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Thread: So it begins (again)... (VERY IMAGE HEAVY)

  1. #21
    Ex Vec-C Admin Ian-Highlander's Avatar
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    Apart from looking pretty (bearing in mind I'm fitting everything out of sight on mine) and maybe impressing people who don't know the actual technical details of what a capacitor is or does, there is zero point in fitting one.

    To actually have any effect whatsoever, the capacitor would need to be several hundred farad to store enough capacity to fully smooth out the flow and would be huge and you'd need a mortgage to buy it. Even then it's doubtful you'd notice any difference whatsoever.

    The most important part of any system is the electrical setup, you need an alternator/battery combo that can provide the needed power levels (I'm probably going to be upgrading both on mine eventually), you can go the route of an additional battery in the boot with a split charge system which effectively adds a couple of thousand capacitors to your supply in storage volume, you also need to have done the "big three" (google it if you've not heard of it) to upgrade the main earth and power cables to the chassis/battery.

    Last edited by Ian-Highlander; 20th March 2011 at 16:19.
    "Doing a good job here is like wetting your pants in a dark suit, you get a warm feeling but nobody else notices"
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  2. #22
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    I added a Farad cap to the system I had and it defiantly made an improvement to the bass, really firmed it up. I also did the split charge system with Red Top Optima in the boot too.

  3. #23
    Ex Vec-C Admin Ian-Highlander's Avatar
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    The split charge system with a second battery in the boot will make a HUGE difference, the CAP will have made almost zero (if any at all) and will have been purely a placebo effect. All the CAP does is smooth out the power levels to an amp (and a farad one does almost nothing), it wont have any effect on the sound of your bass at all.

    You may want to do a quick google search using the phrase "farad cap pointless" it will surprise you and can explain it a lot better than I have time to
    "Doing a good job here is like wetting your pants in a dark suit, you get a warm feeling but nobody else notices"
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  4. #24
    Ex Vec-C Admin Ian-Highlander's Avatar
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    Spent three or so hours out on the car today (not feeling great so didn't spend as long as I was planning to).

    I've fitted the rear doors speakers in both sides today and the passenger side is connected in to the previously run cable that I routed to the boot (drivers side hasn't had those cables run in yet so is just through into the car).

    I had planned to fit new pins in the door loom connectors and Dean (Plasma) had kindly supplied me several pins to use for this, but having gone through them, most of the ones I needed I only had one side of the loom for and none of them that would have fitted the rear door looms were heavy duty enough for purpose. I therefore opted for the usual drill 'em and thread 'em through design to get the cables into the doors.

    The door connector disconnected and grommet removed from the car.



    Door side of that loom out of the door and hanging out so I can get to it.



    This shows the hole needed in the door side, there is a row of four spare empty pin holes in my looms, so I went through two or three of them for this.



    This shows the same hole needed in the car side (if you do this, make sure you go through the same side on each connector or it wont line up).



    Feeding the new cable through.







    And done.



    The Alpine crossover (one will be mounted in each door) to split the amp signal to the mid range/mid bass cone and the tweeter.



    I soldered the cable to the speaker and ran appropriate length cables for each, fitting them all to the crossover.



    Wasn't expecting this shot to be taken apparently lol



    Mounting the crossover inside the door (if you do this, make sure you run the window up and down a couple of times and check the clearance first).



    Fitting the door speaker.



    Taping up the tweeter connection to the other door wiring.



    Checking the damp proof layer is sealed properly.



    And re-fitting the door panel.









    Alpine tweeters held into the housing with a little silicon sealant, it's not pretty from underneath, but you can't see it from above and there is no movement pressure involved with the tweeters (this is the picture from my last build as I forgot to take a pic this time but it's the same).

    "Doing a good job here is like wetting your pants in a dark suit, you get a warm feeling but nobody else notices"
    Maptun Tuned 2.0T Estate - click HERE for mods list.
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    Amazing build as before. Couple of points. First you need different fuse box in the rear to take full advantage of the two wires. Correct me if I am wrong, but the two power wires connect together in the boot at the fuse box? If they do any electrical engineer with tell you in practice most of the power will go down the one cable with the lowest resistance. They wont burn out as cable that size will take 100s of amps but it is the voltage drop you have to worry about. Split them up and it will have the effect you want.

    Second I assume you will be making proper speaKer mounts for the speakers? You use the auto lead type ones in the picture. You obviously have much experience with ice so I gues they are temperory? Looking at the size of the power cables it will certainly be in need of stronger ones. I would normally nut rivet the doors to mount them as well as the vauxhall threads are not up to much!!!

    Finally you are forgetting something about the 1 farod capacitors. Whilst I agree with you, it is a common misconception that they are there to prevent bass spikes to the amps. If you read the works of old americn install designers from the 80s they were not introducted for that. In a time when signal processors and active crossovers were common power caps were used by them to keep a good supply to these devices only having to supply a couple of hundred mA not the massive current to the amps. They also filter the noise from alternators and this is the advantage, not to supply big amps. the effect is better as well because any interferance at preamp level will be much worse at output level! Guys really into sound quality rather than spl often modify the modern intergrated ams to separate the pre amp/crossover and power amp supplies and the difference is unbelievable, i did it myself in my old car.

  6. #26
    Ex Vec-C Admin Ian-Highlander's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by mucklestone View Post
    Amazing build as before. Couple of points. First you need different fuse box in the rear to take full advantage of the two wires. Correct me if I am wrong, but the two power wires connect together in the boot at the fuse box? If they do any electrical engineer with tell you in practice most of the power will go down the one cable with the lowest resistance. They wont burn out as cable that size will take 100s of amps but it is the voltage drop you have to worry about. Split them up and it will have the effect you want.
    Heh, thanks, but as you'll also know, as more power is drawn down one cable it warms up due to energy transfer, it won't get hot under the current drain I'll be putting it under, but it's enough to potentially affect the resistance in the circuit and the other one is then used more as it becomes lower resistance and so on ad infinitum, in theory at least it balances out. I was actually planning on running another fuse box for the smaller bits (active crossover, neons in the sub boxes etc) but plan to just tap that off the third input socket in the bottom of the current distribution box.

    As you quite rightly say each one of those cables is capable of running the system pretty much on it's own, I'm just being over cautious at this stage and planning ahead. I'll be drawing a maximum of 1200w (roughly 100A) with this build as it stands now from those fittings so they are definitely over kill and as such will work perfectly the way I have them set up now. The main reason for the overkill is to allow for more flexibility for upgrades which I'm already planning for if money ever allows.

    Currently, there are 60A fuses in each fitting at the battery end with each amp feed fused at 30A, running on the theory that there is no way they will ever draw that much in total, I don't see any issues, the second cable is more of a "top up" than anything else at this point, if it doesn't work out that way, it will be easy enough to change around.

    Quote Originally Posted by mucklestone View Post
    Second I assume you will be making proper speaKer mounts for the speakers? You use the auto lead type ones in the picture. You obviously have much experience with ice so I gues they are temperory? Looking at the size of the power cables it will certainly be in need of stronger ones. I would normally nut rivet the doors to mount them as well as the vauxhall threads are not up to much!!!
    Honestly, it depends how bothered I can be. Whilst in the past I've made up my own mounts out of MDF, if they sound ok and do the job I'll probably leave them there out of pure laziness. I do plan to sound deaden all the doors, so will be having it all off again at some point to do that, so if there is a noticeable issue with the sound then I'll replace the adaptors then, didn't have any issues with them in my last build though (although admittedly it wasn't running anything like as much power to each door).

    Quote Originally Posted by mucklestone View Post
    Finally you are forgetting something about the 1 farod capacitors. Whilst I agree with you, it is a common misconception that they are there to prevent bass spikes to the amps. If you read the works of old americn install designers from the 80s they were not introducted for that. In a time when signal processors and active crossovers were common power caps were used by them to keep a good supply to these devices only having to supply a couple of hundred mA not the massive current to the amps. They also filter the noise from alternators and this is the advantage, not to supply big amps. the effect is better as well because any interferance at preamp level will be much worse at output level! Guys really into sound quality rather than spl often modify the modern intergrated ams to separate the pre amp/crossover and power amp supplies and the difference is unbelievable, i did it myself in my old car.
    Heh, the main difference betwen you and me is that you could be bothered to type it all out to explain it and I couldn't hence my referring the other guy to google out of laziness (apologies for that btw).

    On average a 1 Farad CAP will store enough juice to supply 100W for approximately half a second and is obviously constantly re-charging at the same time. It's not about taking out bass spikes, it's about smoothing out voltage drops (which are usually caused by bass spikes admittedly).

    As you quite rightly say though, in most circumstances they aren't having to provide a full wedge of juice all the time, just small amounts in drips and drabs to smooth out the power levels.

    At the end of the day, they DO have an effect on the voltage levels, providing you fit the correct capacitance for the differences you may experience in voltage drop caused by your max power ratings over the available power from the battery/alternator combo. Randomly fitting a 1 Farad CAP because you've been told it will make your bass louder is frankly pointless, you may as well just burn your money. As I'm sure you'll agree, for standard running on all but the highest power systems (and I'm talking thousands of watts here) they will have absolutely zero effect as the alternator/battery combo is more than powerful enough to supply the required ampage. In the event you "whack it up full", only the most powerful systems will really see any benefit from CAPs and they will need a LOT more than 1 Farad caps for it to be noticeable.

    Don't get me wrong here, I used to sell and fit ICE systems and was more than happy to supply and fit CAPs for people and did on many occasions, but knowing it would make no difference whatsoever to their systems. Most people are happy to have one because they've heard about them and think it makes their system better to have it (without doing any calculations to work out what if any benefit there is or what rating they need) and besides, it looks pretty innit

    I do concede to your point about interference though, it's a point well made, the CAP will smooth the flow and remove certain interference from the feed.
    "Doing a good job here is like wetting your pants in a dark suit, you get a warm feeling but nobody else notices"
    Maptun Tuned 2.0T Estate - click HERE for mods list.
    Brentwood 2012: Winner, Saturday Show. Hull 2012: Winner, Best Estate. Hull 2013: Winner, Best Estate & Runner Up, Best I.C.E

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    For starter a 1 Farad capacitor is massive and in all likely hood dangerous (can be used for cattle prodders). Most you deal with is 1milionth of Farad and even many times smaller. As for the amount of energy they store is dependent on the capacity - Farads - and voltage dropped across them. But that is sleeping material now.

    Capacitors have the odd ability to - as has been pointed out smooth out a rectified AC signal and also remove any noise - providing their reactance is correct. On the other hand they are usually employed to remove any DC components from AC signal.
    Gazza4

  8. #28
    Ex Vec-C Admin Ian-Highlander's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Gazza4 View Post
    For starter a 1 Farad capacitor is massive and in all likely hood dangerous (can be used for cattle prodders). Most you deal with is 1milionth of Farad and even many times smaller. As for the amount of energy they store is dependent on the capacity - Farads - and voltage dropped across them. But that is sleeping material now.

    Capacitors have the odd ability to - as has been pointed out smooth out a rectified AC signal and also remove any noise - providing their reactance is correct. On the other hand they are usually employed to remove any DC components from AC signal.
    Gazza4
    Lol, yeah on most circuit boards that's true but once you get into car audio systems, the only time CAPs are used are for the purpose we've been talking about, basically smoothing the flow of power primarly it was designed for voltage sensitive items, but as power ratings went up so did CAP ratings. There is no doubt that the smoother flowing you can keep the voltage in very high power amplifiers the more efficiently they'll run but they only really have any affect when the peaks are way more than the supply is capable of.

    Caps of 5 farad and a lot more are actually quite common in massive ice installs, that's one hell of a "prod"

    My power rating was based on your average sized 1 farad cap used in ICE installs something along these lines...


    I still wont be fitting one
    "Doing a good job here is like wetting your pants in a dark suit, you get a warm feeling but nobody else notices"
    Maptun Tuned 2.0T Estate - click HERE for mods list.
    Brentwood 2012: Winner, Saturday Show. Hull 2012: Winner, Best Estate. Hull 2013: Winner, Best Estate & Runner Up, Best I.C.E

  9. #29
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ian-Highlander View Post
    Lol, yeah on most circuit boards that's true but once you get into car audio systems, the only time CAPs are used are for the purpose we've been talking about, basically smoothing the flow of power primarly it was designed for voltage sensitive items, but as power ratings went up so did CAP ratings. There is no doubt that the smoother flowing you can keep the voltage in very high power amplifiers the more efficiently they'll run but they only really have any affect when the peaks are way more than the supply is capable of.

    Caps of 5 farad and a lot more are actually quite common in massive ice installs, that's one hell of a "prod"

    My power rating was based on your average sized 1 farad cap used in ICE installs something along these lines...
    That looks lethal looking at it.

    Good install btw. Would do the same, somehow though my car would through one of its wobblers.

    Gazza4

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    You obviously know your stuff! I just get annoyed when you see people doubling up on wires thinking they will take twice the current!!!!

    Can Iask your advice? I know it is not normal practice but I have had great sucess running the ground wire all the way back to the battery. Just avoids any chance of ground loops. i have two amps in my system in separate locations and it just seemed easier! They each have there own positive and negative straight to the battery. Do you know why it has become normal practice to just earth to the body? Saves uprating main earths etc....

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