Dude that went way over my head.
sq guys use them to smooth out voltage ripple, i guess they work ok for that, but they are not meant to boost the power output of you charging system like most people try to use them for
Chya
The problem lies with the purpose most people believe capacitors are for. Are they magical and make power? Of course not and neither do batteries. The proper application is not some magic band-aid that helps when you can't supply enough current. It's to prevent voltage dips. If the voltage is going to dip and stay there, the cap won't help for long. If the voltage is going to dip and come back up as with most transient music, then a cap can and will help. Caps discharge and recharge instantly. They won't wait to do it. That's why there is such a thing as "inrush current". If caps waited to recharge, how in the hell would a capacitor in a computer power supply work? Computers draw a very consistent amount of current all the time. If they just depleted and never recharged how would they filter the 60hz ripple?
It's good that someone is finally explaining all these things. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/cool.gif.3bcaf8f141236c00f8044d07150e34f7.gif
Basically in car audio yes, that is the main purpose. You have to understand that car audio is a very specialized thing. For some reason they chose 12v dc to power vehicles and it creates some very big hurdles. Hundreds of amps of current are very inefficient to supply anywhere. That's why we use high voltage and low current to deliver electricity to people's homes. Big banks of batteries are impractical for daily driving as they can't be recharged while driving because what alternator could recharge them? I mean, people act like batteries are greater than capacitors yet they don't know what either is for. In a spl setup, a battery will be more beneficial than a cap could ever be BUT, it doesn't mean a battery is greater than a capacitor. All it means is each has a purpose. Most people on here are designing daily driving setups where they have huge amps, huge subs, and a stock alt. They are asking for trouble and recommend that everyone just "add a battery". In reality, that's a bunch of crap. If they did the big 3 and established good grounds and ran the proper size wire, the voltage wouldn't drop below 12v EVER. Their starting battery isn't fully discharging and dropping it's voltage below 12v. It's that their connections have so much resistance that under heavy draw it causes the voltage to drop. They don't realize this because they put the battery in the back near the amp and took all of their crappy connections out of the equation and think that a second battery magically helped. It only masked their problem. It will eventually manifest itself.
Great question and this is what I was talking about. It is hard on electronics to have constant voltage fluctuation. The electronics are designed to work in certain tolerances for a specified amount of time. Anything above or below this tolerance can instantly kill the equipment especially the farther away from it you get. Staying within tolerance but bouncing around will speed up the demise of the equipment but it may still last long enough for you to enjoy it. Fluxuating between 14.4v and 12.6v is not terrible. If you go below that on a regular basis with most equipment, you are being really hard on it. Again, you probably won't damage it any time soon by doing that... probably your voltage regulator in your alt will be the first to go.
i dont know of any batterys that charge in seconds
the reason the best car systems dont use caps is that they run 5+ batterys in parallel
i havent heared that 1 before
Wow douchebag if you could read you'd already see where I explained that. I swear that some of you on this forum have the reading for comprehension skills of a retarded infant.
