amps always tell you that 14.4 will give you more power out of your amp how do you get 14v out of a 12v battery ?

 

the battery is only pushing amps and volts when the car is not running. when the motor is running the alternator is producing the voltage and amps to the all the electrionics in the car.

upgrade your alternator to an after market one and get a deep cycle battery, like a marine battery or a optima blue or red top.

 

You only get 14.4 volts when you start your car only...your car runs at 12V...

Maximadave

 

14.4 is the most wattage a car will produce ever...rarly will it do this even on the high way it will stay around 13 volts deepending on the battery and alt. On of the things you can do to help the amp prefrom better is to have a good battery (optima yellow top,svr audio series) a 200 amp alt or so a cap and a line level converter inline from the head back.

 

you could always get a jacobs accuvolt. with those can control the voltage ouput so it is constant.

I have heard they are a POS, but that's what they claim.

 

U mean an acumatch...

 

don't know ... could have changed the name, but the brochure I have from them (which is dated '98) calls it an accuvolt. Once again, everything I have heard about them is crap.

 

Most of the suggestions above are basically wrong. The battery is normally 12-12.5 volts at an average charge state. And then drops rapidly below this point. With the engine running the alternator spins, normally at about 14.4 volts. By the time you get back to your amps this voltage drops. The amount it drops depends on the quality and size of cable used. Secondly you need a cap for a steady 14-14.4 volts at the amp terminals. I typically have over 14 volts at my amp terminals with the engine running. If I had a DMM instead of the old VU meter I currently have, I would tell you more accurately the voltage I have. All of these measurements are made with the stock alternator. The above suggestion to replace the alternator in order to get 14.4 volts is just plain stupid. Any alternators output is regulated by the voltage regulator, which all cars must have and they are generaly easy to find. If you turn it up above this point you risk frying the ECU and any other factory equipment.

Incidentally, a bigger battery will actually lower your voltage at the amps. A bigger battery, higher amperage, draws more current from the alternator, leaving less for the stereo. And never use a deep cycle marine battery in your car, if you want it to start reliably.

 

man you agure with everything.

 

It's not an argument, merely the difference between fact and fiction. The same as the difference between what you said about sealed enclosures, and what I said about sealed enclosures.

 

Fact and fiction alright. Maybe arguee isn't the right word but i can tell you when you come in and say "your all wrong" " and only I know what is right" what more do you want a person to feel.

The amount of voltage coming off the battery will vary...plan and simple. How do I know this...i can read. One of the gauges in my car reads the voltage coming off the battery and it varys with the car off from 12.0-12.7 on and runing depending it can go from 13.0 to 14.3. Now if i understand what your talking about in the way i think you ment it then it has nothing to do with anything that matters. What i think you are saying is what the voltage is at the alt(don't matter), and the votage in the battery.
Yes voltage will drop but not alot in a car because the distance is so short. But yes there are sircumstances when it will alot.

Optima makes marine batterys and car audio batterys no one said to put a boat battery in.
As far as replacing the alt...I never said it was nessacary but it can be dun...infact many people do it such as major spl cars and even some of them use 2 to charge over 20 volts. yes a biger battery will draw more current but it also holds more and leaves plenty for the stereo the only prob could be that the alt can't keep up and thats when it needs to be replaced.
You do not need a cap to gaurntee 14.4 at the amps..infact thats not a gauntee in alot of cases.

On another note we tested the factory battery voltage and it was far worse than the optima and the svr was better than that.
And on yet another note I always have over 16 volts at each amp.

 

I am still quite sure that I know what I am saying when I say that I have at least 14.3 at the amps, as measured with a VM, with the stock battery, stock and stock alt. And this is because of good wiring and a cap. I don't want more that 15 volts because the ECU can't handle it. Neither are any of the electronics designed to handle that voltage. There is no point in using a stinger 16 volt battery, or whatever it is you are doing to get your claimed voltage, since the rest of the car is designed too run fine on 11-15. Remember, the alternator is spinning whenever the belt spins. That is when you have 14.4 volts. If you don't have nearly that at the amps, you need to check your wiring. Try fixing the factory motor to chasis ground that connects at the same point that the battery goes to ground. Factory is about 6 gauge. Increase this cable for systems of greater that 100-150 amps. Oh yeah, when engine spead drops below 1500 or 1000 rpm's, the alternator slows down so the amperage drops. I didn't say "your all wrong" or "only I know what is right." I did say that most of the previous comments were wrong, and I meant yours as well.

 

Son, you have no clue what you're talking about. Please stop trying to pretend you're right, when you have no real clue.
OEM batteries will put out anything from 11 to 13.2V, depending on charge level and overall battery condition.
When the car's running, an alternator will put out anything from 12V to 16V, DEPENDING ON BATTERY CHARGE LEVEL AND ENGINE RPM.. at idle, most OEM alternators will put out about 12.8V.. run the engine up to 3-4000rpm, and you'll be looking at 14V at least. These numbers change with EVERY car you look at. I've had two 93 maxes and worked on several more, and all of them have slightly different voltage levels with engine off and at idle, based on differences in the battery and voltage regulator (in the alternator) settings.

Now about your SPL cars.. MOST SPL cars don't use two alternators.. most of them don't even use anything bigger than the factory alternator.. they have a truck bed full of batteries that they charge either off a plug-in power supply, or they run the car/truck for several minutes before doing a 3 second SPL burp.. then they shut down. this doesn't need high power alternators.. most of the SPL guys will even run all day long doing 50-60 burps before ever charging their systems up (which they usually just plug a 50A charger into AC power at the event).. how do I know? because I've helped install several of these systems, and I used to compete myself.

My old system was 1200Wrms, and I had the stock-sized alternator with no problems. My next system in the new Max will be 2300W rms, and I'll sitll be using the stock alternator- just a huge battery, possibly two.

Now let's talk about voltage loss in your wires.. (which you say doesn't exist)
In my old system, I was running 2 awg cable from my battery to my trunk... with the engine idling at 700rpm, I had 13.4V at the battery, and only 13.2V in the trunk.. that was with the system turned off and no load!! when I set the idle on the car to 3000rpm (neat little trick I learned in competiton), battery voltage was 13.9V and amp voltage was 13.7V. now I crank the system up.. I'm pulling about 100A through the same wire.. battery voltage was 13.6V, and amp voltage was 12.9V. Hmmmmm, no difference in voltage between the two spots, eh?

Now let's learn about batteries.. you throw a 16V battery in your system, and you'll kill everything stock in your car. it's not designed to stand anything over 15V, but most of the computer equipment has voltage regulators built in to keep things at the correct voltage.. thus, you can dump 20-25volts into the system and be okay.. but your lights, relays, etc will have a huge problem with it. if they haven't smoked already, they will before long. People use those high voltage batteries in SPL competition and wire them ONLY to their unregulated amps.. (amps with unregulated power supplies put out more power with higher input voltage. look at Orion and Rockford amps).

And your accumatch thins is completely wrong again!
Jacobs made a product called the Accuvolt that was a voltage regulator.. you feed it whatever voltage in (anything from 9 to 16), and it will put out a set voltage, whatever you want.. they are extremely reliable, UNTIL YOU DRAW TOO MUCH CURRENT! then they fry themselves internally and don't work work a damn later..
The Accumatch you think you know about is an impedance matching transformer that came out about 3-4 years ago so people could drive weird impedance loads on an amp that wasn't made for it. they were very expensive, and saturated easily, and sucked up a lot of power, so they weren't very popular with anyone who knew how to design a system correctly to begin with.. you may still be able to find these out there, but I have a feeling they've pretty much fallen off the face of the planet.


and what does a line level convertor have to do with system voltage anyway? all that does is take speaker level inputs from your head unit and convert them to line-level signals so you can plug them into your amp without frying your input circuits.

Care to share any more of your knowledge with us?

 

Hahha Matt, you said "son...."

 

You know what I really like about internet forums like these…how people will never put there real name in their signature when criticizing people. And what I really like about maxima.org is how the moderators don’t moderate the way a moderator is supposed to by definition. So with that in mind **** you matt I’m not your son.

1st point to be made is that I never said I had a 16 volt battery…I said I had 16 volts at the amps…In fact I said I have a svr battery …It was meant to test just how good of knowledge you guys have. It’s a small change off of topic but not very far. For anyone with large audio knowledge it should have been easy to pick up on after reading the stuff in my signature.

“OEM batteries will put out anything from 11 to 13.2V, depending on charge level and overall battery condition.” Did I say something different?

“all of them have slightly different voltage levels with engine off and at idle, based on differences in the battery and voltage regulator (in the alternator) settings.”
I believe I said something like that to that affect. So what your point?

“Now about your SPL cars” Not my spl cars I hate spl cars. I merely used that as an example. I know of quite a few spl cars that use 2 alternators…not in cars that only do 150 im talking about the cars doing around the 170-db mark. The shop I was with last had one of those cars. That one had 16 “golf cart battery” (there words). And they would let it run in the lanes to charge everything. Run off one 300 amp alt till it was time to burp then it he would turn on the second one to charge I believe he said some where over 20 volts.

I never said it was necessary to upgrade the alt merely that if you want the amps to perform at peak performance it couldn’t hurt.

“Now let's talk about voltage loss in your wires.. (which you say doesn't exist)” I never said it don’t exist merely that in a car it was very little. Do to the short distance in the car. Here is the direct quote of what I said” will drop but not allot in a car because the distance is so short.” And from what you said, “your only dropping .6 to .2 volts I don’t consider that a lot. Especially when doing spl comps where you’re drawing a lot of current.

“Now let's learn about batteries.. you throw a 16V battery in your system, and you'll kill everything stock in your car.” Again your putting words in my mouth I never said anything about a 16 volt battery.

“And your accumatch thins is completely wrong again!” I’ll give you I ****ed that up I mixed the 2 together.

“and what does a line level convertor have to do with system voltage anyway?” That goes back to helping the system perform at its peak again a slight change in the topic but I thought it went with out saying.

 

Matt,
I wouldn't bother with the long explanations. This person does not take constructive criticism well. He doesn't even know who makes the SVR battteries, he thinks it's Optima. Wanna see a picture of the real thing? Westco SVR

 

Where the hell did you come up with that conclusion??????????????????? ?????? I think you read things to fast and put different things together and or just enjoy makeing things up. I used to have an optima yellow top(now sitting in my garage) now weve put in an svr battery it's one smaller than the one in your pic (the baby one)...to do the glass work under the hood. And constructive criticism I would take well but attacks I don't take well.

 

Well if I read it too fast, here's a quote from your post: "Optima svr battery,"

 

No here is the quote "(optima yellow top,svr audio series) "
and "optima and the svr "
See the comma, that Distinguishes between 2 different things. Just like the "and" 2 different sugustions for batterys since they range in price from 330 for the opitma yellow top to about 130 for the svr.

 

check the eighth line of your sig.

 

My apoliges when i changed from optima to the svr guess i din't type and delete everything.(typo) But trust me i know there 2 different ones.

 

I have a question I have a civic and I want to get a new battery which is better svr,optima,or-tsunami?

 

I have no experience with tsunami...but the optima y.t.is better than the svr becuase it has a longer reserve charge basically you can listen to the stereo for 123 min before needing to start it and let it charge.



Course tsunami ownes optima But I know they have a few batterys under that name.

 

cool thanks I will give it some thought.

 

are you willing to sell your yellow top? is it dead? just wanna know.
thanks

 

heheheh.. i agree with you... i am running 14.4 all day long...

 

Damn ya dug this up, I forgot all about this...Sorry I sold that battery awhile ago.

 

Ya lost me here...line level converter? as in High level to low?

 

Blue top is designed for boats, red top is your best STARTING battery,not designed for stereos, Yellow top (deep cycle) is the one you would use for stereo.