question about capacitor

[my99cavy]

this is from the cavalier section and he is asking about hooking up his capacitor.

Originally Posted by blat51788

i just got a capacitor for my 99 cavalier because my system was killin my batery and i thought that is would be simple to install just cut the wire and splice one end into the one end of the capactior and same with the other and i got in in the mail today and im looking at the directons and im lost if anyone can help it would be greatly appreciated

and here is the name, model and pic of it, its a power acoustik 2 farad capacitor model number PCNC-1.2F its got 2 postives and 2 negatives heres a pic

[PaulD]

it's very straight forward. You cut positive power wire and splice them back together using the + terminal on the cap. The minus side of the cap can be grounded anywhere you want, just run a wire from the - side of the cap to a peice of metal just like you would the black ground wire from the amp.

The bad news is, this is NOT going to help your overwhelmed electrical system. In fact, it will just be another small load. And the worst part is, the caps with the digital displays do absolutely nothing because of the high ESR.

[my99cavy]

^thanks paul, im going to quote you and paste this in the other section. but thanks again.

EDIT: hes confused because it has 2 positive and 2 negative hookups. what should he do about that??

[PaulD]

he needs to look at the instructions, it should say on there. With a multimeter, you should be able to tell - it may be that the two positives are connected together and the two negatives are connected together internally.

[blat51788]

yo i was the one that original made the thread bout installing my capacitor everythin that u said has help but i still have a few questions like what is ESR and r u saying it wont work?

[PaulD]

ESR = equivalent series resistance. This value must be exceedingly low, like .002 ohms or lower. Sometimes they help a little with "blinking" headlights but because of the nature of bass music, it will not really give you more power. It helps in SQ type systems to get you that last 5% of performance

[chrisl2384]

Hey I just got the same cap. just its 2 farad and I need help hooking it up. I am having a prob with the two connections on the + and 2 on the - what goes in each spot?

[PaulD]

one + is for the power wire cominmg from the battery, the other + is for the power wire going to the amp(s). One of the - terminals is for a wire attached to the cars chassis, I assume the other - is for the ground wire for the amp(s).

[chrisl2384]

Hey thanks a lot, got it hooked up today and works like a champ. Thanks again

[thiscosad]

I accept with information:The bad news is, this is NOT going to help your overwhelmed electrical system. In fact, it will just be another small load. And the worst part is, the caps with the digital displays do absolutely nothing because of the high ESR.

[PaulD]

sad but true .... but he only asked how to connect it up

[chrisl2384]

I have the same cap. in my truck and I have the power wire for my amp running to the back pos. and the front pos ran to my dis. block that splits to my amps. I have the rear neg. grounded under my seat with my amp grounds and the front neg.running to my bigger amp. I was having the same prob when I first got this cap. But this is how I did it and all works great for me. I have a 1000w Sony xploid running two sony xploid 12's 800w max each. Can't find them anywhere on the internet they must be kinda old. and a 600w sony xploid running my door and rear speakers. which are some german brand wolf something. 350 w max each. Hope that helps ya some.