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all i have to say is DAMN your a dumb ass. adding a second battery will give him more reserve. a battery with a CCA rating of 600amps is like adding a 100 farad capacitor. what you are saying is that the battery in the front of every vehicle serves no purpose then.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sabrewings
by you theory a cap will solve all light dimming problems. i have been a installer of car audio for well over 10 years now. in my wife's car she has a 600 watt sound system. by your theory, if i installed a 1 farad cap i would not have any dimming. because i would have 600micofarads for the system and a "extra" 400microfarads to use. WRONG. i did this at my former employer to prove to my boss caps are worthless. i charged the cap properly and then played a song at full tilt. my lights dimmed horribly a little worse thatn without the cap actually. i then installed a kinetik hc600 battery. which has more power than a 100 farad cap. i had no dimming lights at all.Quote:
Originally Posted by _nick_
Sabrewings, you are dead on.
Reinke: If you want to add more batteries go ahead. all we are saying is they run at a lower voltage than your electrical system, and put an enormous load on your alternator when you start adding additional batteries. Not to mention they are like dead-weight (50 pounds easy), they are not the answer for minor voltage drops in a moderate system, capacitors are used in all electronics (even in many cars alternators) to buffer out those brief and sudden voltage fluctuations. .. caps are not a solution to make more power, but when the power doesn't come quick enough capacitors fill the gap to avoid sudden voltage drop. Your free to add all the batteries you want, but that is not the way i was trained in mobile electronics, and from personal experience i would never add an additional battery to a regular system before an alternator upgrade (im not gonna call you a dumb ass, that would be pretty much un-called for :th_shakinghead2: )
Yeah, I have a few years of college level electronics courses. I repair complex electronic equipment every day for the Air Force. I must be a dumb ass. Thanks for letting me know.Quote:
Originally Posted by reinke
When the vehicle is running, the battery is supposed to be charging and doing nothing else. So, as long as the engine is running it does serve no purpose, and if it does your alternator requires upgrading. If the battery did have a purpose during engine operation (other than to recharge itself off the alternator), then removing it with the engine on should have some effect. Guess what, you can take the battery out with the engine running and the car is none the wiser. The only reason a battery has to do anything with the engine running is when the alternator can't handle the load and its voltage drops. Then the battery has to step in and supplement it.
The battery's purpose is to start the car and power the electronics when the engine is off. Not when the engine is running. If you don't understand a basic parallel power supply circuit, then perhaps you should hold off on the name calling.
The problem with adding any supplemental power source (like another battery or a cap) is that once that source is tapped at all, it becomes a load on the alternator. You get a nice string of hard hits from your stereo, and now your cap is dead. From now on, until you turn down the volume or pause the music, the cap is putting more load on the alternator than before since it's trying to recharge. Similar situation with adding a second battery, or relying on the factory battery to supplement the alternator.
So, it comes back to the fact that the only real solution is to get a better alternator. Any intelligent questions or do you want to go back to name calling? :th_shakinghead2:
well we all hove our opinions. i has doped up on my meds last night sorry for calling you a dumb ass. but, car audio capacitors and the ones used inside of amps and for alternators are completely different. alot of times people run a cap that is way too small for there needs. the rule of thumb is that for every 500 watts of power you must have 500microfarads. for my competition truck i have a little over 10,000 watts on tap. i would need 10,000 microfarads of capacitience. which would completely take up my entire bed and then some more room. i added 5 kinetik hc2400 batteries. at that point i would recommend a high output alt or 2. i have 2 300amp alt in my truck and they keep up perfectly. i even have about 100 amps on reserve to help with the auxillary lights other accersories. when the average persone adds a single aux. battery a high output alternator is not needed. i took the MECP advanced courses for my old jod in florida, i also took a a electronic repair course, and a electrictions course to become a contractor. i know what i am talking about just like the fellow Airman does. there are dead weight some like my batteries weight almost 100lbs. but, in the long run a extra battery will have no negative effects on a cars stock alternator, and it will be alot safe to run that a capacitior.
Might want to use the right units. Microfarads are units used to measure tiny capacitors used in electronics. The large capacitors used by people on the car audio systems are measured in farads, not microfarads. A microfarad is one millionth of a farad, and you can get capacitors that go up to 30 farads, which would be 30 million microfarads. A 10,000 microfarad capacitor would be about the size of a bottle of toothpaste.Quote:
Originally Posted by reinke
actualls a microfarad it used to measure any capacitor. go to walmart and look at there amp kist that comes with a cap. it says 500 microfarads.
Then it's a weak as hell cap. A 500 microfarad capacitor would be about the size of a USB drive.Quote:
Originally Posted by reinke
i dont know about microfarads but i always thought caps were sold in .5 farad or 1 farad increments (.5's are small caps)
reinke LOL at your drugged up comment im guilty of that myself...after a night of drinkin or whatever come home hit the forums and start flaming people haha...the world of internet hatin' its a victim-less crime!
In a small to moderate system caps absolutely do help, they are essentially batteries but they charge up and discharge MUCH faster than a battery and will hold a voltage equivalent to your charging system (not 12V like batteries)...if your into competition and you need a HUGE amount if current for a relatively short amount of time (about 1 minute) than multiple batteries will provide that to you. Sometimes batteries can appear they are helping, but you soon find out they are not helping when your alternator burns out on you way sooner than in should...
Sabrewings i guess you are right because i just typed in the simple term "500 microfarads to farads" in google search and google calculator gave me the result of "500 microfarads = 0.0005 farads"
try the link for yourself;
500 microfarads to farad - Google Search
Please do not ever do that. It used to be the case with older cars that you could start the car, then pull the battery. That is no longer so, and pulling the battery with the car running can create a bad situation for a lot of the electronics in a modern vehicle.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sabrewings
Quote:
Originally Posted by JoshMcMadMac
i did it just yesterday...car ran for 5 minutes with no battery until i switched it out. Ran just fine no problems to report....
I have jumped off of a roof before, and I still run just fine...that does not make it any more of a good idea. :th_scratchhead: The potential spike of removing and/or adding the battery can very easily damage some of the more sensitive electrical components on the vehicle.Quote:
Originally Posted by _nick_
cant see how it would spike the voltage when a battery runs at a lower voltage than your charging system. There was actually a TSB for my old car that required disconnecting the battery while the engine is running to diagnose it.
Just remember: voltage hurts, amperage kills. There is more to the equation then 12V DC. :cool:Quote:
Originally Posted by _nick_
True, but all of the components in the car are protected by fuses, which blow with amperage.Quote:
Originally Posted by JoshMcMadMac
He's right that for a lot of issues in TSBs GM has recommended disconnecting the battery and reconnecting it as part of the troubleshooting. Wouldn't be wise to do that if you're going to hurt the customer's car.