I feel stupid asking this, but can anyone tell me how to install my capacitor. One of my friends gave it to me and this is the only in car audio that i dont have any experience with. Its a Rockford Fosgate Punch 1 farad, 16 VDC.

 

OK the side that says neg - you need to ground obviously. Then the pos + side you need to connect the power wire from your battery and the power wire to your amp on. The most important thing about capacitor install is you need a resistor to charge it. If you just plug the battery right up to the capacitor it'll spark really bad and possibly could explode. Try going to this sight http://www.the12volt.com and see if can find the right impedance resistor to use.

 

ohh yeah and you probably need to run a turn on wire just like your amp uses. You may want to also check out Rockford's website as they may have instructions posted

 

its doesn't need a turn on wire unless the capicitor has a digital top monitor or somethign like that. Correct on install, need a resistor (light bulb).

 

i read on a thread on SHO that a guy took out the fuse from the power wire and hooked it up to his cap along with a test light. his meter read 16 volts but the test light only read like 12.5. Is that bad to charge it up like that?

 

Test lights don't read, meters do....it's called voltage drop.

 

haha yea theres nuthin digital about mine

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by R Thizzel &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">i read on a thread on SHO that a guy took out the fuse from the power wire and hooked it up to his cap along with a test light. his meter read 16 volts but the test light only read like 12.5. Is that bad to charge it up like that?
</TD></TR></TABLE> The cap will never have more power, [volts] on it then the batt. has or the alt. is putting out, and use a 12volt light bulb to charge it, the domelight bulb works real good. 94

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by fcm &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> The cap will never have more power, [volts] on it then the batt. has or the alt. is putting out, and use a 12volt light bulb to charge it, the domelight bulb works real good. 94</TD></TR></TABLE>


how do you use a lightbulb to charge it

 

Here's how you use a lightbulb to charge a capacitor. These are the instructions from my capacitor:




Here's the bulb(resistor) that came with the Cap (quarter for size relation):




You hook both the battery positive and the amp positive to the capacitor positive. Basically you can use any resistor just as long as it takes a little time to charge. The light bulb is nice to use because you can see the electricty flowing. When the light goes out the capacitor is fully charged. The whole point of the resistor is the slow the energy flow into the capacitor to a safe level. I would also use the resistor when hooking any wires up to the capacitor so you dont have a huge energy flow. I think i fried an amp one time because there were sparks when i touched the power wire for the first time to the cap.

 

oh thanks alot

 

If you don't mind sparks just hook the thing up and be done with it.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by nsxxtreme &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">If you don't mind sparks just hook the thing up and be done with it.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Exactly. 1) Disconnect battery 2) Wire up system 3) Reconnect battery that way if its gonna spark/black/mark anything it will just be your battery.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by ImprtTunr &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Exactly. 1) Disconnect battery 2) Wire up system 3) Reconnect battery that way if its gonna spark/black/mark anything it will just be your battery.</TD></TR></TABLE>

I highly disagree with that. It's gonna cause a huge amount of current flow into the capacitor and could damage or make it explode. Please dont listen to people that dont know what they are talking about/have never tried it.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by TurboLaxx &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

I highly disagree with that. It's gonna cause a huge amount of current flow into the capacitor and could damage or make it explode. Please dont listen to people that dont know what they are talking about/have never tried it.</TD></TR></TABLE>

This is the job of a cap. Hell I use to take an old one, charge the bitch up by hooking it right to a DC power supply, and convince a friend to stick a screw driver between the terminals. Half the time the screw driver got nearly welded between the two lol. Never had a cap blow up on me. The only times I have were A) when the max voltage was exceeded and polarity was backwards, and B) When it was heated with a 1200 degree heat gun to make the amp "defective"... which btw works well but takes some time.

As a side note, I didn't have any low ohm resistors today at work, and a guy brought a cap in.. he didn't have any supplied with it either. So I just tap it to a DC power supply to get the initial quick surge done with and so it wouldn't stick to the terms, and then reconnected to top it off. then installed it in the car. No issues.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by TurboLaxx &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

I highly disagree with that. It's gonna cause a huge amount of current flow into the capacitor and could damage or make it explode. Please dont listen to people that dont know what they are talking about/have never tried it.</TD></TR></TABLE> Although I agree that a cap should always be charged slowly, and I have seen caps damaged by "quick charging" them, but I have never seen one explode, unless you count the one that "popped" a seam when we QC it hooking it up in our Soundstream demo VW GTI that was at the time plugged into a Cat 12V D cell, [one big honking batt] and the custom 100A regulated power supply that kept it charged, the was used to power our demo boards and the car, [when it was in the show room] as soon as we connected the ground, [for the cap, the pos. was already wired] it went pop! fizzzzzzzz, hardly what you would call an explosion.

BTW, I have charged up 100s if not over 1000 caps over the years, most using a 12V light bulb [slow charge] but there have been more then a few that got a quick charge, and the one that went "pop fizz" was the only one you could say, [and only in the broadest terms] "exploded" 94