Is a Capasitator the same thing as a power regulator when it comes to audio systems?

hmm?

[Accord Man]

No.

A regulator keeps the current between a certain (usually narrow) minimum and maximum range.

A cap, contributes to reducing the variation (max & min fluctuation is reduced but not controlled).

so, for a 1996 honda civic EX do i need a regulator or a cap?

[94_AcCoRd_EX]

Originally posted by OPAKRACING
so, for a 1996 honda civic EX do i need a regulator or a cap?

I'd recommend just a cap unless you're very serious about your system.

so just one cap....not those fancy two cap thingys?

ok this is scaring me. How is a regulator going to be used as a separate asset for car audio? a regulator is used from the alternator to the batteries because the alternator likes to put out voltage, the regulator limits the voltage so it doesn't blow your entire system. Lighting audio misuses the term regulator for it's battery isolator, but it's not the same. So how is it best to use a cap unless he's serious about car audio??? how do you use a regulator.

A capacitor is in essence a battery with very very low internal resistance giving it the capability to almost instaneously discharge, this helps brief surges of power, and helps music quality, like when real stiff bass note comes through, the cap will give you amp that extra little oomph to make it rock solid. If you lights are dimming because of your stereo, I cap may help, an extra battery may help, but the only real fix is a better alternator. Power is Power, If your alternator is making 50 amps, and your stereo is pulling a constant 100amps, eventually your battery will die and your alternator along with it, it doesn't matter if you have 50 batteries, eventually they would die, and remember a cap is a battery, it's just a very fast acting battery that charges itself from your electrical system(the main battery which is charged by the alternator).


So if you're looking to improve your sound quality and help your lights not dim(it won't stop it all together) a cap is for you. The bigger the better, although the rule of thumb for your average electrolytic caps are 1 farad per 1000w, it never hurts to have too much. The best bang for the buck lately have been batcaps. You can pick up a nice batcap 300 for $100 and change which is theoretically equal to a 100 farad cap, and the size of two packs of smokes(approx 3" x 3" x 4") http://www.batcap.net/Model300.html

[Accord Man]

Originally posted by illusion
ok this is scaring me. How is a regulator going to be used as a separate asset for car audio? a regulator is used from the alternator to the batteries because the alternator likes to put out voltage, the regulator limits the voltage so it doesn't blow your entire system. Lighting audio misuses the term regulator for it's battery isolator, but it's not the same. So how is it best to use a cap unless he's serious about car audio??? how do you use a regulator.

A capacitor is in essence a battery with very very low internal resistance giving it the capability to almost instaneously discharge, this helps brief surges of power, and helps music quality, like when real stiff bass note comes through, the cap will give you amp that extra little oomph to make it rock solid. If you lights are dimming because of your stereo, I cap may help, an extra battery may help, but the only real fix is a better alternator. Power is Power, If your alternator is making 50 amps, and your stereo is pulling a constant 100amps, eventually your battery will die and your alternator along with it, it doesn't matter if you have 50 batteries, eventually they would die, and remember a cap is a battery, it's just a very fast acting battery that charges itself from your electrical system(the main battery which is charged by the alternator).


So if you're looking to improve your sound quality and help your lights not dim(it won't stop it all together) a cap is for you. The bigger the better, although the rule of thumb for your average electrolytic caps are 1 farad per 1000w, it never hurts to have too much. The best bang for the buck lately have been batcaps. You can pick up a nice batcap 300 for $100 and change which is theoretically equal to a 100 farad cap, and the size of two packs of smokes(approx 3" x 3" x 4") http://www.batcap.net/Model300.html

He didnt know what a regulator does..

A little info on the side, its possible to have a regulator type of setup just before the amp.. but in 99% cases it wont do you any good.. It'll simply be stunning the alternator till it dies.


Opakracing, get yourself a 1 farad cap.

Originally posted by Accord Man
He didnt know what a regulator does..

A little info on the side, its possible to have a regulator type of setup just before the amp.. but in 99% cases it wont do you any good.. It'll simply be stunning the alternator till it dies.


Opakracing, get yourself a 1 farad cap.

Ok this has piqued my curiosity. How? The only time I've ever heard of a different regulator being used is in high SPL systems. They've been known to cheat a bit and crank the voltage up on the regulator on the alternator to overdrive the amps, but in 20 years of installing I've never heard of using one in any other way. At one point in my life I was an MECP Master Installer, and certified by just about every major car audio company(I've been to an orion class, apline basic, alarm, and senior classes , kef enclosure design, and several others) and I've never heard of that. All serious car audio amps that would require that clean of power to begin with will have internal regulators. Just curious..

[Accord Man]

Originally posted by illusion
Ok this has piqued my curiosity. How? The only time I've ever heard of a different regulator being used is in high SPL systems. They've been known to cheat a bit and crank the voltage up on the regulator on the alternator to overdrive the amps, but in 20 years of installing I've never heard of using one in any other way. At one point in my life I was an MECP Master Installer, and certified by just about every major car audio company(I've been to an orion class, apline basic, alarm, and senior classes , kef enclosure design, and several others) and I've never heard of that. All serious car audio amps that would require that clean of power to begin with will have internal regulators. Just curious..

Thats great man.. The one vehicle that comes to mind is a early 80s subarban we loaded with a dozen old school Solo Barics..
And roughly 300w in tweeters, 1500w in mids..

Now to supply power, we left the stock alternator (rewound to roughly double the amperage) and added a few more alts. Obviously that was kinda hard, had to reroute the drive belt to accomodate the new alts.

All the additionalt alts were regulated the old fashion way, but before the amps, we had a second regulator to combine and normalize the current. All this @ 14.6v

Whats strange is when we tried to feed the power from the alts unregulated direclty the regulator before the amps, the voltage kept bouncing around between both peaks like a bad mofo..

So thats why we did what we did.

What was beautiful about this setup is that the regardless of how much current the amps would use, there would never be too much stress on the alts. Everything was wired so that the second regulator would totally isolate what was on both sides of the circuit.


Now this was an extreme setup, and a very efficient one.

This is totally useless to the general public, but for those of us who like to take things a notch higher..


I'm only 20yrs old, so I might not have as much experience as you, but my mind is kinda tuned for Science/Physics (and yet I'm about to become an Accountant.. :o )
Anyways I'm quiet capable when it comes to electric/electronic/mechanic..


How did you like your class with KEF ? I once did one with Paradigm, man it was soo interesting..

[Accord Man]

one more thing, before adding the second regulator, the readings we were getting at the end of the line were as if the cycle
of the alts was fluctuating.

MY car at night time..

1999 Honda Civic


THe lights almost DImm all the way.. when the beats pound..

im only running a Phoenix Gold 500.2 and using a 1 Farrat Cap

I really need help on upgrading my power... cause its really straninng my electrical system, and the lights interior almost dim the guages lights etc...

to a full extend of not seeying anything on the road...

im powering some crazy PG Titinums so thats probly why any ideas.. please.....

ahhh ok, scared me for a second. I thought it was something used on top of the one used to settle the alternators, but you just had noisey alts and/or lousy primary regs, try zena some time you won't be let down. My nastiest system to date that I've installed had 5 zena 800amp alternators (we intially tried for 10 lower current alts for price, but they didn't work out, so we used 5 800amp monsters, if 4000amps isn't enough oh well) with tweaked regulators for 17v output(cheat cheat ), the sub amps and the 5 alternators along with 16 batteries were isolated from the main eletrical system which the deck ran off of(after buring up two decks we realized they didn't care for the high voltage and moved it to the main eletrical system). This was all used to power 20 Tweaked Fosgate power 1000s(the output stage was reworked on all of them) all this moved 20 orion HCCA 12s, and the guy never competed. I guess he just had so much freaking money he wanted to be the baddest on the block. We took a perfectly good suburban striped it except for the front pair of seats, welded and bondod the back doors closed, then fiberglassed the intire inside so it didn't explode on a hard bass nots, then laid the floor of batteries, and made the biggest heaviest box I've ever dealt with. Had the alternator bank custom fabbed and had to move a few things under the hood, dropped the radiator a few inches, moved some hoses and wires but it all fit. Had to use springs off of some heavy duty work trunk just to keep the ass off of the ground. It was interesting, I didn't really see the point especially since he wasn't competing but it was cool. Same guy had us to a limo van conversion, took two brand spanking new ford f-350 econoline vans cut one right behind the front doors, cut the other one after the back axle and welded the two together. put $150K worth of interior and toys into it and sold it to him for $500K Needless to say the shop I worked at was known for doing a bit of custom work.

But now I have twin degrees and call myself an engineer (I really just sit behind a computer and surf the web for $2500 a week)

Originally posted by matthew17
MY car at night time..

1999 Honda Civic


THe lights almost DImm all the way.. when the beats pound..

im only running a Phoenix Gold 500.2 and using a 1 Farrat Cap

I really need help on upgrading my power... cause its really straninng my electrical system, and the lights interior almost dim the guages lights etc...

to a full extend of not seeying anything on the road...

im powering some crazy PG Titinums so thats probly why any ideas.. please.....

well, i bought one audiobahn capacitator (one cap) so, thats not enough i guess? i got a 1000 watt system.

whoa! u guys are way ahead of me! looking to take AP physics next year though hopefully i can apply it to car audio.