Capacitor wiring?

[yacob.naif 10+ year member]

Does a capactor HAVE to be run in parallel to your amplifier? Or can it just be hooked up?

For example,the way mine are hooked up right now, they're both just hooked up directly to the battery terminals, and my amps are hooked up at the battery terminal.....

I would think this would be just as affective, since it's all one circuit, but i don't know for sure.

Is this the right way to do it? Or should i run it so that my amp is hooked up to the terminals of the cap rather than the battery terminals?

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[yacob.naif 10+ year member]

And my initial research told me that you need 1 farad per 1000w rms...

But the more i read, to realistically get benefit from caps, you need 1 farad per 600w rms....

So i was thinking of ditching my two 1.2 farad caps, and getting a one piece 5 farad cap online, does anyone know a model that has 0 gauge in, 0 gauge out?

Most models are only 0 gauge in, 4 gauge out.... That's not gonna do me any good.

Unless i just get one with bolt-style terminals on it, wherei could just use my 5/8" 0-gauge terminals i already have. But i love set screw type terminals rather than the bolts if i was going to get something with that much capacity. I can't imagine the disaster if one of my ring terminals slid around and hit the oposite terminal.. Ouch.

 

[xpl0it 10+ year member]

Pretty sure it has to be in line between batt and amp.

 

[xpl0it 10+ year member]

1 farad per 200 watts.

 

[xpl0it 10+ year member]

Look for these:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ROCKFORD-FOSGATE-50-FARAD-COMPETITION-GRADE-CAPACITOR_W0QQitemZ9742633770QQcategoryZ75388QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Lightning audio makes solid 25 and 50 farad caps I think. Just make sure you have a good electrical system (nice alt, upgraded big 3, etc.)

 

[yacob.naif 10+ year member]

is solid the opposite of a battcap?

And ya, everything's up to par, 240A alternator, 0 gauge all around, i just really noticed a difference in 'PUNCHINESS' for the first few minutes, that later fades a bit. I think it has a lot to do with the hifonics amp being unregulated as far as power supply. It doesn't go out of it's way to draw more current, it just uses what's at hand, and the caps are kinda necessary to HAMMER that current in there. And i'd rather my alternator be making, say, 150A all the time rather than 30 sometimes and 240 other times, i feel it dragging my car down after a big hit, no voltage drops, just a noticeably bigger strain on my engine.

I was looking at the 100 farad lanzar model, but it also only has 4 gauge outs... What's the deal with that? I really want 0 gauge to my amp.

 

[yacob.naif 10+ year member]

and if a cap's rated at 16 or 24v, does that make a difference if i'm only running at 14v?

Is capacity the same at different voltages? Just want to make sure it's not a marketing trick, where it holds 25farads at 24v, but that's only 12.5 farads at 14v or something like that.

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

Farad is a rating of capacitance. Charge is measured in culombs. A Farad is defined as one culomb per volt. For each volt across the terminals of the cap the cap will have one culomb of charge stored. Capacitance is a constant that defines how much charge the cap stores at a given voltage. Ignore the voltage rating on the cap, it doesn't mean anything. You car about capacitance and resistance, nothing else.

As far as connection goes, you have a battery in the back. Wire the cap in parallel with the battery and then run power and ground from your rear battery to the amps or distro blocks or what have you. Don't worry about the 4ga outputs, you don't need to use them.