Just blew a 30AMP blade fuse on the wire from my Battery to the
4x104Watt RMS amp... though I only have essentially 200 Watt RMS around the car in speakers with about 240 Watt peak in the front and roughly the same in the back...Rather annoyed though that the blade fuse actually melted rather than blowing and breaking. So, false sense of security.
I've just fitted a new fuse and I was reminded to get the voltmeter out and test the battery power.
With the engine off, I have 12.2 Volt at the battery. With the engine on, Im getting 14.4 volt. If I use the amp conservatively, I still get about 14 volt. But when I switch basically everything on and turn the stereo up load, I find there's about 12 volt, maybe even 11.9 volt at the battery. Perhaps that's the problem.
Now... I've heard of capacitors, batterys, and alternators, I don't know what I should be looking for. But my own opinion, capacitors are a waste of money bass hits don't really affect me, and with modern music compressed the way it is, I can't understand how there can be enough dynamic range in music in order to give the capacitor something to work with. Anyhow, I think my problem is more fundamental.
The second thing is the battery... but Im not sure what a bigger battery would do? Surely all a battery does, is provide reserve when the alternator can't cope, while also providing reserves for starting the engine or providing power when the engine is off... so I would tend to think it's the alternator, although, when the car is driven normally, and revved, I do get more voltage at the battery for me to be happy. So maybe it's a car problem in not controlling the revs to provide the extra power? I thought my car was supposed to do this??
But people do keep mentioning replacing the battery. I don't understand why. If I had a bigger battery, i still probably wouldn't be getting enough charge from the alternator???
As for the alternator, I'd like not to think of getting and fitting one of these.
Any opinions?
Thanks Simon