14v flat with low load... let it cool down! I don't know what a threshold is from one alt to another but heat kills alts.

Well, who's commin? I'll be there obviously. It should be a decent show, cold as hell but a decent show.

Well, i just spent the last few days researchin this myth of Iraggi alts and kinetik batts dont go together... That sounds stupid, i know, but people have problems so i decided to try and find the answer. What i have found is interesting if you didn't know so hopefully this will help those that already have their batts and those planning on purchasing as well. A long time ago in China there was..... Oh oops, wrong story. Ok, here is the theoretical problem- Kinetik batts are only capable of accepting voltages up to 14.3v MAX Voltages above 14.3v can only be done in quick spurts. Kinetik told me that anything over 3-4hrs of constant voltage higher than 14.3v will lead to permanent damage. The battery will begin to swell then start damaging cells. When this happens, the battery will no longer be able to hold a charge. So that means if you got any Kinetik batts that can't hold a charge, this may be what happened to you. I can see this being a REAL bad problem for those who have or are deciding to replace your starting battery with one of these. Now, for those who have them in the rear, due to voltage drop, depending on how bad it is, the worse the better... to a degree of course. If your alt charges these batts over 14.3v briefly, maybe just for 10-15min trips for example, in the long run, the battery will still fail.

this is what i do, it's cheap and effective- Isolators cause a voltage drop for one so scrap that idea. Solenoids(big ass relays) is what you would want. www.oznium.com sells them for cheap cheap. Go to teh relay section and get you a 200A relay. This is how it works- For one, solenoids don't cause voltage drop so that's good. When the car is off, the batteries are "isolated". When in ignition mode(or started), the batteries are joined together. They cant fight each other because the alternator has the higher voltage level and will disperse charge to anything that needs it. Once car is off, they become "isolated" again. Now, if you replace ur front batt with a shuriken then u wouldnt need this but these things are a lot cheaper than a battery. I have used my stock battery for 3.5 years now and out of that, 1 of those years i've got over 10,000w of power in the car with xs power batts in the back separated with a solenoid. My stock batt nor my xs power batts have ever had problems and won't unless the solenoid dies... if that happens, the alt can't charge the back batts but that's what a voltmeter is for too.