Battery or Cap

[Hell-Razor 0]

Well I have ran into something here and I think I may have gotten lucky on my part....

My friend who is going to help me install my car system here whenever I get everything together. He told me that he has a 5 farad cap and that I could have it from him for a few cases of...beverages. Now I am curious about this seeing as I was told to stay away from caps and just get a battery bank. What questions should I ask him when deciding if I want this or not? He says its pretty new and was only installed into his car system once. Then he took it out due to too many tickets over a week (must have been dumb about it) and never put it back in. Now for the serious question here, should I even bother? or should I just snag the Powermaster D3100 battery like I was going to originally? Now this could help me save about 400$ if I could get away with using this cap and my stock battery with a 200 amp alt. I will be trying to push about 3500 -4k watts total.

I could also get a bigger main battery (the biggest that would fit under the hood that is) if you guys think that cap wont handle my system.

Also if I get an extra battery for the trunk (saying the cap isn't enough) would I want to put the cap in between the two batteries? after the two? Or just dump it in general and stick with two batteries (one big one stock starting).

I have been reading up but haven't been able to find much saying a cap + bat install. All I have found was a list of caps that should be used with XXX wattage system. It says for a 5000+watt system you need a 5 farad cap, I would assume this would be enough for me.

[shizzzon 461]

i have done enough research on caps... battery or not back there, no cap EVER, EVER, EVER.

I dont care if it was a 100F cap, NO CAP!

Battery and alternator is what is needed for car audio, daily or comp, no cap!

[bigrank916 72]

i have done enough research on caps... battery or not back there, no cap EVER, EVER, EVER.

I dont care if it was a 100F cap, NO CAP!

Battery and alternator is what is needed for car audio, daily or comp, no cap!

I'm not pro caps or anything but why are you so against them? I'm sure it's just a waste of money but can it actually hurt your system?

[bassahaulic 155]

Have you not seen the Kinetik battery, the small one, that is 600x more powerful then a 1farad cap? Now imagine a Kinetik 2400 or Powermaster 3100?

I could not fathom how a small little 5 farad cap could support 5000 watts. When my Kinetik 2400 could not.

[bassahaulic 155]

i have done enough research on caps... battery or not back there, no cap EVER, EVER, EVER.

I dont care if it was a 100F cap, NO CAP!

Battery and alternator is what is needed for car audio, daily or comp, no cap!

I'm not pro caps or anything but why are you so against them? I'm sure it's just a waste of money but can it actually hurt your system?

It's more strain on your already hard working alt. It is just a useless POS

[shizzzon 461]

quick answer-

A cap will discharge EVERYTHING in it's bank when a rush of current is requested...

A battery will compensate for the current requested when the alternator can't or the regulator doesn't react fast enough.

If you could.. try and imagine your battery going completely dead then back to recharging every other few seconds?!?! You can't imagine that at all..

So, you got your alt, a big battery bank and a big ass cap-

The cap will ALWAYS be getting drained and recharged all the time...

What's recharging it? The alternator... When it's doing that, it's providing less power to the audio system which results in more voltage drop because the battery(ies) must compensate more...

Now, when the batts are being used more... every split second when when there is no demand for current, the alt must charge the batts back up too!!!

Keep playin music like that... your voltage will continue to drop and drop....

That's why caps are BAD!

They were even tested in a comp setup for power draw... IF a cap can disperse current quicker.. it should provide the amp with more power...

A 600w amp was tested.. using a cap suited for the amp, the amp only outputted an additional 3w! 3 WATTS!

Wow.... at that rate... u can just give me your money if u plan on blowing it..

Caps are useless period.

[jcarter1885 995]

Batteries all day, CAPS no don't do it man.

[Hell-Razor 0]

So baps = good? hah, alright....

[bigrank916 72]

Very desciptive and detailed answer shizzon. I'm that kind of person that knows 2+2=4, but I just like to know why.

What's funny is the guy who runs the local shop I go to sometimes has 2 of them in his porsche. Both 5 farad rf caps in his sq setup. Not to mention 2 $10,000 class a/b (more a bias) amps by audison I believe. Not a hot seller he said. Huh, go figure. Shouldn't someone who owns a custom car audio shop know these kinds of things?

[patented17 21]

As long as there are people, who are out there that are misinformed. He will keep selling his caps.

[SPLScion 3]

If for some reason you decide to NOT follow the advice in this thread, your going to need this link soon www.db-r.com He does great work repairing amps, and I assure you running a 4 kilowatt amp off of a cap instead of batteries your voltage drops will cause death to your amp, sooner or later I promise.

[shizzzon 461]

people who represent local shops that are running any equipment in their car is more than likely the same equipment that they sell...

So... if they sell it, they will dump a lot of money into it equipment-wise so it's impressive looking and has to sound pretty good too.

As long as the audio setup they do is functional, which of course it would be, then anything in their vehicle would appeal to someone who doesn't know a lot about car audio.

So, when you are dumb in a field like this and request help from someone who's tryin to make money, they will attempt to sell u the most product possible even though some of it isn't necessary.

I can guarantee everybody that if i had contract deals with manufacturers to purchase a set amount of product per company per year... i would NEVER stock caps...

Many companies have a minimum set purchase cost that dealers must pay in terms of equipment cost to stay a dealer for that brand.

So, let's say company A requests a minimum of $50,000 of product purchase from them per year. this company makes amps, subs, speakers, caps, wire\terminals, boxes, etc....

So, someone like me, would purchase, let's say, only their subs, speakers and select few amps if any. As logn as i reach my quota according to their contract per year, i dont have to stock nonsense products still marketed on the shelves today.

[rodneydude23 5]

Shizzon I think I've Iearned more from you then anyone else on this forum lol.

[shizzzon 461]

give me a rep,

The best thing i like about forums, especially ones i actually help on rather than get help is helping every single person i possibly can in hopes those people attain the knowledge to help those who used to be in their shoes...

IT is at this point that the forum as a whole will be more educated and, in their own experiences, share information with all of us in hopes that experienced users may gain new information and then help us, again, to learn more. Educating the right person will help others learn even faster.

Knowledge is power and sharing is what keeps it going.

[Tirefryr 1,742]

Shizzon I think I've Iearned more from you then anyone else on this forum lol.

You poor guy.

[Tirefryr 1,742]

Hey Chris, since you have such a hatred for caps, why not pull them out of all your amplifiers and replace them with small batteries?

[shizzzon 461]

i have never seen a benefit of running a or many caps for use in caraudio. I have had problems when i was new to car audio LONG time agoand i had a h.o. alternator running way less than it's full potential.

i've done research, everything i've read confirms what i've experienced, others have stated in the past....

Not good for comp use which one would think they would be.

The only thing a cap has over a batt is low resistance and with today'sbatts.. having a bank all wired in parallel will have a very low, ifnot lower than a cap's resistance.

It's interesting how all competitors i deal with stand behind this justlike i do and will refuse to run these daily as well as we won't runmultiple alternators just so a cap can quickly discharge a minuteamount of power that we can't audibly hear or can even be metered forthe money for that matter...

Caps cost more than batts do for what u get so it's common sense to go with a battery or batteries...

[CrazyKenKid 64]

so i jsut put this thread on my favorites bar!

next time i see someone asking i will use this as reference!!

[Tirefryr 1,742]

The large caps you see marketed as band-aids are useless for what they are marketed for, but they are a key tool if you have a proper electrical system. They work to smooth the ripples in the current out. And capacitance is very important for amplifiers for stabilizing voltage, so don't think they don't have their merit.

The main issue with 90% of the capacitors that are marketed on the "stop your dimming lights" campaign, is most of them have an ESR that is too great to do any good. Hence the reason none of them work.

The big problem here is, amps are cheap and too many people are too quick to grab the largest amp they can find and think they are going to be loud. They fail to realize it takes power to make power and the electrical system is the weak link.

I don't care how many batteries you have either. If you are exceeding the charging capacity of the alternator, the batteries are simply not going to get recharged either, so simply adding more batteries is just as worthless as adding the capacitor.

[shizzzon 461]

no it's not either.

You can't generalize adding extra batts is as worthless as adding cap(s).

For someone who is aware of what their alt's limit is and how muchtheir average and peak current draw is will know that if they have alarge reserve capacity in the back not to be jammin for hours and hoursif the alt can't keep up.

once either the alternator is maxed out or at idle rpm, the alt may noteven be putting out power, the power comes from batts... Once currentdraw lowers, alt charges batts...

In that same scenario, if a large cap was installed, that thign wouldput more time into charging batts back up as now them, the stereo andthe cap must be ran by the alt...

I do not view a cap as a replacement for a battery but as an addon. Even if someone ran a 300A alternator with only a 1,000w amp and alarge battery in the back, a cap still wouldnt give someone an audibledifference in sound and, again, a 600w amp tested with a cap onlyachieved an increase of 3w output. Meaning, all things being equal...a 6,000w amp may only output an additional 30w... not noticeable...

Now back to what you are saying about stabilizing voltage... Having theproper electrical system will not have voltage issues...

If your current draw is less than what the alt's maximum potential is,then the voltage will never fall to that of the batteries floatreading...

Without going into detail here, refer to what i said previously. If a600w amp can only output 3 extra watts, the electrical system used inthis scenario is fully capable of running this amp without "help."

If it wasn't capable.. a cap would make it worse.

I know what you are saying, but the difference in voltage in with alarge cap vs one without doesn't change the way it sounds or anincrease in power and those are the two things most people look forwhen upgrading their electrical system... They need to supply powerfrom somewhere and it better not have a nasty voltage drop so the usercan have the most sustained voltage throughput for maximum outputpotential from their amp... a battery or bank of that can make that happen. batts hold a charge longer and that is pure key for part of the main upgrade of an electrical system.

Now, if u may remember, i made a topic about those harrison labs step up transformers from 14.4v electrical system to 18.5v..

After talkin with an electrical engineer, there is no such thing as a dc to dc transformer but that's the terminology they are using. The point of their product is as long as the device is not overloaded with too much current, it can maintain it's voltage output as long as it has a 12v battery bank to pull from. This is the ONLY capacitor(more than just a cap) i would ever recommend using as is stated will continue to output rated voltage down to 10.5v of input voltage. I wouldnt recommend dropping your 12v batteries that low, lol, but just a point.

[///M5 2,833]

Not only do you give dubious advice you can't seem to comprehend others posts.

[Tirefryr 1,742]

Seriously understand what you are reading and being told before you reply to anything.

When you reiterate something you read or have been told, but you fail to grasp the actual reality, you just make a fool of yourself.

Some people on the boards don't know any better and they think you know what you're talking about, but there are also those of us who know better and try to help, but by then it's too late.

Really man. . . I've been an electrician for 12 years; I've been a mechanic since I was born; I used to work for a company that remanufactured 12V electrical systems and components. I know what the fuck I'm talking about. I'm not just spewing out some shit I googled or once talked to someone about.

I don't need you to try and explain how my correction of your bullshit is incorrect. I know better.