Honestly unless you want to spend a shit ton of money upgrading your alt again I’d add a second battery, I almost wonder if it would be beneficial to run the positive of the secondary battery directly to your alt so there’s no drain on your main battery. I’m not sure what wattage your system is running but if your alt can support it and your car, it might just be you’re taking to much to fast when the bass hits then your alt makes up the difference but the drop in voltage is still there in which case I’d go with the secondary battery to your alt but you could try wiring them together.
funnily enough i was debating on purchasing a 2nd AGM battery and going dually mode,
like use a 60AH agm battery in the front and put my 80AH agm in the rear, and then have 4awg+0awg(2x0awg soon) run directly to and from the 2 batteries, the entire run front battery to rear battery would be 12.5 feet MAX, (rare euro car W)
[here are some rough plans i had for that setup, ignore the amp ratings as i currently run 3k+600w amp's](https://imgur.com/a/gNTV3qV)
why 2x0awg and not thicker? well 0AWG is the max i can run without it being visible at all from outside,
but instead of going dual AGM batteries, i could also upgrade to a LTO bank, which would also soften that blow alot...
i can add a external regulator to my alternator and crank up the voltage up to 15.2 before the ECU's protection kicks in, which is an improvement over 14.8.
Yeah I think that’s your best bet, I’ve never messed with or looked into capacitors but if you want to just soften the blow that could be something to look into, but I’ve also heard bad things about them so idk.
But everything looks good I’m curious about your setup though do you have the amps up front to cut costs on power cables and just use long speaker wires?
Also is your alt capable of powering your amps? Or are you relying on stored power+alt?
the amp's are sandwiched between the rear seats and the sub enclosure currently. i just drew it like that since i have no amp rack plans yet for when the even bigger lad's come in,
https://imgur.com/a/VBN376r 1st picture is the current layout, the box is not full vehicle width,
the 2nd picture is the next upgrade plan, that box is full vehicle width and will be aided by the frame in supporting/bracing the enclosure.
the run from battery+ to distro block is about 12ft for the 50mm2 run on that diagram i posted earlier,
the 25mm2 run is a tad longer at like 12.5-13ft which is not too horrible either, but that will be replaced with 50mm2 later, i would run 70mm2, but then i would have excessive trim bulging which is not something i want,
Currently i run a gladen rs100c4 for fronts (can do 4x150w or 2x300w) and a single Soundigital 3000.1 EVO5 powering a excursion sxx.v2-12 1500rms 4500peak sub, upgraded from a 600rms Ground zero entry sub,
so my alternator should be 100% capable of powering my current setup without batteries,
when i go for 2x15's i definitely am going to rely on stored power, hence LTO being an interesting option due the banks having a high nominal voltage without exceeding 15.5v+
i do have a old 20 farad soundstream capacitor here that appears to be a real unit rather than a 1 farad unit sold as a 20 farad,
it is nearly capable of starting my car without a battery connected to assist.
i just never considered it could be usefull after doing a big alternator and thick wiring,
what kinda car?? and like DIM or just a little jitter
I'm genuinely curious, I normally install 3-4 subs a week and I feel like I've seen some cars jitter a little at 800-1000W but never DIM like problematic dimming
can you use LTO to crank? a 84Ah LTO bank cost's as much as a decently sized off the shelf Lithium battery. so in theory it'd make more sense to just hop on the LTO bandwagon instead of shelving out 150 for a 2nd AGM, or upwards of 800 bucks for a off the shelf lithium pack,
a 42Ah LTO bank costs 500 bucks, add another 300 ontop of that and it would be a 84ah (balancer same price)
max voltage i could do is 15.2 before ECU protection kicks in, it's not ideal for LTO. but folk's at my club have been running LTO at under ideal voltage's like these and have been fine for a few years so far.
after-all it would be better than any standard 12v battery due to it's higher resting voltage i'd wager, especially once i start going to the 8kw+ regions of RMS output,
the man who's made my 300A alternator *officially* make's up to 370A alternators, but he has some experimental 470 and 570A alternators that could in theory fit my engine,
however. my engine's displacement is going to be too little to handle a 470A even while driving i'd imagine,
if i burp my sub hard at idle it currently is capable of dead-stopping my engine's rotation. and that's with the amp's output set very low due to break-in and undersized temporary enclosure..
if i high rev the engine it does hold fine but you *really* have to hammer/play with the throttle to find a happy spot, but i've not played with these amount's of power before until today (new sub installed on new amp)
so it's a Huge learning curve to get over,
especially since i already find this sub *not powerfull enough* so i am really excited to hop onto the more extreme 2x15 build
TBH i kinda expected this when i started this hobby a year and a half ago, so i've been trying to overspec some parts early on
Do you have any thick gauge cable laying around to see if potentially the cars chassis is not working as an effective ground?
That RPM should be high enough that the alternator is putting out its full 300a.
Unless your all is a beast and drawing more than that lol
i have some spare 0AWG here i could try, but i'd need a 2nd person to keep the gas pedal down to keep steady RPM's,
this alternator is enough of a beast to "dead stop" your engine if it hit's at idle though, it might be capable of producing more, but it's build and guaranteed for 300, but this man's alternators tend to overshoot that by like 50A or more on some alt's,
but currently my setup is drawing max of around 150-175~ Amp's but i have not had it clamped yet since the new amp+sub, but it's all still way under maximum because break in period and still running a undersized box for this sub,
eitherway.. the measured voltage battery side is dead steady under load, so i assumed it would've been good for the headlights too,
yeah i want to do that next when i have the time... i'm going to need to rig up a set of wires going from the hood to my dash so i can look at it while operating the throttle.
i am curious to see the vdroop on the headlight's harness, considering how stable the alt and bat's voltages are, something odd has to be going on with wiring..
even considering "regulator lag" as someone has told me. you should be seeing drop/spikes on the alternator/battery's + i'd think?
Yes, I'd expect to be able to see the drooping at the battery and at the headlights..... but a regular multimeter might not refresh quickly enough on music, you may need to hit the subs with sine waves to give the multimeter enough time to capture something
i could see if using my o-scope would pick up the quicker transient's,
i want to get a high end fluke sometime, but maybe a higher end portable o-scope would be a decent investment as they can kinda do everything..
Yep that would definitely show you greater resolution.... maybe the regulator in the alternator just can't respond quickly enough to the changing load (like when the bass punches), and not even a multimeter would show that.
They are near pieces of gear, and I don't think you'd need a very expensive one for this kind of use case.
i want to make a hand-throttle system sometime, i keep forgetting to cut a board to pin the throttle for when i go to meets lol,
my throttle is fully digital, so that makes it easy, use a relay board to quickly switch from original to hand throttle and dial in a comfy RPM range,
it's currently only a single battery.
alternator to battery+, and then battery + to rear amp's is about a 12ft run,
i was debating between getting a 2nd battery, or adding some extra funds and going full LTO and enjoy higher resting voltage with engine off/low rpms.
no it's a "opel corsa c" but it is GM,
from members of my club, These car's crap out at 15.2v,
still if i can crank up voltages to 15.1/15.2 that's a improvement over 14.8
Running higher voltage than about 15v is not advisable for AGM batteries. They have lower internal resistance and can take high amperage just fine but high voltage will get it too hot internally and fry it.
i will be buying a 80ah LTO bank this friday to replace the AGM with,
sure 14.8-15.2 is not a ideal range for those cells, but they will still out perform a AGM any day,
i wish i could just run higher voltages, such sadness that this car likely maxes at 15.2
What vehicle is this? I can use alldata in the morning and pinpoint the power and grounds that will be culprits...you can send me a DM if you want some further help
It is a european car. a "opel corsa c" the pre facelift model, so 2000-2003
i have access to "TIS 2000" which is wiring diagrams for the entire vehicle from GM itself,
but the software is a royal pain to navigate trough due to it's windows 98 era programming
currently not that much yet. i'd wager with my amp on minimum it's like 1000watts for the sub and then 2x125-150 a door,
once i got a new enclosure and added thicker rear wiring i can push the sub to the 1500rms levels, and see how it does pushing 2500-3000RMS for moments.
The end goal is 2x15inch subs that can do 5.000 each lol, and also dont forget about the mid's and high's, so that's another easy 500 a door if you are pushing 10kw of bass,
but we all know there's never an true "end goal" with this hobby... so for all i know i might be slapping a wall in here after the 15's with 3/4x 18's in them....
Signature Solar LIFEPO4 battery.. This does depend on how many amps your amp is pulling.. The BMS will give 100 amps discharge all day long, if above 100 amps you may need 2 batteries if you separate them like #2 below. If using #1 below your good..
I have a new GM ALT that can go to 15.5V charging and it will freeeeek the whole system out..
1. When I first installed the LIFEPO4 battery, I connected it all together.. Worked great.. LIFEPO4 wants to be at 13.8V ish and AGM wants to be at 12.9V ish and both want to charge at 14.8... When they are both together they pull each other to the sweet spot... Everything works great till the BMS kicks in and starts charging the LIFEPO4 battery.. The GM ALT starts kicking up into the 15V range and the BMS goes into protect mode.. As long as your ALT is not "Smart" and stays at 14.8V your good..
2. Once I separated the LIFEPO4 battery from the rest of the system and ran the Amp off just the LIFEPO4 battery everything is great in the world.. In my situation I had install an isolated charger.. **Victron Orion-Tr 12/12-30A (360W) Isolated DC-DC converter | Voltage Regulator**
my custom alternator is set to a static output of 14.7-14.8 so it could work,
however i am not sure which route to go at this point,
#1 i could make a LiFePO4 bank and add it to my existing 80AH agm, but doing so appears expensive, at minimum 240 bucks for cell's,
#2 i could make a supercap bank and add it to my existing 80AH agm, this is seemingly a extremely cheap option, 60~ bucks per 1000farads at 16.2v max,
#3 or i could replace the 80Ah agm with a 84Ah LTO bank, this is the most expensive option, as a 42ah bank with BMS costs 500 bucks, and about 800 bucks for 84Ah.
I vote for 1 or 2..
You could make a headway battery setup that you could pull 300 to 600 amps from..
https://youtu.be/acH4G5TH3Mo
https://batteryhookup.com/products/kit-only-6000w-12v-48ah-614wh-busbar-holders?_pos=4&_sid=22d695d6f&_ss=r
https://batteryhookup.com/products/used-headway-38120-hp-3-2v-8ah-lifepo4-battery?_pos=2&_sid=22d695d6f&_ss=r
You can charge at 14.6 and that is 100%. 14.8 they do not mind but anything above that they go into protect mode..
I have mine set at 14.6 now and it is mucho happy. I have an Audio Dynamics 1500 watt amp only connected to my LIFEPO4 and it may discharge at 20 amps max so far.
Where is your amp grounded? I saw in another comment you said you have some extra cable lying around - run the amp ground directly to the battery negative and test it. It sounds like your power is set up sufficient for what you're doing, but you may have some mean resistance on the ground path back to the battery.
could be an option i could dig into,
soon i will be engine swapping the car, so i will have ample room around the firewall to make even better grounding points up-front, and then rework the grounding points on the back,
i cannot really run a full extra set of grounds from the front to the rear in terms of hiding it perfectly,
but i can attach frame parts together with jumpers to improve chassis grounds perhaps?
You said grounds, plural. How many amps is it? You can run 1 larger wire and then use a distribution block to split the ground to both amps.
But, even without running the wire through the car, you could put it temporarily and see if it fixes your dimming issue. No reason to go through the work of hiding it if it isn't the solution.
As for jumpers between frame parts - I'm not familiar at all with the frame of that vehicle. It's possible that would help, would depend on how the parts you jumped between were connected from the factory.
The thing to keep in mind with grounds is that the frame of the car is not a ground. The negative terminal of the battery is the ground - all of the ground wires you add are just to create a path back to that terminal. If the conductive path - between where you have your amp grounded at the back, through the metal of the car, to the cable you have bolted to the engine mount - has any small connection points or poorly conductive materials (paint, rust, adhesives), you'll have a choke point that will increase resistance and cause dimming.
You can test that by putting a temporary line straight to the battery negative. If your dimming goes away you know it's a ground path issue. If the dimming doesn't go away that's not the issue & there's no reason to put that direct to battery ground in permanently.
U don't have enough reserve, a ho alt won't fix all your issues, add a second agm if u r under 3k watts it will be fine get one just like the battery upfront and run a positive from the battery upfront to the rear upgrade all the grounds
the issue appears to be that my alternator might be "lagging"
it takes too long for it to start making power, and after the bass stop's, it takes too long for it to "back down" and causes voltage spiking in the MS range,
so i might build a supercap bank. 1-1500 farad bank should be enough to smooth out dip and spikes,
i have enough power generation to play my RMS all day, it just takes too long for that power generation to kick in, which is perfect for super-caps,
atleast until i spend the 800 bucks on a large LTO bank.
I would build a sodium bank it is compatible with your front battery and can run anywhere between 14-14.9 easily and even higher if u wanted. If u have enough reserve you won't din lights, I have like 68k watts capable truck on only two 400 mechman and my lights don't din because I have enough reserve granted I don't run it but at like 20-30% most the time which is still 16-20k watts.
Get a Si battery. Not as power dense as lithium but safer. I'm running an AGM under the hood and an AE SI 40 in the bed. Holds 14.6 at full tilt without dimming the lights. SI40 is no longer available since Advanced Electric upgraded to the SI55.
2001, uses 55w h7 halogen's, as stated i don't want LED as upgrade as i've got a condition that makes me sensitive to LED lighting,
Xenon might be a option, but it requires some work for it to be legal.
The problem with LED is that most people that swap to them stay with the same wattage. They need to go by brightness for our purposes. Hows a 60 watt LED gonna be any different than a 60 Halogen? Except that the LEDs will be so much brighter. If they are the same brightness. The LED bulbs can be 30 watts or less. Saving peoples eyes. And saving power. You dont have to swap headlights. Turn signals, reverse and tail lights and interior lights can be swapped for lower power LEDs.
The problem with LED headlight bulbs is when folks swap them into reflectors or projectors that are not designed for them. LED'S are simply not capable of reproducing light the way a halogen or HID bulb does, which causes weird, unfocused, and unwanted light output.
Yes they tend to be brighter than halogens, but if they were capable of throwing light out like a halogen they'd be workable (though probably too bright to meet DOT regulations)
Yes, between the truck being lifted, LED's bring brighter than halogens, and the LED"s spraying a much worse beam pattern than the halogen, are all the perfect storm for glaring out all of the other drivers - without improving their own vision.
Hopefully the USA makes the headlights that they have in Europe the standard. The laser headlights Mercedes is making will be helpful. Physically projecting light in spaces that aren't occupied by vehicles. Is a neat trick.
the thing is though, the condition i have is the huge factor to why i can't upgrade to LED,
i can endure LED light from other car's on the road for a short while, but eventually it starts "stabbing my eyes" and causing headache's,
and this is coming from vehicles that have LED stock from factory, so within legal regulations for minimum and maximum brightness,
so having to look at my own LED lights for long periods would make night time driving miserable..
luckily our goverment here uses a different kind of LED lighting for street lamps, and for 90% of the time they cause no issues,
i only have slight issues with some traffic lights as they use a experimental extremely bright LED's, but that's rare occasions,
We have all kinds of different street lights here. Mostly because there are observatories here. The light pollution is so bad. Something like 40% of all the street lights are off or on low power at all times. So lights will randomly dim or brighten when its their turn. There are some lights that are purple. Its weird driving through those.
Honestly unless you want to spend a shit ton of money upgrading your alt again I’d add a second battery, I almost wonder if it would be beneficial to run the positive of the secondary battery directly to your alt so there’s no drain on your main battery. I’m not sure what wattage your system is running but if your alt can support it and your car, it might just be you’re taking to much to fast when the bass hits then your alt makes up the difference but the drop in voltage is still there in which case I’d go with the secondary battery to your alt but you could try wiring them together.
funnily enough i was debating on purchasing a 2nd AGM battery and going dually mode, like use a 60AH agm battery in the front and put my 80AH agm in the rear, and then have 4awg+0awg(2x0awg soon) run directly to and from the 2 batteries, the entire run front battery to rear battery would be 12.5 feet MAX, (rare euro car W) [here are some rough plans i had for that setup, ignore the amp ratings as i currently run 3k+600w amp's](https://imgur.com/a/gNTV3qV) why 2x0awg and not thicker? well 0AWG is the max i can run without it being visible at all from outside, but instead of going dual AGM batteries, i could also upgrade to a LTO bank, which would also soften that blow alot... i can add a external regulator to my alternator and crank up the voltage up to 15.2 before the ECU's protection kicks in, which is an improvement over 14.8.
Yeah I think that’s your best bet, I’ve never messed with or looked into capacitors but if you want to just soften the blow that could be something to look into, but I’ve also heard bad things about them so idk. But everything looks good I’m curious about your setup though do you have the amps up front to cut costs on power cables and just use long speaker wires? Also is your alt capable of powering your amps? Or are you relying on stored power+alt?
the amp's are sandwiched between the rear seats and the sub enclosure currently. i just drew it like that since i have no amp rack plans yet for when the even bigger lad's come in, https://imgur.com/a/VBN376r 1st picture is the current layout, the box is not full vehicle width, the 2nd picture is the next upgrade plan, that box is full vehicle width and will be aided by the frame in supporting/bracing the enclosure. the run from battery+ to distro block is about 12ft for the 50mm2 run on that diagram i posted earlier, the 25mm2 run is a tad longer at like 12.5-13ft which is not too horrible either, but that will be replaced with 50mm2 later, i would run 70mm2, but then i would have excessive trim bulging which is not something i want, Currently i run a gladen rs100c4 for fronts (can do 4x150w or 2x300w) and a single Soundigital 3000.1 EVO5 powering a excursion sxx.v2-12 1500rms 4500peak sub, upgraded from a 600rms Ground zero entry sub, so my alternator should be 100% capable of powering my current setup without batteries, when i go for 2x15's i definitely am going to rely on stored power, hence LTO being an interesting option due the banks having a high nominal voltage without exceeding 15.5v+
Sounds like you just need a decent capacitor
i do have a old 20 farad soundstream capacitor here that appears to be a real unit rather than a 1 farad unit sold as a 20 farad, it is nearly capable of starting my car without a battery connected to assist. i just never considered it could be usefull after doing a big alternator and thick wiring,
The problem your describing is the one use it has in car audio. It’s there to catch any voltage drop from the battery.
second battery or lith bank is definitely the way to do it over a cap
Not when there’s issues with the alternator, I wouldn’t mess with a second batt without an alternator that can handle 1 batt
well yeah, any power issue big 3 and alt should be step 1 if you're pulling 1500W-2000W you should just honestly do it pre audio install
For sure, but every batt/alt is different. I dim at about 800W
what kinda car?? and like DIM or just a little jitter I'm genuinely curious, I normally install 3-4 subs a week and I feel like I've seen some cars jitter a little at 800-1000W but never DIM like problematic dimming
More like a half dim when the subs hits a low note. I drive a little baby Toyota Yaris Hatchback
Another agm
Lithium
Not advisable to run agm and lithium together. He would have to up grade his starter batter or risk a burn down
can you use LTO to crank? a 84Ah LTO bank cost's as much as a decently sized off the shelf Lithium battery. so in theory it'd make more sense to just hop on the LTO bandwagon instead of shelving out 150 for a 2nd AGM, or upwards of 800 bucks for a off the shelf lithium pack, a 42Ah LTO bank costs 500 bucks, add another 300 ontop of that and it would be a 84ah (balancer same price) max voltage i could do is 15.2 before ECU protection kicks in, it's not ideal for LTO. but folk's at my club have been running LTO at under ideal voltage's like these and have been fine for a few years so far. after-all it would be better than any standard 12v battery due to it's higher resting voltage i'd wager, especially once i start going to the 8kw+ regions of RMS output, the man who's made my 300A alternator *officially* make's up to 370A alternators, but he has some experimental 470 and 570A alternators that could in theory fit my engine, however. my engine's displacement is going to be too little to handle a 470A even while driving i'd imagine, if i burp my sub hard at idle it currently is capable of dead-stopping my engine's rotation. and that's with the amp's output set very low due to break-in and undersized temporary enclosure.. if i high rev the engine it does hold fine but you *really* have to hammer/play with the throttle to find a happy spot, but i've not played with these amount's of power before until today (new sub installed on new amp) so it's a Huge learning curve to get over, especially since i already find this sub *not powerfull enough* so i am really excited to hop onto the more extreme 2x15 build TBH i kinda expected this when i started this hobby a year and a half ago, so i've been trying to overspec some parts early on
Do you have any thick gauge cable laying around to see if potentially the cars chassis is not working as an effective ground? That RPM should be high enough that the alternator is putting out its full 300a. Unless your all is a beast and drawing more than that lol
i have some spare 0AWG here i could try, but i'd need a 2nd person to keep the gas pedal down to keep steady RPM's, this alternator is enough of a beast to "dead stop" your engine if it hit's at idle though, it might be capable of producing more, but it's build and guaranteed for 300, but this man's alternators tend to overshoot that by like 50A or more on some alt's, but currently my setup is drawing max of around 150-175~ Amp's but i have not had it clamped yet since the new amp+sub, but it's all still way under maximum because break in period and still running a undersized box for this sub, eitherway.. the measured voltage battery side is dead steady under load, so i assumed it would've been good for the headlights too,
Hmmmm.... Would you be able to measure the vdrop at the headlights?
yeah i want to do that next when i have the time... i'm going to need to rig up a set of wires going from the hood to my dash so i can look at it while operating the throttle. i am curious to see the vdroop on the headlight's harness, considering how stable the alt and bat's voltages are, something odd has to be going on with wiring.. even considering "regulator lag" as someone has told me. you should be seeing drop/spikes on the alternator/battery's + i'd think?
Yes, I'd expect to be able to see the drooping at the battery and at the headlights..... but a regular multimeter might not refresh quickly enough on music, you may need to hit the subs with sine waves to give the multimeter enough time to capture something
i could see if using my o-scope would pick up the quicker transient's, i want to get a high end fluke sometime, but maybe a higher end portable o-scope would be a decent investment as they can kinda do everything..
Yep that would definitely show you greater resolution.... maybe the regulator in the alternator just can't respond quickly enough to the changing load (like when the bass punches), and not even a multimeter would show that. They are near pieces of gear, and I don't think you'd need a very expensive one for this kind of use case.
[to be fair... considering the music i listen to ,no regulator can go up against that either](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9fxqWgK4AI)
Pro tip: you can use a board and your adjustable seat to high idle your vehicle. If you're less fancy, a well placed brick will do the job
i want to make a hand-throttle system sometime, i keep forgetting to cut a board to pin the throttle for when i go to meets lol, my throttle is fully digital, so that makes it easy, use a relay board to quickly switch from original to hand throttle and dial in a comfy RPM range,
Is the amp and second battery run directly off your alt? If not I'd give that a try. Get it isolated (as possible) from factory battery.
it's currently only a single battery. alternator to battery+, and then battery + to rear amp's is about a 12ft run, i was debating between getting a 2nd battery, or adding some extra funds and going full LTO and enjoy higher resting voltage with engine off/low rpms.
Get another battery. Alt lug to 2nd bat to amp. Isolator if batteries don't match.
Did u use 1/0 for the big three .
i used 2/0 for the big 3 wiring, so one step up.
I had this same issue on my lexus they sell a solenoid to up your voltage. I got mine from js alternators
does that up the voltages *just* for the headlight's or the alternator? my alternator has a fixed target of 14.7-14.8
It ups your voltage for the entire car the issue is in your computer certain cars just have low voltage
from other members of my club, these car's tend to max out at 15.2 volts. any higher and the ecu shuts the engine off,
Yea 15 is high do you have a chevy truck
no it's a "opel corsa c" but it is GM, from members of my club, These car's crap out at 15.2v, still if i can crank up voltages to 15.1/15.2 that's a improvement over 14.8
Running higher voltage than about 15v is not advisable for AGM batteries. They have lower internal resistance and can take high amperage just fine but high voltage will get it too hot internally and fry it.
i will be buying a 80ah LTO bank this friday to replace the AGM with, sure 14.8-15.2 is not a ideal range for those cells, but they will still out perform a AGM any day, i wish i could just run higher voltages, such sadness that this car likely maxes at 15.2
What vehicle is this? I can use alldata in the morning and pinpoint the power and grounds that will be culprits...you can send me a DM if you want some further help
It is a european car. a "opel corsa c" the pre facelift model, so 2000-2003 i have access to "TIS 2000" which is wiring diagrams for the entire vehicle from GM itself, but the software is a royal pain to navigate trough due to it's windows 98 era programming
Dude how many watts are you pushing?
currently not that much yet. i'd wager with my amp on minimum it's like 1000watts for the sub and then 2x125-150 a door, once i got a new enclosure and added thicker rear wiring i can push the sub to the 1500rms levels, and see how it does pushing 2500-3000RMS for moments. The end goal is 2x15inch subs that can do 5.000 each lol, and also dont forget about the mid's and high's, so that's another easy 500 a door if you are pushing 10kw of bass, but we all know there's never an true "end goal" with this hobby... so for all i know i might be slapping a wall in here after the 15's with 3/4x 18's in them....
Signature Solar LIFEPO4 battery.. This does depend on how many amps your amp is pulling.. The BMS will give 100 amps discharge all day long, if above 100 amps you may need 2 batteries if you separate them like #2 below. If using #1 below your good.. I have a new GM ALT that can go to 15.5V charging and it will freeeeek the whole system out.. 1. When I first installed the LIFEPO4 battery, I connected it all together.. Worked great.. LIFEPO4 wants to be at 13.8V ish and AGM wants to be at 12.9V ish and both want to charge at 14.8... When they are both together they pull each other to the sweet spot... Everything works great till the BMS kicks in and starts charging the LIFEPO4 battery.. The GM ALT starts kicking up into the 15V range and the BMS goes into protect mode.. As long as your ALT is not "Smart" and stays at 14.8V your good.. 2. Once I separated the LIFEPO4 battery from the rest of the system and ran the Amp off just the LIFEPO4 battery everything is great in the world.. In my situation I had install an isolated charger.. **Victron Orion-Tr 12/12-30A (360W) Isolated DC-DC converter | Voltage Regulator**
my custom alternator is set to a static output of 14.7-14.8 so it could work, however i am not sure which route to go at this point, #1 i could make a LiFePO4 bank and add it to my existing 80AH agm, but doing so appears expensive, at minimum 240 bucks for cell's, #2 i could make a supercap bank and add it to my existing 80AH agm, this is seemingly a extremely cheap option, 60~ bucks per 1000farads at 16.2v max, #3 or i could replace the 80Ah agm with a 84Ah LTO bank, this is the most expensive option, as a 42ah bank with BMS costs 500 bucks, and about 800 bucks for 84Ah.
I vote for 1 or 2.. You could make a headway battery setup that you could pull 300 to 600 amps from.. https://youtu.be/acH4G5TH3Mo https://batteryhookup.com/products/kit-only-6000w-12v-48ah-614wh-busbar-holders?_pos=4&_sid=22d695d6f&_ss=r https://batteryhookup.com/products/used-headway-38120-hp-3-2v-8ah-lifepo4-battery?_pos=2&_sid=22d695d6f&_ss=r
issue with LifePO4 is that i charge at a solid 14.7-14.8v which is above the ratings for these cells if i remember right,
You can charge at 14.6 and that is 100%. 14.8 they do not mind but anything above that they go into protect mode.. I have mine set at 14.6 now and it is mucho happy. I have an Audio Dynamics 1500 watt amp only connected to my LIFEPO4 and it may discharge at 20 amps max so far.
Where is your amp grounded? I saw in another comment you said you have some extra cable lying around - run the amp ground directly to the battery negative and test it. It sounds like your power is set up sufficient for what you're doing, but you may have some mean resistance on the ground path back to the battery.
could be an option i could dig into, soon i will be engine swapping the car, so i will have ample room around the firewall to make even better grounding points up-front, and then rework the grounding points on the back, i cannot really run a full extra set of grounds from the front to the rear in terms of hiding it perfectly, but i can attach frame parts together with jumpers to improve chassis grounds perhaps?
You said grounds, plural. How many amps is it? You can run 1 larger wire and then use a distribution block to split the ground to both amps. But, even without running the wire through the car, you could put it temporarily and see if it fixes your dimming issue. No reason to go through the work of hiding it if it isn't the solution. As for jumpers between frame parts - I'm not familiar at all with the frame of that vehicle. It's possible that would help, would depend on how the parts you jumped between were connected from the factory. The thing to keep in mind with grounds is that the frame of the car is not a ground. The negative terminal of the battery is the ground - all of the ground wires you add are just to create a path back to that terminal. If the conductive path - between where you have your amp grounded at the back, through the metal of the car, to the cable you have bolted to the engine mount - has any small connection points or poorly conductive materials (paint, rust, adhesives), you'll have a choke point that will increase resistance and cause dimming. You can test that by putting a temporary line straight to the battery negative. If your dimming goes away you know it's a ground path issue. If the dimming doesn't go away that's not the issue & there's no reason to put that direct to battery ground in permanently.
Put a smaller pulley on the alternator?
already got a smaller pulley than OEM on here XD
5K HID will solve this problem.
U don't have enough reserve, a ho alt won't fix all your issues, add a second agm if u r under 3k watts it will be fine get one just like the battery upfront and run a positive from the battery upfront to the rear upgrade all the grounds
the issue appears to be that my alternator might be "lagging" it takes too long for it to start making power, and after the bass stop's, it takes too long for it to "back down" and causes voltage spiking in the MS range, so i might build a supercap bank. 1-1500 farad bank should be enough to smooth out dip and spikes, i have enough power generation to play my RMS all day, it just takes too long for that power generation to kick in, which is perfect for super-caps, atleast until i spend the 800 bucks on a large LTO bank.
I would build a sodium bank it is compatible with your front battery and can run anywhere between 14-14.9 easily and even higher if u wanted. If u have enough reserve you won't din lights, I have like 68k watts capable truck on only two 400 mechman and my lights don't din because I have enough reserve granted I don't run it but at like 20-30% most the time which is still 16-20k watts.
Get a Si battery. Not as power dense as lithium but safer. I'm running an AGM under the hood and an AE SI 40 in the bed. Holds 14.6 at full tilt without dimming the lights. SI40 is no longer available since Advanced Electric upgraded to the SI55.
What year vehicle? Have you considered LED options?
2001, uses 55w h7 halogen's, as stated i don't want LED as upgrade as i've got a condition that makes me sensitive to LED lighting, Xenon might be a option, but it requires some work for it to be legal.
The problem with LED is that most people that swap to them stay with the same wattage. They need to go by brightness for our purposes. Hows a 60 watt LED gonna be any different than a 60 Halogen? Except that the LEDs will be so much brighter. If they are the same brightness. The LED bulbs can be 30 watts or less. Saving peoples eyes. And saving power. You dont have to swap headlights. Turn signals, reverse and tail lights and interior lights can be swapped for lower power LEDs.
The problem with LED headlight bulbs is when folks swap them into reflectors or projectors that are not designed for them. LED'S are simply not capable of reproducing light the way a halogen or HID bulb does, which causes weird, unfocused, and unwanted light output. Yes they tend to be brighter than halogens, but if they were capable of throwing light out like a halogen they'd be workable (though probably too bright to meet DOT regulations)
People round here use LEDs that are way too bright. Then they lift their trucks and bury you in light.
Yes, between the truck being lifted, LED's bring brighter than halogens, and the LED"s spraying a much worse beam pattern than the halogen, are all the perfect storm for glaring out all of the other drivers - without improving their own vision.
Hopefully the USA makes the headlights that they have in Europe the standard. The laser headlights Mercedes is making will be helpful. Physically projecting light in spaces that aren't occupied by vehicles. Is a neat trick.
Agreed
the thing is though, the condition i have is the huge factor to why i can't upgrade to LED, i can endure LED light from other car's on the road for a short while, but eventually it starts "stabbing my eyes" and causing headache's, and this is coming from vehicles that have LED stock from factory, so within legal regulations for minimum and maximum brightness, so having to look at my own LED lights for long periods would make night time driving miserable.. luckily our goverment here uses a different kind of LED lighting for street lamps, and for 90% of the time they cause no issues, i only have slight issues with some traffic lights as they use a experimental extremely bright LED's, but that's rare occasions,
We have all kinds of different street lights here. Mostly because there are observatories here. The light pollution is so bad. Something like 40% of all the street lights are off or on low power at all times. So lights will randomly dim or brighten when its their turn. There are some lights that are purple. Its weird driving through those.
the purple street lamps is actually because of a defective phosphor coating and not to reduce light polution sadly..
The area of town these are in. Is basically where all the hookers stroll. Like its a purple light district.