http://www.carsound.com/ubb/Arch...00307.html

According to Richard Clark Caps are effectively useless (which means a lot of people have wasted a lot of money ) . Look at the link for the reasoning he gives (which is seems to be very solid). Can anyone refute his claims? What are your opinions on caps (in both theory and practice)?

 

I feel it depends on what your intended purpose is for it. Are you trying to stop your lights from dimming? Try upgrading your factory grounds first. Then maybe a new battery or second dedicated battery with isolator. If you put a cap in and it works, there you go. People say that caps don't discharge 'fast' enough to be a benefit. Whatever, if a customer brings me one, I install it.

Oh, and Richard likes to talk some voodoo over there. Take what you read on that site with a grain of salt.

 

Good call...many people forget to upgrade the factory grounds when the add amps to there cars...When I explain it to them....well they look sorta like a puppy look at you kinda dazed and confused.. . Most factory grounds are at most 12-10ga...so if you run a 4 ga wire for that monster 1200 watt sub amp and you ground it with 4 ga...the amp is starving because the ground connection at the battery is way to small...kinda like sucking a shake through a thin straw..what you experience the amp is doing the same.
Stiifing Capacitors(c)....hey if they work for you well done.

 

caps can't hurt, when I got my rex and installed the stereo system, the first thing I did was install two 1farad caps and upgrade the factory grounds, I have no light dimming whatsoever, and I am running a rockford 600.4 (600w rms) off of my dinky b16 alternatior and cheapo battery. I however do not believe in adding extra batteries, unless you are pulling over 100 amps nom. current. An extra battery on my car would only allow my stereo to run longer while the car is off. Which would also increase the chances of me over working my alternator and burning it up.
Everyone has their own opinion though... and I've been through the battery v. cap argument countless times, so I don't even care anymore.

 

http://www.carsound.com/ubb/Arch...00307.html

personally i think caps are a waste of money for the same price u can go out and get a better batt or upgrade your alt.......
hope this works

 

http://pub26.ezboard.com/fcaraudiofo...icID=902.topic

 

I think Richards opinion is towards the 20F caps not the smaller 1F caps. Which he has some very real points. If you don't believe that's up to you no one will be able to change your mind.


[Modified by nsxxtreme, 7:50 AM 10/17/2002]

 

Yea caps cannot hurt but it kills me when people think caps will make their system get alot louder and give "them more bass" all it does is store energy. I think running extra batteries makes a difference in some cases when I ran my earthquake phd2s and usa 400s the amperes were really high. I tried without and nothin bad happend but when i added a battery their was an extreme sound difference cuz those amps need the Voltage but for the typical daily driver extra batteries would be pointless.

 

The extra batteries will add an extra load on the electrical system. Which means "you have not solved your problem you have only bought yourself time." Read his article in its entirety, he does not say caps don't do anything, which I think most of the people on there were missing. He was singling out a certain type of cap. This is one of the reasons I don't contribute more, he went through all that work to teach someone something and got nowhere.

If you see someone helping you should thank them.
Tekken contributes frequently. You all are getting a free knowledge base that someone had to pay for, either from time (experience), school, or both. They get nothing in return. So the next time someone tries to help you thank them. If they say something you don't understand, take the time to learn what they are talking about before you answer back.


[Modified by nsxxtreme, 7:54 AM 10/17/2002]

 

I do have questions as to how he came about measureing the esr but from his article I will assume he did it properly. I also have no doubt that a cap that large would have a large ESR.

This link is to show you ESR is real this is how caps get advertised to engineers.
http://www.low-esr.com/

Edit: figured out how he got the ESR number it was given to him. My bet is this is higher considering the source it came from. I knew the huge caps were a gimic when they first came out. It's done for the same reason AMD now names there CPU's after model numbers, because Intel has convinced everyone that clock speed is everything.


[Modified by nsxxtreme, 3:36 PM 10/17/2002]