As far as i know it's called "power cap", that's what sears guy told me. He said it takes out power from alternator at one time and then just cycles it so that the high ampage doens't drain battery.

thanks!

 

I use a Rockford Fosgate Fared Cap. It works good. Keeps my lights from dimming.

 

But the sears guy was wrong. Power still comes from the battery. In fact more power is needed from the alt to keep the cap charged. The high rate that a cap can charge and discharge are what make it advantageous for diminishing voltage drops. But they definitely make the alternator work harder in general. There are some good articles in magazines and books about auto electrical systems and upgraded stereo's.

 

I don't like caps personally. I would rather have a second battery. Get you an optima yellow top if you wanna start off on you electrical stuff. My 2 cents
oliver

 

I used to have two one farad caps in my system, but I decided to go for overkill and got a 15 farad Alumapro. I've had the thing for over 2 years, and so far so good. Do keep in mind however that a cap will not protect your alternator, and if the amp draw is exessive you can take out the alternator. In my last car I have gone through 4 before I had mine recoiled up to 185 amps.

 

im not a fan of caps either. after researching then they really dont help that much if it all. Upgrading your ground wires to a bigger gauge seems to help more.

 

CAPS are not made nor will it help with keeping your charging system up to par. A CAP will only help with quick power surges, for instance when a bass note hits it takes the extra power needed from the cap to minimize power surges.

For the price of CAP's now, I would recommend it, it is usually good to do 1 Farad per 1000 Watts.

 

the more the better.

i went with 2 caps & a 2nd red top optima battery.

i saw a mini-van at a show about 3 yrs ago that was pulling a custom generator. when i looked under the mini-van he had 20 batt.