Coming from the Neon world, I have read some very interesting info on Capacitors and just how worthless they are in Car Audio(READ:Ricer Item)

here are a few links dicusssing exactly why they are worthless.
http://aneonrider.com/Misc%20Files/showthread.php.htm
http://aneonrider.com/Misc%20Files/showthread2.php.htm

Read it, Love it, Know it.

 

Capacitors = Band Aid. Good post.

 

Flux Capacitor = 88MPH = You can go back in time.

Its Science.

 

Well my lights dont dim with a capacitor. I like it for that reason.

 

So your big source of information is a couple of posts on a Neon web board? Prepare to be flamed!

Capacitors are NOT a waste. By FAR!

Let's start with this. Define Farad for the class. If you can do that, I'll keep the argument going. If you can't, I'm not even going to waste my time talking to you anymore.

 

 

lol i like a lil flaming. anyway caps are very usefull if they are actually worth a damn and they are used correctly. Ill start with the first part. if you see a 10f cap on ebay made buy some china company no one has ever herd of for 1/2 the price of a 1f cap by a reputable company do you really expect it to hold that power or even one farad? i doubt it. i havent presonally tested all of them bc it would waste my money and time but like everyone has always said "if its too good to be true then it probably is" Second part. think of a cap as nitrous for just a second. what happens if an amature installs a bottle of nitrious on a car... it wont work as the manufacture of the product planned correct? a nitrous manufact doesnt make the product to blow up your engine so when you do so its not their fault. same for a cap the manufact makes it for a specific purpose and 80% of the unexperianced installs will be faulty. since ive already posted plenty ill just ask you this and well see if you answer correctly. What is the purpose of a large capacitor as in 1f or above? (ill post the answer and correct uses of a cap on request but i want to see if i can get an answer out of tricky)

 

digging a little bit into some knowledge of electricity and circuits and what a capacitor does,
it should be relaitvely easy for most people to realize that they are indeed useful.
It always amuses me to see these debates over capacitors

I doubt tricky1 even fully read the threads he posted links to, as even if you do a very quick glance through the threads he gave links to you will see people stating that capacitors are useful.

 

capacitors are not a waste of time but unless your stereo is pumping 10,000 watts(overexageration) you dont need one.

 

your an idiot for reposting this. its from a neon board with links that don't work. I have had many systems in my day most of them being in the 4000-6000 watt area and IMO I deff. was better off using them. What you posted in no way is fact and merely just someones wrongful opinon!

 

which is why there arent used for spl comps right?

 

Nice Back to the Future Ref.....

almost died laughing....

 

If you're running any kind of moderate to serious power a cap is worthless. My lights dim when I roll the windows down for crying out loud.
A one-farad capacitor stores one coulomb (a unit of charge (Q) equal to 6.28 X 1018 electrons) of charge when a potential of 1 volt is applied across the terminals of the capacitor.
There's the text book. Guys if you're gonna go ***** out on car stereo get a higher amp alternator, and some yellow top Optimas. Or many many yellow tops depending on how much juice you're pulling.

 

correct but a cap is not made to be a stand alone upgrade for a failing electrical system. its made to "stabalize voltage when playing music" so if you have an electrical system where your normally hitting 10v or so a cap probably wont do much without added upgrades like the big 3, ho alt, and batt upgrade. Now mind you a cap would still help this situation but a quality 1f cap will not be able to supply enough power to keep voltage high enough. but if you have a good electrical system that runs like 13v it will make it better by keeping it at ~14.4v.

the best use for a cap is with all those upgrades bc alternators and batteries are realitively slow. they will not always be able to provide enough power quickly enough for your amplifiers demand... this is where a good cap with a low esr will be able to supply that short burst of power to keep volts up and prevent lights from dimming ect.... notice how i said low esr im not sure on the esr of off market caps but if it just so happens to be to high then it is 100% useless. the point of the cap is to react quickly and since a fully charged battery has an esr of about 15miliohms a cap with equal or greater will react slower then the battery making it a nice expensive volt meter/paper weight

 

I got to 88mph and mine didn't work. I don't think I installed mine right. At least my lights didn't dim.

 

what? a capacitor has nothing to do with mph... and yes im pretty sure u installed it incorrectly

EDIT: lol i get it now back to the future... lol my bad

 

They do help, but like mentioned above, they are not a stand alone upgrade for high power systems. I used a 1 farad cap for my subs in my truck. I was pushing about 900 watts and my Grandpa said it was theoretically good for only a 5 sec duration at full power. It worked great while not really cranking it up, but it was limited on high volume listening with long duration heavy bass music. Then it would dim the lights a little (Speakerbox and Word of Mouf worked well for that).

 

Upgraded Big 3 > Capacitor

Wish we could do this on our cars, but man would it be hard to run 0 gauge from the trunk to the alternator.

 

oh we can and i will... 3 runs of 2/0 5929 stands of pure copper (per run)

 

The link is for the 306motorclub... ha ha ha ha! It's a bunch of Saskatchewan ricers.... ha ha ha ha.....
ha ha ha... i know that guy neonrider... he's a douche bag....
If you want a good laugh you should read more from that board....


Anyways... enough HJ...
I personally don't have a problem with caps, saved my alternator a few times in my old car... but IMO it's all preference... not like it's gonna make or break a system...

 

a cap is basically a ups for your car... smooths out the power... keeps the amps nice and safe..