DTN

^^ Sometimes, sometimes not. Without a capacitor your battery will pick up the extra current drawn by your amplifier. Your system requires 41A to operate. The perfect, stock alternator puts out 90A. Depending on the draw you're using about 1/2 of your car's electricity to power your amplifier. A capacitor will help lengthen the life of your battery no matter what.

Now, if you leave your car off for more then a 3 months, it's a good idea to disconnect the capacitor as a small bit of current leaks out of it. Other then that, it's cheaper to buy a capacitor and it will save you a few batteries over the life of the car. I've had the same battery for almost 2 years now. I have a 1400W max sony xplod amp. I spend alot of time listening to music at idle with my windows up and enjoying the bass at a medium volume. That's pretty impressive to me as I've gone through alot of batteries in my younger years when I used to just hook up an amplifier and call it good. When I was younger I used to turn the music up to full volume and lower the windows. Now, I usually turn the music up to full when I'm on the highway and turn it down when I'm around people or at stop lights. Even though my habits have changed, I have friends with the same habits who have to replace their batteries much more often because they don't want to fork out the money for a capacitor.

Here's the deal. The alternator can put out 14.6V. Your battery can only charge up to 12V, so when the alternator is between pulses, about 13V and the bass hits, it will quickly deplete the charge in the amplifier's internal capacitor and then use the battery. This is bad because a battery has a finite lifespan. Now, if you add a capacitor into the system, it's a buffer that steadys the voltage much more then the amplifiers capacitors.


Capacitors do work. They're like a battery, but without a limitation to the amount of charges and discharges they can have. They can actually hold a charge at 14V when a 14V voltage is applied to them. The stock electrical system cannot. It will drop that charge back into the other side of the alternator if it is not used. I once heard that a lead acid battery takes 3 times as long to charge as it does to discharge. That's not entirely true, but you know how it takes at least 1/2 hour of running after draining your battery to recharge it? A capacitor can charge instantly. They work in different ways though. A battery is long term storage and a capacitor is short term storage. It doesn't hold as much as the stock battery, it would take alot of farads, 2,000,000 actually. A car battery would take at least a few minutes to discharge though. A 2,000,000 farad capacitor would discharge instantaneously. You should have both in a good audio system.

It all comes down to how much fidelity and longevity means to you. I upgraded my engine chassis ground and my chassis battery ground. I bought a blue top marine battery which does not get damaged by running it down to 50% power from listening to music with the car off for too long. I have a voltage stabilizer which acts the same as a capacitor, but it is directly hooked to the battery and helps to run the full car. Basically, I've done alot of upgrades to help ensure my car is in tip-top condition. The engineers who designed your Hyundai did not intend for anything extra to be hooked up into it. When you start adding stuff, or using the car in a way that the manufacturer did not intend, there's other things that need to be upgraded as well to support it.

Below 100W RMS, there would be no problem running a pulsed output from the alternator. I would recommended to buy a better alternator for anything above 500W(RMS). A capacitor helps you use the generated electricity more efficiently, so it is the perfect choice for you. Bigger is better.

fury

Given that radu can run his system without any issues related to under-charge, and he draws much more power than my setup, this makes me feel confident that I shouldn't have a problem as well. Nonetheless, you bring some really good points too, DTN. Replacing the battery often is too expensive. I am thinking that I will end up getting the cap for possible future expansion too; my car is gutted so it's easy to setup everything at this point. I think it makes more sense like this.

Stocker

LOL I guess it would have helped to mention that I have a pair of amps in my car, with a combined max rating of about 760W, and it can get pretty loud but I usually keep it turned down low enough to hear myself think. And my Optima red top lasted 5 years until it started cranking slow...3rd alternator though.

DTN

You got about all you're going to get out of that battery! That's as long as they last mang.

Those Optimas are great batteries. Personally, I feel you pay a bit too much for the name though. The effectiveness of a battery is all about the battery construction. Here's a great article about batteries http://www.windsun.com/Batteries/Battery_FAQ.htm I've found that marine batteries are pretty much the best choice for my stereos sytem. They're a hybrid between high output starting batteries and thick walled deep discharge batteries. They're cheap, about $20 more then a standard battery. They are designed for high output. They don't get destroyed by discharging down to low power levels. They're also blue lmao.gif .

Stocker

hail.gif The blue

-

is the KEY! lmao.gif

DTN

Oh, another thing about capacitors... If you think about it, disconnect it from the circuit like you do your battery and it shouldn't need to be recharged before you connect the car's battery. You should be able to just reconnect it.

This one looks great http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-BOSS-AUDIO-8-FARAD...id=p3286.c0.m14

fury

You just have to be careful you don't somehow connect the posts/leads (like resting it on metal surface). That would discharge it.



And the price is pretty good too. Too bad I placed my order 3 hours before your post, DTN. Here's what I went with:

http://cgi.ebay.com/TSUNAMI-PP1002TM-CAP-2...1713.m153.l1262