Battery Capasitors

I have 3 kicker amps, 850.4, 650.4, and 750.1. I was on my boat Saturday playing my stereo probably way to loud and my amp running my Tyrant NVS speakers stopped working. I was pushing it pretty hard and had the cabin speakers turned down some on the fader. The amp cooled down quickly and restarted again.

My stereo guy says I don't need one, but I thought that it might help the amps a little and maybe they will run cooler. Plus I think I need to have a fan aimed at those amps, because it does gets real hot in the storage compartment.

What do you guys think of Capasitors? Are they worth it?
I already know I should of had the stereo turned down, but I guess I was showing off.

Brannon

I don't think a cap will help with overheating amps. They usually have a thermal cutoff to save you from melting it if you're pushing the amp for extended periods. A fan would probably do more to help the situation. I think I remember seeing a heat-sink/fan conbo someone posted on this site a while back, looked like an oversized CPU fan.

-Steve

Thanks Steve,
Brannon

agree with steve. cap wouldn't help much. fan is what you need.

however, i'm running two golf cart batts to three amps. i read somewhere that the discharge rate of the batts would be lower than typical 12V banks. Would a cap smooth out the charge to the amps? getting some distortion at higher volumes and thought I would start with the batts. I think its my head unit but it doesn't happen all the time. is there any way to test the signal it puts out?

(Message edited by denverd1 on May 02, 2006)

Steve's right a cap will not help, a cap will act similar to a battery in that it store power , but can charge and discharge the power almost instantaneously. A fan would be a good start. Was your boat on/off when the amp shut down? Remember as voltage decreases the amount of amps your amplifier's draw increases which results in running less effecient and producing alot of heat due to lack of effeciency and presto the amp shuts down due to overheating. Class A/B amps are not very effecient to begin with, by design. But push any amp hard all day with lack of ventalation and most will shut down.

Nacho, your distortion at high volumes is more than likely lack of power from the amps.(amp is maxed out and starts to clip) It takes more power to push the lower frequecies than it does the higher. Batteries wont; help that. Either turn up the frequecy on your crossover or push more power. (if they can handle it)

Nacho, the effect your talkign about on GC batt's is due to the internal resistance of the battery they do not respond as well to short, heavy power draws as do a standard 12V battery....a cap will (could) help, but I run GC batt's and have no noticeable problems. The only place you would see it would be in your subs on hard bass hits where the amps are drawing a large amount of power. Ther are just as many peopel that are for caps as against them. I've used them inthe past but have none right now. I've also heard rumors that quite a few companies overstate the farad capacity.

I have had the same problem from not running big enough wire to the amps, causing clipping as well. Check your amp owners manual for the recommended wire gauge.

Adam, the boat was moving about wakeboard speed and I had the stereo cranked to 39 for about 8 minutes. 39 on my Pioneer is pretty loud. 30 can easily be heard clearly boarding. I found 12v fans that you could hook up to a cigerette outlet or 12v battery on Barts Catalog. I might just buy something simular. It was cheap, maybe $30.00.
Brannon

Adam, in the past you used Capacitors what brand did you use? Do you know which ones not to buy?
Brannon

Todd makes a good point too, regarding wire size. I'm assuming yrou proabbly running at least 8 ga but probably 4ga to the amps? As long as the wrie run is short you should be fine with 8ga but 4ga is not much more $$$. Make sure the fans are "brushless" if not they can add "noise" into your system.

As far as caps...I've used fosgate in the past. But have no idea which ones in particualr are good or bad.

Brannon I use these fans to cool my Amps, I raised the amps up about 1/2 inch so that they get air underneath. They work pretty good. http://www.cardomain.com/item/STISF3N

my problem is probably the length and size of my wiring. i'm using those cheesy amp kits on two of them. 8 ga I think... going out there today and I'll try taking one of the amps off the batts and see if the other is fine just to rule out the HU. THen start buying some wire...
thanks guys

(Message edited by denverd1 on May 02, 2006)

(Message edited by denverd1 on May 02, 2006)

Stewart,
Thanks for the link. That looks pretty cool. I think I will take your advice and move my amps off the carpet wall as well and put that fan next to it. How many did you use? Do they suck a lot of battery power?

Thanks,
Brannon

Post a pix of your mounted amp. Lots of amps mounted in boats in an orientation or compartment that offers little opportunity for cooling. Make sure the cooling fins are toward the top and the cooling vents are oriented up/down.