how to charge power capacitor

[ixcocoyxi]

picked up a used power cap for my amp and it said on the cap to charge before install. so how do you do it?

ive read to hook it up to a battery with a light and let the light dim down. can i just use speaker wire?

diagram described looked somewhat like this from my knowledge of electrical stuffs

Sent from my Glade Air Freshener using Tapatalk.

 

[kenski]

Should have invested a little bit more and gotten one of these upgraded capacitors instead.

 

[ixcocoyxi]

great scott!! i dont have anything to generate the 1.21 gigawatts i need

i just want my bass to hit without my lights dimming ad radio shutting off.

 

[UnderFire]

great scott!! i dont have anything to generate the 1.21 gigawatts i need

i just want my bass to hit without my lights dimming ad radio shutting off.

If you're having that problem, something is wrong, and a capacitor is not going to fix it, make sure your battery is good, and check all of your wiring before you even bother with installing the capacitor.

 

[riceandpho]

the cap is a waste of money, do the big 3 upgrade and see if that helps, also make sure the grounds are on bare metal. next you might want to get the battery checked out, invest in a deep cycle agm battery like the sears die hard platinum. put the biggest size battery in and see if that helps.

 

[BucknutBob]

As to your original question, ixcocoyxi, you do need some sort of small load like a diode between the power lead and the cap--mine came with one, but unfortuantely I don't know the rating on it. Once the light goes out, you can hook up the power cable direct. I don't believe your idea of speaker wire will cut it. I would just do a web search on it--I'm sure there will be tons of listings for it.

 

[Iroke17]

Ok here we go i install audio equipment as a side job
first off caps work but not as much as you will want you will get it installed and you will still see dimming
Id like to start by saying go spend the 100 dollars at autozone go get the biggest gold duralast you can find usually about 1000 amps this will solve your problem completely i was running 6 12" subs in my 4runner 3 amps with no dim whats so ever.
now that thats said if you still want to install the cap here is what you need to do
basically a cap is a secondary battery the more farads the more capacity.
Before hooking the main power cable up to the cap it needs to be charged slowly if you hook it straight up it becomes potentially a bomb from the fluid warming up to quickly from the voltage. you will need a resistor any decent size will work just hook up ground and then put the power wire from battery tape resister to and then hook other end up to cap until cap reads around 12 volts then hook main power up to it and your good.

 

[BucknutBob]

For the record, I've had mine a long time, before I learned that they really aren't as necessary as I was originally led to believe. I figure if you have one already, might as well use it--it certainly doesn't HURT the system (LOL).

 

[ixcocoyxi]

i picked it up for free from a coworker because he was selling his old car and took everything out.

wanted to hook it up but it looks like i dont really need it i guess.

 

[UnderFire]

Like said before, it won't hurt, but it isn't a cure-all. A power capacitor is good for a couple things, it smooths out the current going to the amplifiers, which can save your amp from a power surge, and can also help to reduce noise caused by the electrical system of the car, they're just not great for power storage like they're marketed for.