{"id":2159,"date":"2018-12-22T14:04:48","date_gmt":"2018-12-22T01:04:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hifihq.com.au\/blog\/?p=2159"},"modified":"2019-04-06T14:07:10","modified_gmt":"2019-04-06T01:07:10","slug":"i-have-the-power-batteries-and-electrical","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hifihq.com.au\/blog\/i-have-the-power-batteries-and-electrical\/","title":{"rendered":"I Have The Power \u2013 Batteries and Electrical"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Tech Talk | WRITTEN BY AARON TRIMBLE | December 2018<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether you have the Power of Greyskull of not\u2026 your car certainly doesn\u2019t. Most cars aren\u2019t equipped to add on any extra amps, lighting upgrades, winches or any of the fancy do-da\u2019s in the \u201cAccessory Aisle\u201d of your local automotive parts store. Outside of some heavy duty off-road lighting (Non LED) or a winch, car audio equipment can be one of the most taxing pieces of aftermarket equipment you put in your car. The DD Audio Tech Talk question comes from Darrell from New Mexico who asks,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI added an M1d Amplifier<\/a> to my car to power my 2 DD REDLINE 612 Subwoofers<\/a>, but now my lights dim when I\u2019m at a stop light and my bass is bumping. How can I fix this?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The reason you\u2019re getting light dim is 2 fold. The biggest reason is because your stock electrical doesn\u2019t have enough capacitance (battery storage) to supply the amplifier with the power it needs for that big bass note. Secondarily, the alternator in your vehicle isn\u2019t large enough to fill that battery back up between bass notes. Car manufacturers don\u2019t plan on aftermarket equipment when they design a car. If a car has a 100 amp alternator on it that\u2019s because the vehicle is going to use 80-90% of that supply potential with things like headlights, heater, the factory stereo system, AC, electric fans, and various other heated seats, steering wheels, wiper blades and the like. Granted, not all of that is going to be used at once.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019ll use the most power at night when your headlights, heater and various other comfort features are active. At these times your alternator may be supplying 60-70% of its potential. If 60% of your 100 amp alternator is taken up that only leaves you with 40 amps to work with before your electrical system will be over driven and you\u2019ll have to pull directly from the battery. Most cars operate around 13.6v, so with 40 amps of available current, that means you can operate 544 watts of additional additional devices under normal circumstances. That\u2019s not a ton. Luckily a lot of new cars are coming equipped with larger alternators so there is a little more wiggle room. Here at DD we don\u2019t recommend running any sub amp over 1000 watts without some sort of electrical upgrade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, back to Darrell\u2019s question. How can he fix his light dim? The correct solution would be to upgrade his alternator to compensate for the additional power draw of the M1d, but since we\u2019re not made of stone and we\u2019re not trying to make Darrell spend extra money on a solution that can be solved more economically, we can say that adding a back-up battery in the back of his vehicle will be perfectly fine in this instance. This is an instance where a good old fashion AGM battery will work great. Darrell will want to add about 60 aH worth of battery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"DD<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The easiest rule of thumb to follow with electrical upgrades is that for every 2000 watts of RMS power you add, you\u2019ll want to add 100aH (amp hours) of AGM battery. There\u2019s lots of different ways to build an AGM battery so try and stick with batteries that are built for car audio purposes. Purpose built car audio batteries are designed to deliver lots of power very quickly. Some other batteries like medical, solar power, or marine batteries aren\u2019t concerned with how quickly they can deliver power and are instead more concerned with simply storing as much power as possible, which can inflate their aH rating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now when we consider larger systems, systems above a couple thousand watts, that\u2019s where we can start to look at Lithium batteries. Lithium for car audio purposes is fairly expensive. However, it can be much cheaper in the long run if you\u2019re running enough power. The weight and space savings can be tremendous as well. If you\u2019re considering a system that is over 3000 watts of continuous power, you\u2019ll want to look at lithium for sure. Just as with AGM batteries, there is an easy rule of thumb that we use here at DD that can be helpful. For every 1000 watts of RMS power that your amplifier can produce, you\u2019ll want to add 10 aH of lithium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If Darrell\u2019s build has an extra battery, he will be just fine. However, in instances where we\u2019re considering more than 3000 watts, a new alternator needs to be a serious consideration. When shopping for a new alternator, or multiple alternators, it\u2019s important to talk with your installer or alternator manufacturer to make sure that the alte\/s you buy will meet the needs of your system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Electrical system upgrades for small systems can be as easy as using the right gauge wiring and adding a support battery where necessary. If you\u2019re planning on a monster set-up though there\u2019s lots of different facets that need to be considered. During theses considerations, large or small, make sure that you keep in touch with your installer to make sure that you\u2019re adding enough to support the equipment you want to use. Remember, when it comes to electrical upgrades, there\u2019s no such thing as overkill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tech Talk | WRITTEN BY AARON TRIMBLE | December 2018 Whether you have the Power of Greyskull of not\u2026 your car certainly doesn\u2019t. Most cars aren\u2019t equipped to add on any extra amps, lighting upgrades, winches or any of the fancy do-da\u2019s in the \u201cAccessory Aisle\u201d of your local automotive […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tech-talk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hifihq.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hifihq.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hifihq.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hifihq.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hifihq.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2159"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/hifihq.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2166,"href":"https:\/\/hifihq.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2159\/revisions\/2166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hifihq.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hifihq.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hifihq.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}