Is a Capacitor worth it?

[haloweenhamster 10+ year member]

electronics engineer

work with electronics everyday

what do u lot do work at macdonalds and play with cars in ur spare time?

go and search discharge rates for urself and see the differance

 

[haloweenhamster 10+ year member]

its all to do with source impedance

the lower the source impedance the more current can flow

 

[power-fanatic07 5,000+ posts]

yes caps can discharge faster hence why they made Batcaps.

but to my knowledge caps are unable to recharge like a battery so if you go on bumping after the cap has discharged its "farad" it's doing nothing but puttting more strain on your electrical.

 

[BiC 10+ year member]

its all to do with source impedancethe lower the source impedance the more current can flow

I was just wondering from your posts, why don't you ever see a cap in anything other than a lowby build?

 

[ejschultz 10+ year member]

Seems like there a new capacitor idiot once a week

If any of these people are on here reading this, I've got a 1.2 Farad Tsunami cap that I'll let go for only $75 shipped. It's got a digital voltage readout. LMK.

 

[thegreatestpenn 5,000+ posts]

this haloween guy has to be an oldhead that's playing around. no way he thinks caps are better than batts. NO WAY! I mean how many comp vehicles use caps? none. if caps are so great at "discharging fast" why aren't the loudest cars in the world using them?????

 

[tymoto21 10+ year member]

hamster guy most audio batterys today can and will charge/discharge about as fast as a cap, and either way the bigger the cap the longer it will take to charge/discharge. also a cap cannot store nearly as much charge as a batt. so if you do listen to a song ex put on which is very bass heavy your cap will be useless after the first note. your battery/s will have a much higher reserve capacity and will be able to sustane your system longer.

your an electronics engineer and the cap works good in theory, but in the everyday audio world they dont stand up to the demand.

 

[jdawg 5,000+ posts]

its all to do with source impedancethe lower the source impedance the more current can flow

then you should know that a esr of even a 1 farad cap is so high it is pretty useless

 

[midnightg35x 10+ year member]

then you should know that a esr of even a 1 farad cap is so high it is pretty useless

ESR of a 1 farad caps is high? Even $30-40 Lanzar's are around 1.6 mOhm.... Find me an audio battery close to that for

Capacitors can help stabilize the voltage going to a system, but 95% of the time people use it as a bandaid, so people just think they are useless. Caps have their place, but it is not to fix headlight dimming!

 

[Pioneer~Saturn 5,000+ posts]

electronics engineerwork with electronics everyday

what do u lot do work at macdonalds and play with cars in ur spare time?

go and search discharge rates for urself and see the differance

...you must know everything

 

[subzero 5,000+ posts]

Well I already have a weak one (1F) does this help at all when my subs are drawing 1000watts? Or do I need a bigger one? Are they a waste of money or worth it? The audio store can sell me (Before they give me my discount) a battery with 15F Cap on it for $350 is that a good deal?
Also whats the best type of wiring should I use? Or will I not notice the difference?

don't use caps.

 

[jstutzman 10+ year member]

[quote name=

Capacitors can help stabilize the voltage going to a system, but 95% of the time people use it as a bandaid, so people just think they are useless. Caps have their place, but it is not to fix headlight dimming![/quote]

Finally someone that understands voltage and current

 

[Stalin-ohaulic]

Finally someone that understands voltage and current

I understand as well and caps DO have their place. There are just a bunch of idiots on here that think they know that have no idea. Also to the idiot that said if caps are so great why don't the loudest systems in the world need them?... the answer is extremely simple. They use huge banks of batts. They don't use an alt to charge them so the voltage doesn't fluxuate. The voltage is the batts resting voltage. They burp their system, hit their score and then go home and put the bank on a charger. A daily setup uses an alternator to charge. The alternator's voltage is about 2v higher than the batts float charge. This is like this so the batt can charge while the vehicle is on so it can crank the engine next time. The reason for the alternator having a higher voltage than the batt is because CURRENT FLOWS ONLY FROM THE HIGHEST SOURCE OF POTENTIAL. (potential = voltage) This means that while the vehicle is on the circuit voltage is 14.4v. When the bass hits, there is a tremendous amount of current drawn. The voltage regulator in the alt sees this and turns the voltage down to reduce the current being drawn from the alt to protect it. (voltage and current stay proportional, when the voltage drops, so does the current draw) Once the circuit voltage reaches 12.6 or whatever the batts resting voltage is, it will begin to discharge. .... now that we understand that....

the alternator puts out alternating current or AC just like your house has. It has a built in rectifier to convert AC to DC but it does not do it very cleanly. This means you get AC ripple. Capacitors are used in EVERY piece of electronics that you own to filter this AC ripple and it is no different in car audio. A heavy bass draw is AC ripple. When properly implemented, capacitors can greatly reduce this AC ripple and sustain the voltage near 14.4. Batteries cannot do that as they do not discharge until the voltage is near 12.6.

Now, go learn some BASIC electronics and come back and apologize. Stop listening to the caraudio.com douchebags that think they know and don't have a clue.

 

[SomeGuyDude 10+ year member]

smart stuff

Okay, so what would a PROPER cap implementation be?

 

[Stalin-ohaulic]

Okay, so what would a PROPER cap implementation be?

What exactly are you asking? Are you asking for some sort of rule of thumb? Are you trying to disprove a capacitor's worth? If you are trying to do the latter, then I want you to do an experiment for me. I want you to shut your computer off. Then unplug the power cable from the wall. Then open the case. Then pull the power supply out. Unscrew the 4 screws and then unplug all the connectors going to drives and the motherboard etc. Then open up the power supply. Take out the capacitors in there. Put everything back together and power the computer back on.

Now you will have proven that capacitors filter the power and are necessary for stable operation of equipment. Computers use 5v and 12v. It's not much of a stretch to draw a parallel between the two devices and this is all common sense. Before you attempt to argue with me, go learn some electronics and then argue with the laws of physics that determine how it works.