This is my first try with a capacitor, and I left my wiring instructions at home. (DOH!) I rememer reading the instructions when I first purchased the wiring kit, and it said something about charging the capacitor... however I cann't find the little resistor(I think thats what it was?) or have the know-how to do that. What happends if I hook it up without charging it up, then turn everything on as normal? My guess, with my limited knowledge, is that it will work, but will take a long while to charge itself up. I assume the capacitor has to, sort of, recharge itself as the music plays while the amp does not require as much juice anyway. Then it will be ready for the next "push" when the amp does need it. So, won't it just charge itself up? If so, why does it need charged in the first place? Thanks for the help in advance!
Hehehehehe!!!! You go ahead and charge that baby up without a resistor! Makes a nice spark and pop! LOL!!!!! You wont hurt the cap doing this, but you will cause arcing and burn marks on the caps terminals, unless you use some wire coming off of it to charge it. The cap will show as a DEAD short to the battery at the moment of contact to battery, then as it charges up (in mere hundreths of a second) it will show up as just another battery more or less, that is until its drained again...... You are somewhat right in your thinking of how it works, it just supplies the extra current needed to amps on peaks. (but any quality amp already has caps on board in the power supply and output section for this) As far as a resistor goes, a 1K or so reistor should work if you can get one locally. Wow, I always thought this "capacitor fad" would have died off a long time ago...those things a hard on an electrical systems
I didn't really "want" one exactally, but it came with the wire kit, so I figured I'd use it. We have it hooked up and everything, and we're putting the deck in. I would "go ahead and charge it up" but like I said, I don't have the know-how to do it. If I leave it, will it be ok? I guess the reason I ask is kuz I don't want to hurt anything if I end up charging it up the wrong way or something... like I said, its already hooked up and ready.
if you have a test light you can use that to charge the cap. connect the ground of the cap to the ground on your battery. then connect the ground on the test light to the positive on the cap. touch the tip of the test light to the positive on your battery. the test light will light up, when it gets dim or goes out then the cap is fully charged. you can use other 12 volt bulbs as well, its just easier to use a test light.
