Low power draw, yet big dimming and dead batteries.
Ok...so basically i want to know if i put a Yellow top or Red top Optima battery in my car, will my problems be solved?
So i have aftermarket subs (2 10'') and an amp pulling about 500rms.
I don't believe this is a big draw even on the stock battery, alternator, wiring etc.
Yet i am still getting a lot of dimming with my lights and my battery keeps getting drained.
I am sure my battery is shit, it reads fine on a test meter but could have dead cells.
Things that may up the power draw that i have are;
Aftermarket alarm system
Remote start system
The stock kicker sub
So based on others that have a similar set-up, should i be getting that light dimming problem? And would an Optima battery solve the problem?
Make sure you're bass boost on your amplifier is turned all the way down. For every 3db of bass boost you use it doubles the current draw. If problem persists follow the recommendations of the above posts.
Ok guys....so I did the big three upgrade today, and i bought a new Yellow Top Optima battery. Feeling kinda drained tho as these mods don't seem to have made any difference to the light dimming/vacuum drop problems.
I'm not too choked about spending the time and money because i'm sure it will help the electrical system in my car......buuutt i still need to get my subs running well.
The only two things i can think of that would help now are to upgrade the power/ground to my amp, and to swap my amp for a class D.
I am only running 8 gauge wiring for power/ground to my amp at the mo.....but then again i am only pulling 500rms from my amp. So technically that should be enough.
As for my amp, it is a 2 channel Kenwood KAC-7204.
Just looking for opinions....any reason i haven't seen any difference after doing the upgrades etc?
Hmm. Well. You could upgrade you wires but it would just cause more drain. I would make sure all the ground connections are good, and have a clean connection with the chassis. Get rid of all the paint and make sure it is nice and snug. It may be possible you have an alternator going bad. You shouldn't be having dimming trouble after the yellow top and Big 3 if everything was done correctly, especially with that amp.
Yeah, i already checked my grounds and they are good....and i can't really see it being the alternator going bad because i don't have any problems at all, unless i run my bass.
Ummmm....does grounding the head-unit directly make much difference? i currently have it grounded through the wiring harness.
How does upgrading my wiring create more of a drain? It would be less resistance. Surely it would create less of a drain?
Im thinking of doing 2 batterys trunk mounted, how would i wire this up, and will this help the dimming? I allready did the big 3.
Post your own thread or search. There's at least 2 multi page threads on this.
Quote: Originally Posted by dwnrodeo
You need at least 4 gauge wire for your amp if you're pulling 500 watts. Upgrade your wires!
Not necessarily. Altough what I said in my last post was untrue, dunno where that came from, you never really *need* to upgrade your wires. Sure doesn't hurt though if you have access to new wires. If you don't, knukonceptz.com is the place to shop.
Thanks for the link, its kinda what i figured....8 gauge should be enough but its borderline. So ill probs upgrade to 4 anyway. Man all i want to do is have my subs running at least semi-well without causing harm to my car.
Also, i swapped my amp temporarily with my brothers class D amp and i still had the dimming/vacuum drops problem......so i can't see it being worth swapping my amp.
Maybe it is the alternator?? That would suck, my car only has 30,000kms on it tho.
How does upgrading my wiring create more of a drain? It would be less resistance. Surely it would create less of a drain?
You are correct. Less losses in the transmission of power. If the amp uses a regulated power supply, it will actually draw less current with the larger wire because the voltage won't drop between the power source and the amp.
To address your problem, I'd figure out why you think that you need the bass boost. A larger amp is a better solution. Chances are that the boost is driving the amp into clipping which will really increase the current that it draws.
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Hmm...never thought about that actually. Well the amp is 2 ch, rated at 250rms x 2 @ 2ohm. 500rms x1 @ 4ohm briged. I have two 10'' PG Octane R subs....pulling 250rms each i think. I just bought it...figured it would be well suited for the subs.
But that theory would make sense because i temp swapped the amp with my brother class D 300rms amp to see what happened, and the amp started to clip.
Damn....im honestly thinking about giving up on the situation
The reason your lights dim when the bass hits is that the PCM controls the alternator output, and has a built-in lag between the time the voltage decreases and it then increases the alternator output. You could run 4/0 for wiring and this problem will still be there. The only way to get rid of this is to wire in an external voltage regulator directly to the alternator, thus bypassing the PCM control entirely.
To my knowledge, there's been hundreds of posts on this subject, but no one has stepped up and tried it. I've also heard talk of being able to increase the voltage setpoints in the factory PCM with a SCT programmer setup, but that still won't do anything for the lag between the voltage drop and the PCM response.
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Low power draw, yet big dimming and dead batteries.
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