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How many watts can you run?


xtremerevolution
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depends.... if the alt and battery alone can provide all of the power that the amp is trying to draw, it's not going to contribute much if anything.

 

however

 

if your battery and alt CANNOT provide the instantaneous current required, then the cap's presence will be noticable. since can charge as quickly as it discharges, whenever system voltage starts rising above the voltage that the system dropped to during the high draw event, the cap charges and is ready to contribute during the next high draw event.

 

 

 

this is exactly why the rest of the electrical system NEEDS to be up to par when using a cap to get any appreciable effect from it. if the alt can't quickly replace the "reserve" that was drawn upon during the high draw, or if the wiring to/from the cap/alt/battery circuit has too much resistance(all the way down to mOhms will be significant), or if the battery itself doesn't have a high enough capacity to keep it from dropping voltage too quickly, they all nullify it's existance and the cap will only be useful for the first high draw event it is subjected to.

 

So let's say my electrical can deliver 90amps and my amplifier is trying to pull 120amps, what good is a capacitor going to do me?

 

Sent from my HTC Awesome using Tapatalk

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i had a nice long post written, hit post, and then network connection dropped, causing me to lose it....

 

so, in short:

 

1. if the periods between the excessive draw(beyond what the alt supplies) are long enough, the cap will charge when the alt supply isn't being exceeded and you'll notice no significant voltage drop.

 

or

 

2. if the periods between the draws aren't long enough, or are too severe and the cap doesn't have enough time to charge between draws, you'll go from no voltage drop to battery voltage pretty quickly, depending on draw duration, draw off period, and draw severity.

 

Rick has seen one of the non-audio related effects a cap can have, since the fans can temporarily draw up to ~80 amps IIRC, then as they spool up the current draw drops down to normal.

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He just said that the rest of the electrical system needs to be up to par before getting appreciable effects from it. however I disagree because it will still cushion the regulator and that really helps delay thermal shutdown. especially with older cs130's using internally mounted regulators.

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