Installed the system, BAD Dimming!! Help

[SSon22s 10+ year member]

Well I have been awaiting the arrival of my subs from Image Dynamics and they finally came back...Well I went ahead and built a ported box, mounted my amp.hooked everything up and went for a test drive, It is CRAZY loud and I am very happy, the only thing is when I am driving down the street you can see my lights dimming HORRIBLY...Heres what I have: Viper D1200.1, Two 12" Idmaxs, Ran 4g from battery back to 1F Monster Cap(i know) then 4G out the the amp,then 0G wire from the alt to the battery,Re-Grounded the Battery with 0G,Regrounded the engine block with 0g, What can I do to get rid of this dimming now? I read the bcae1.com table and it says 4g should be sufficient for me,I was thinking maybe a bigger power wire if possible or should I just skip that and get a new alternator?? My car is an 04 Chevy Impala with only 20k so the battery is fine, I just dont know if I should just grab a new alternator or bother with bigger power wire??

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[dalucifer 10+ year member]

do the big 3 and get a new alt..

 

[TreyE 10+ year member]

Well I have been awaiting the arrival of my subs from Image Dynamics and they finally came back...Well I went ahead and built a ported box, mounted my amp.hooked everything up and went for a test drive, It is CRAZY loud and I am very happy, the only thing is when I am driving down the street you can see my lights dimming HORRIBLY...Heres what I have: Viper D1200.1, Two 12" Idmaxs, Ran 4g from battery back to 1F Monster Cap(i know) then 4G out the the amp,then 0G wire from the alt to the battery,Re-Grounded the Battery with 0G,Regrounded the engine block with 0g, What can I do to get rid of this dimming now? I read the bcae1.com table and it says 4g should be sufficient for me,I was thinking maybe a bigger power wire if possible or should I just skip that and get a new alternator?? My car is an 04 Chevy Impala with only 20k so the battery is fine, I just dont know if I should just grab a new alternator or bother with bigger power wire??

if you want a cheaper way out add an extra battery

 

[SSon22s 10+ year member]

Well I found a new altenator for like $225 my stock is suppose to be 125A and the upgrade says its 160A, Would that be a sufficient change?Also, do you think the 4G from battery back IS ok? I followed the guidlines and it says that the 4G should be fine for carrying the current....I already wrote that I have upgraded the 3....

 

[TreyE 10+ year member]

Well I found a new altenator for like $225 my stock is suppose to be 125A and the upgrade says its 160A, Would that be a sufficient change?Also, do you think the 4G from battery back IS ok? I followed the guidlines and it says that the 4G should be fine for carrying the current....I already wrote that I have upgraded the 3....

are you saying if you get a battery in the back running 4ga from it to ur main battery is ok?? id say no...just run 0ga itll flow better

EDIT: where did you find this alternator??

 

[andar 10+ year member]

do you know what the viper draws?

 

[SSon22s 10+ year member]

No I am saying that I ran 4G from my battery back to the cap/amp...the alternator I found is from Mr.Alternator.com...The amps manual says Fusing/Power is 90A so does it draw 90A??

 

[TreyE 10+ year member]

No I am saying that I ran 4G from my battery back to the cap/amp...the alternator I found is from Mr.Alternator.com...The amps manual says Fusing/Power is 90A so does it draw 90A??

yea i ran 4ga to my JL 1000/1 so you should be fine...4ga is 1200 for the max watts you should run through it

 

[ravendarat 10+ year member]

if you want a cheaper way out add an extra battery

Sorry to step on your toes man but this is a horrible Idea. His charging system cannot keep up so you wanna add something else that needs to be charged? Nope. The extra battery would be good if you need to run the system for an extended period with the car off or if you were just trying to compete and do big burps but in your case its not gonna help ya. 4 gauge is sufficent for what your running but even if it wasnt having inadequite wire from the battery to your amp would not cause your lights to dim. You solution is the Big 3 and an altenator. Now it sounds like you did the big 3 so the altenator is your next step. Find out if that altenator is 160 at idle or not and how big is the one in there. Most domestic cars come with a charging system at 80% strain. so if the car needs 80 amps with all accessories on then the car generally would come with a 100 amp alt. If your amp is fused with 90 and you push it real hard then I would be expecting that you could be drawing around 80 amps at high volumes with it. If thats the case than an altenator that runs at approximatly 160 amps IDLE would be fine. But if it is only gonna produce 160 amps at 3500 rpm and then say 100 at 800 rpm than I would keep looking for something else.

 

[audiolife 5,000+ posts]

Sorry to step on your toes man but this is a horrible Idea. His charging system cannot keep up so you wanna add something else that needs to be charged? Nope. The extra battery would be good if you need to run the system for an extended period with the car off or if you were just trying to compete and do big burps but in your case its not gonna help ya. 4 gauge is sufficent for what your running but even if it wasnt having inadequite wire from the battery to your amp would not cause your lights to dim. You solution is the Big 3 and an altenator. Now it sounds like you did the big 3 so the altenator is your next step. Find out if that altenator is 160 at idle or not and how big is the one in there. Most domestic cars come with a charging system at 80% strain. so if the car needs 80 amps with all accessories on then the car generally would come with a 100 amp alt. If your amp is fused with 90 and you push it real hard then I would be expecting that you could be drawing around 80 amps at high volumes with it. If thats the case than an altenator that runs at approximatly 160 amps IDLE would be fine. But if it is only gonna produce 160 amps at 3500 rpm and then say 100 at 800 rpm than I would keep looking for something else.

lol wrong and there is no way his amp will draw 80 amps alt the time. and since when do you need a 300 amp alt for 1200 watt set up? if i were him i would check my wires to make sure they are attached good. a second battery's strain on the chargeing system is based on the load it creates and hi HIGHLY doubt you will keep killing the rear battery and for the times it gets tapped while the car is running i HIGHLY doubt it will draw. batteries can store more power than a note they also help protect the overall drop if its decently charged.

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

If the lights are simply flickering, then adding a battery in the rear isn't a bad idea. The skin voltage on the battery will help keep the voltage stable during transient demands. Eliminating the 15ft of 4ga between the current supply and the amp and the ground path of the same length will also go a long way to help with voltage drops.

The battery works as a buffer during transients. If the lights are only flickering, then you are suffering from transient draw in excess of what the alt is putting out at the onset of the transient. Honestly, it doesn't matter how big the alt is, a serious transient will exceed the current output of the alt. The lt only produces what is demanded of it at any given time and it takes a finite amount of time for the alt to step up its output. During this time the voltage will drop and it only takes a drop for a few milliseconds for the lights to dim and the human eye to notice the drop.

The battery carries a skin voltage at the level of the alt's voltage and this voltage will remain until a heavy demand is placed on the battery to level it or the battery is removed from the charging source for several hours. This skin voltage will stabilize the electrical system voltage during the time it takes for the alt to step up its power production or for the transient to end. If it wasn't for the resistance of the wire between the battery and the amp, your underhood battery would probably have enough of a buffer to prevent a lot of the dimming issues, however the resistance of the wire is most of the problem with the appearance of dimming in an otherwise healthy charging system. As the current flowing throug the wire increases the voltage lost across the wire increases as well. Adding a battery in the trunk will eliminate the vast majority of this drop because the resistance of the wire current supply and the amp is greatly reduced.

Electricity takes the path of least resistance. In the case of two batteries, one under the hood and one near the amps, the battery near the amps will be drawn from first and the battery under the hood will hold its voltage because of the resistance of the wire between them.

All the above concerns transient demands caused by dynamic music, kickdrums etc... If you listen to music with more of a long droning quality to the bass, then you would be better served by a larger alt. This type of music will prouce moreof a constant high draw on the electrical system and will overwhelm the buffer of the battery or batteries and fully tax the alt as well. In this case going to a bigger alt is the only solution.

BTW, your amp may only be fused to 90A but during a hard transient, it can actually draw significantly more than that without blowing the fuse.

 

[luvinthebass 5,000+ posts]

Doin the big 3 will save you in teh long run especially if you wanna upgrade to even more power, just make sure your alternator doesn't overload and start takin the amps power from the battery...that would be bad

 

[prochobo 10+ year member]

Doin the big 3 will save you in teh long run especially if you wanna upgrade to even more power, just make sure your alternator doesn't overload and start takin the amps power from the battery...that would be bad

I do that all day, everyday for many many months now, no problems at all.

 

[TreyE 10+ year member]

Sorry to step on your toes man but this is a horrible Idea. His charging system cannot keep up so you wanna add something else that needs to be charged? Nope. The extra battery would be good if you need to run the system for an extended period with the car off or if you were just trying to compete and do big burps but in your case its not gonna help ya. 4 gauge is sufficent for what your running but even if it wasnt having inadequite wire from the battery to your amp would not cause your lights to dim. You solution is the Big 3 and an altenator. Now it sounds like you did the big 3 so the altenator is your next step. Find out if that altenator is 160 at idle or not and how big is the one in there. Most domestic cars come with a charging system at 80% strain. so if the car needs 80 amps with all accessories on then the car generally would come with a 100 amp alt. If your amp is fused with 90 and you push it real hard then I would be expecting that you could be drawing around 80 amps at high volumes with it. If thats the case than an altenator that runs at approximatly 160 amps IDLE would be fine. But if it is only gonna produce 160 amps at 3500 rpm and then say 100 at 800 rpm than I would keep looking for something else.

ok idk what ur talkin bout but its not that hard for a car to keep an extra battery charged...i had my JL 1000/1 running off stock everything and it would dim really really bad and would drop to close to 10V but then now i had the PowerbassXA3000 and Orion HCCA-5000 on one extra battery in the back stock alt and it doesnt drop at all...so idk what ur talkin bout

 

[SSon22s 10+ year member]

First off it is not flickering, when I hit a hard bass note it dims for the note then the lights brighten back up...I would really hate to add another battery since a 5 cu ft box is taking up more than half of my trunk...The alternator that I am looking at says its about 80A at idle and 160A at 3000rpm...another site sells a 200A for $369 but Im limited to funds...I was thinking of going with maybe a bigger cap and with the 160A alternator and If the new one has 55 Amps more that should be enough to take care of a dimming problem I would think...