I notice my head lights dimming one night as I was coming from work. They dimmed every time the bass hit. The gain on my sub amp is up half way, but I also have another amp powering up my speakers and the gain on that one is less than half way. Total wattage would be around 1200RMS, both amps combined, and I do tend to play my music pretty loud.
I'm guessing its putting to much strain on my alt.
Would doing the Big 3 fix this problem or should I install a more powerful alt?
I've been wanted to do the Big 3, just havent had a chance.
If the gains are set properly, leave them alone. they are not a makeshift volume control, and I f-ing wish people would stop suggesting that they are. Their entire purpose is to match the source signal voltage to the input stage of teh amp. too high and the amp clips. too low and you have a crappy S/N ratio and more noise floor.
The big 3 *might* help some, but most likely yes, you need to do both the big 3 upgrade and a larger alternator. See if there's a larger stock replacement available for the engine in your car. Often the same engine is used on several cars or trim packages and a number of alternator outputs are available. Your system is capable of roughly 125A of current draw (peak) and at high volume, is probably drawing about 50-60A or more. Your car needs about 40-60A itself, so figure you probably want an alternator in the 120-150A range.
also if this is new you might try letting your battery charge over night, it probably has'en had a good charge in a wile and its life span is probably shortened, may be time for a new battery if it wont hold proper charge, but get the alt and big 3 like glasswolf said.
glasswolf you said keeping the gains low is bad, what if you only have sub(s) that take ~800 watts, would you suggest setting the gain by dimm for ~800 watts that way or set it for its proper output then turn it down at the head unit?
either buy the right amp for the job, or listen for audible distortion. set the gain properly. a 1000 watt amp doesn't always put out 1000 watts. In fact realistically you'll probably never get 1000 watts out of it since music is a dynamic source material, environmental and enclosure design variables affect the load presented to the amplifier, and speakers are a reactive, not resistive load. You also don't typically listen to teh sound system with the volume at 100%, I'd expect.
Make sure your amps are grounded to the frame in the back as well. Good grounds all the way around make a difference. The big 3 should help also. A couple good alternator companies are Mechman and DC Power Engineering. You can look them up, send them an email and I'm sure they can hook you up with some prices. Idle power is the main concern over peak output.
Big-3 and put a nice batt near your amps. That will help ALOT. I larger alt will help some, but at low RPM you will not see much from a high ouput alt, for that, you need battery backup.
I heard if you put a second battery in your trunk you have to get some sort of regulator to make sure the batteries charge evenly. Is this true? If so what exactly is the unit needed to do that called and how does it work?
I wonder if installing mini capacitors (the inch long ones) between your battery and the headlights would solve this problem?
If anyone has done/heard of this let me know.
I have happily been running ~1,400wrms on a stock electrical system for two years now (Not recommended by most) without any problems including electrical clipping however I do get minimal flickering when turned up to high levels. The visibility is not effected much but I do not like drawing attention to other cars when my lights appear to be flickering. Most of the time while driving on the road next to other cars at night, its hard to tell where the bass is coming from unless you drive around with your trunk sounding like someone beating on a trash can. However, when your lights flicker with the beat its a dead give away that your the one with the nice system to steal or asking to get pulled over by a cop.
Well, here's the problem.. The reason teh lights dim is that your voltage rails are sagging. If the rails sag, it's becasue the alternator can't supply current quickly enough, or in a large enough amount to satisfy demands. If it's just a matter of alternator response time, which it is in some few cases, then I'd say just get one big capacitor for the audio system. a 1 or 2 farad, 20V cap will suffice. This will keep the lights from dimming when the bass hits, since the voltage comes right back up after the alternator has a chance to respond to the demand.
If it really is a matter of the alt being too small, then it needs to be upgraded.
thats how i have always set my gains. 50hz test tone, and i set the gain to about 1 volt less than the target voltage to try to steer clear of clipping
many people set by ear, but i simply dont trust my ears
im looking for glasswolf to shed some light on this topic as i was under the impression that setting the gains to a lower target voltage (setting to 800 watts instead of 1200 watts) would help the current consumption, and in turn being better for your electrical