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Message: <blockquote data-quote="audioholic" data-source="post: 7094164" data-attributes="member: 549629">I wish this reply was not in the stickied thread on caps, its full of grossly incorrect information."an ideal cap would wait patiently to get recharged and also not require lots of electricity to recharge itself."There is no such thing as 'patient' caps. A cap has two basic elements to consider, ESR (equivalent series resistance), and capacity. Generally speaking, the higher the capacity, the higher the ESR. This is why its better to have a bank of smaller caps, as opposed to one single large cap. There is no design element of a capacitor that makes one more 'patient' than another.A capacitor follows the laws of physics, there is no such thing as a cap that 'doesn't require a lot of electricity to recharge itself'. When a cap drains, and then recharges, it will require the same amount of energy to recharge as it had dissipated when it discharged, plus a little both ways for internal resistance (ESR)."some caps will not wait for the voltage to reach 13v or 12v.. probably because they are designed to start giving out electricity at a higher voltage.. 13.5v or 14v"I already explained this earlier in this thread. The cap's charge will follow system voltage. When the engine is off and the alt is not powering the charging system, system voltage will rest at whatever the battery's voltage is (usually around 12.8 volts for a healthy batt). Once the engine is started and the alt provides power, system voltage jumps up to what the alt provides (usually in the 14.4 volt range). The cap's charge follows this voltage variance, period. How a cap actually discharges (provides its stored energy to the amplifier) is when the alt's power supply becomes inadequate, system voltage will dip out of the 14.4v range. When this happens, the cap's voltage will dip as well. Its that dip in the cap's voltage that is the cap actually discharging and providing its stored energy."because a cap that isnt ideal would **** really hard on the electricity wire and the alternator will suffer from abuse with the amp ******* hard and the capacitor ******* hard at the same time."100% incorrect. Again, I already explained this previously in this thread. Its a common misconception that a cap discharges all its stored power immediately, and then will demand current from the alt to recharge just as quickly. This is not the case. Again, the cap will simply follow system voltage. If the amplifier's current draw exceeds the supplied power from the alt, system voltage dips. This dip in system voltage includes the cap's voltage (as the cap discharges while trying to make up for the lack of power from the alt). The cap will NOT try to recharge until system voltage increases. And when does system voltage increase? It increases when the alt's power supply becomes sufficient to handle the current draw on it again (iow, when the bass note stops or subsides). So knowing this, we can conclude that the cap and amplifier will NOT draw 'really hard' on the alt at the same time, quite the opposite. In fact, one could successfully argue that a cap will actually help prolong alternator life by helping reduce these peaks in current demand the amplifier places on it.No offense to you, because you are learning and none of us started off knowing everything, but like helotaxi said, your understanding of how caps work is very misinformed. If you have any questions on what Ive said here, feel free to ask.</blockquote>

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