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Originally Posted by Einar72
I've seen the term "stiffening capacitor" used to describe these things. Helps avoid car electrical system brownouts. When you have only a 35-amp alternator and a toaster-sized battery a large power amp could load down the electrical system and stall the car - right in front of the babe you're trying to impress...
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basically yes, but not stall the car so much. most car alternators these days are about 80 amps for a 4 cylender, maybe 130 for a large truck or big SUV, the big thing these capacitors prevent is "full fielding" the alternator. Thats when the battery voltage goes below 12.5 volts and the Voltage regulator sends maximum voltage to the field coils in the alternator(and thus maxes out the current output) and over time will burn it out. Im not an expert at stereo's at all, just an Auto technition, looking at it from an auto technition standpoint, maybe theres more to it.
And personally i HATE these things, they can hold a charge for days, even weeks, and MUST BE disconnected when doing any work that calls for the battery to be disconnected for a period of time (like air bag service, ten minutes is generally the rule). So working on Flat rate time the 10 minute wait time is built into the shop time, but not the time it takes to dig through the trunk (or wherever these 'custom radio' places hide them) and unhook the damn capacitor, or worse yet, forget and blow off every air bag in a 2002 volvo (seven i believe in that car). The poor technition totalled it.
Ok...off my soapbox, as you were
