Boy racers

Correct, if it was a single ended output stage, you would not get the high power that you can from above versions.

Dave

LOL!

They already exist outside of the car world of course.

Chris

The message from "David Taylor" contains these words:

Oops! Sounds like something Hotblack Desiato would need.

The message from Chris Whelan contains these words:

Ah, yes, rotary converters. Fun toys.

Used to work for a company that imported and distributed this stuff, and also would do set-ups. Got chatting to their engineer and, of course, if you have say a 400 watt amp then you do need something special to power it all - things like more powerful generators, wiring to take the load (and fuses to go with it of course!) devices to stop you flattening the battery (which would not take long!) etc etc etc.

This power does come at a price - not to mention broken eardrums (pressure), cars falling to bits (wall-of-Jericho syndrome and all of that!)

Define elderly - My current car has all of 45A from the spinny bit. Might even be 40, I can't remember exactly which Lucas model is fitted right now. And I only recently stopped using a car with a good old dynamo thingy! That was quite scary, had an ammeter, which you could see dive into the oh dear markings ticking over at night.

Of course, the current car's only bow to luxury is an autostop tape deck with 3 band radio, so it just about copes powering that beast of a system ;)

All of those bits they would sell to you at a good price no doubt. If it's raining and there's a GP on I have been known to sit in the car and watch TV for a couple of hours at a show and have yet to have a single problems with running the battery down due to it.

No offense meant johannes, wasnt aiming directly at you .... regarding smoothing capacitors you obviously have circuit building experience however I think these days few build their own amps anymore, that kinda died out with the advent of cheap mass produced mosfet amps (at least not for cars -its more the domain of djs still) and consequently the 1F is treated more like a flashy addon for those that have the cash to splash but when asked, they rely on basic schoolboy electronic theory of charge storing to justify their purchases, when cornered usually admit that they notice no difference in the sound delivery and their lights still dim. Googling for combinations of "1Farad", car, amplifier, audio, etc will soon enough bring up some of the debates but the expert opinion seems to be the internal resistance of these 'small' units are too high to be of any use, but still people fit them because their mates have and its only 40 quid. Ahh the youth of today and their disposable income :-)

Now if we talk about say a collection of 15F c.a.p.s, delivering a big punch for a single tone over a few seconds in SPL competitions then that's a different matter. :-D

Ad

I know nuffink about amps but my 5 series has two. Fitted by the previous owner. One for the uprated std car speakers and one driving a 1000w bass speaker in the boot. I notice the very thick extra cable powering them, (about as thick as a starter cable) has like a clear shiny yellow perspex connector right next to the battery. About 75mm long, 25mm diameter at the centre tapering down to about 16mm both ends where the cables go in. Looks quite impressive and expensive. Would this be a capacitor of the type you're referring to? Mike.

The message from "Stuffed" contains these words:

OK, I've just checked and my 11 year old Montego's got a 65A one. Ah well.

That sounds more like one of these:-

Cheers,

Colin.

I'd hope it's actually one of these: DR84F a fuse holder.

Hopefully it's a fuse.

It's definitely not a terminal block. In effect, the thick amplifiers feed cable is cut about 50mm from the battery terminal, and this component is fitted between the two ends. A heavy duty in-line fuse maybe? The whole ICE system looks complicated to my untrained eye. Not something I'd fit myself, but it was there when I baught the car. I must admit, it does sound better than any car radio I've had in the past. Mike.

I must admit, it

Does that mean its loud.....

Dave

Only if I turn the volume up. Then it can thump and BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! with the best of them. :-) At normal levels it just has a nice clear sound quality. Mike.

Ah yes, you never know - they could have done the job right ;o)

Cheers,

Colin.

And even a 1200W RMS won't take it for more than a aplit second cos the crappy cabling they use will probably melt and, mercifully, set fire to the whole contraption.

(I've got one of these tossers lives near me and likes to entertain the street at 3am with it. Think I'll be going on a doorkey glueing excercise again....)

I don't know what my 16 year old Metro's got, I think it's maybe around 55A (it's got leccy windows and central locking, so probably a slightly more powerful alternator than the base models).

I think I'm stuck in a bit of a twilight zone though, I'd consider a 1994 car to be positively new!