This voltage stabilizer helps save fuel

[Andrew84]

Originally Posted by 534BC

I can read about 1 hp increments , will that be enough? Which is the best type of vehicle to respond the most? I can pick from various types.

The only 3 I have logged many mpg history are Chevy: Venture , cavalier,blazer (all FI and OBDII)

Let's pick the best possible condition where this product "shines the most" You pick it since you know it well and I don't know it at all yet.

It will make the most obvious difference in sub 2000cc cars like:
Yaris, Versa, Corolla, Fiesta, etc.

In larger cars you could still see the difference in:
a stock Mustang S197, Mazda 6, Camry.

But in larger cars with more than 250HP in some Lexus brands, V8 mustang, corvette Z06, and Nissan GTR, etc. the effect is too marginal to be felt during normal driving. You'll need a very accurate dyno test and multiple runs to account for errors. These cars seem to need more than 25,000uF of ultra-low ESR caps to make a noticeable difference.


So in your case, it appears that your cavalier has the smallest displacement. But I would recommend you test driving the device on all 3 cars and then choose and dyno the ones you think gives you the most changes. But with our previous experince with the Bronco, I wouldnt completely rule out large displacement cars either. But i am inclined to think that it should show the most difference on the cavalier. I might be wrong.

[shorod]

I had 1 Farad of low-ESR capacitance in my 2000 Mercury Mountaineer V8, which is below 250 HP, and I didn't notice a difference in fuel economy or performance. Next time I'm up in my garage attic I'll take my ESR meter and measure just how low the ESR is. Out of curiosity, how do you define "ultra-low" per capacitance unit? I'm sure you're aware that for a given chemistry/technology, ESR drops as capacitance and voltage rating increases, therefore the need to quantify ultra-low in some unit of capacitance is necessary to have a relative "goodness" of ESR.

I've also had an AC/DC current probe connected to my Fluke 199C handheld oscilloscope (200MHz bandwidth, 2.5 GS/sec) on several of my cars and have never seen significant noise on the power cables from the battery when the battery was connected. I don't know off the top of my head what the rated bandwidth of my current probe is though.

-Rod

[Andrew84]

How did you hook it up? Is it parallel to the battery, or is it part of your amplifier? Then again, there are many factors like i said. Not all cars will have a noticeable difference in millage. The effect of filtering noise varies from car to car. In some cases, the difference is too marginal it might as well be considered as no difference.

For a given capacitor size, ESR drops as capacitance and voltage ratings increase. So a standard ESR 10,000uF 35V capacitor will be much smaller than a low-ESR cap of the same capacitance and voltage rating. But the price of the capacitor will not increase proportionally to ESR rating. For a capacitor of the same size, a low-ESR one will cost you more even though the capacitance is less because they are usually used for more specialized application using different materials versus general purpose caps.

ESR of a cap can be measured by how well its voltage can follow a rippling source voltage. From a performance point of view, its ability to handle ripple current at high frequencies without high heat dissipation can also be considered ESR.

Manufacturers of capacitors, whether solid or electrolytic, use their own proprietary names to denote different class of ESR ratings.

Generally there are ussually 3-4 different ESR categories for electrolytic caps provided by manufacturers. The other variables are of course your capacitance, voltage, temperature rating, and dimensional requirements (for compact applications).

In terms of ESR, there are: 1) General purpose series caps with normal ESR rating. These caps carry more capacitance than low ESR caps for any given size. They are the cheapest.
Next is: 2) The low-impedance series. Manufacturers rate the ESR rating by both ohms and ability to handle ripple current.
Next is 3) High ripple current series. These caps are used mainly in PWM power supplies, high-end noise filtering devices, etc. These caps can handle 120KHz of ripple current while having a decent heat dissipation rate that will not evaporate the electrolytes prematurely. They can handle thousands of hours of such load conditions. Of course, these are going to cost you more than the low-impedance series.


As for the noise measuring, you will definitely see the alternator whine on your scope if the battery is taken out. But when the battery in connected the amplitude of the noise will decrease substantially. So in order to see it you'll need to adjust to scale to show a very short deflection range and a very short time scale. Exactly what scale? I don't know. But at 13.8 volts (typical alternator output), the scale is already too large in order to incorporate that level sensitivity. So I think it is a matter of adjustment and sensitivity (maybe you'll have to disable the auto adjust on the scope). And if you measure them at the load, the noise pattern might then be again different.

The best way is to use a high gain audio equipment and hook it to the battery as source power. If the gain is high enough, you'll be able to hear the whine. But if everything is in good condition and the battery is still new, then the whine might be marginal. And lets not forget, it is not just the altenator, it's the various other loads than when measure at different point will yield different noise pattern.


And if you're paralleling a 1 Farad audio cap to the battery, there's is not need to worry about ESR anymore. The capacitance itself is already so large! That's 69 times the capacitance of what i'm selling! HEHE. Audio caps are already low-ESR because they are designed for sound systems. But they cost a bomb. So if you hook it right (parallel to the battery and not in your amplifier), and there's still no difference, then no other caps will help either. Maybe you should dyno it.

[Andrew84]

Btw, if you want to know what is it like when we dynoed our test vehicle:

http://www.adhoc-tech-sci.com/pd-vs-aa-p-test.html

It was done in south-east asia under a hot weather with an ambient temperature of over 30 degrees Celcius.

[shorod]

Of course it was parallel to the battery, in close proximity to the audio amplifier. Putting it in series would block the DC source to the amplifier.

The best way to see the noise in the electrical system would be to set the scope to AC coupling and take the DC component out of the equation. Then you could clearly see the noise and ripple component on the electrical system. Using a high gain amplifier could introduce switching noise depending on how well filtered the power supply is (noise figure). If you have a good amplifier that's installed properly, there should be sufficient isolation between the input power and the gain stage to not have experience ignition noise anyway.

I will also add that the ONLY time I've experienced a failed ECU in a car, it was due to a few 105 degree C electrolytic capacitors in the ECU that failed prematurely (in this case due to a chemistry issue).

-Rod

[Andrew84]

Some audio caps are within the amplifier itself and isolated from the main 12V source. Which means they are not parallel. Of course, nobody series up a capacitor.

Well there are many ways to measure noise. What you said there is also true. Taking away the DC component will get rid of the scale issue allowing you to see the full amplitude of the noise ripple wavefrom.

Caps can fail prematurely if they are 1)subjected to overvoltage: due to high leakage current and heat dissipation. 2)subjected to a hot environment where the electrolyes evaporate over time and the capacitance decreases leading to a malfunction of circuitry. 3) the voltage is reversed.

In your case, that kind of ECU malfuction is rare. I never encountered them. Usually they are the active components that fails, not passive ones. But anything can happen. Of course it's a chemistry issue, I wouldnt reckon it was caused by some noise jitter. The electrical noise in a car is not sufficient to pop a cap just like that. Caps are not that fragile. So it must be a chemistry issue.

What i was iterating on the ESR and robustness was purely on the performance point of view. Certainly you wouldnt expect a standard capacitor to fail just because of some noise right? The noise affects the active components such as analogue to digital converters, processors, sensors etc. and not passive components. I would say that they affect circuit performance more than lifespan. The effect of such noise will be marginal on the lifespan of the circuits if a good car battery is used.

[Andrew84]

Then again, just to be clear, this device will not solve the issues you just mentioned. Some of those issues are large manufacturing faults. And your expectation on something that costs 75 bucks must not be too high either.

These things only help filter some of the high-frequency noise that the battery misses, that's all. And the effect of that will vary from car to car. Some marginal, some profound. But even what profound constitutes depends on your expectations. They will not solve engineering issues or lack of maintainance. Don't get the wrong picture.

As for saving fuel, i can assertain that they do at least 5% on a Yaris, Versa and Corolla, just by plugging the device into the power port. And of course smoothness, power and reduced harshness is among other benefits. Sport cars might have marginal effect. So it is what it is, but it's not a magic wand to help cure your automotive woes. They just enhance and optimize. But dont go expecting that theyll make a noticeable difference on all cars.

I should have put the tread title as: This voltage stabilizer helps filter electrical noise. But that wouldnt catch any attention wouldnt it?

[tomj76]

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } As a working Electrical Engineer specializing in high frequency microelectronics, I can offer some feedback on two of the technical claims you've made for your device.



> Lower impedance means more noise is converted into power!


>10 X 1000uF, 35V, 105°C high ripple current, low ESR electrolytic capacitors will run cool for years to come without losing electrolytes. The impedance is so low it eats up electrical noise at frequencies of up to hundreds of kilohertz and converts them into voltage.


1) The spectral content (the frequencies contained in the time based wave forms) of automotive noise cover a very wide range, easily covering from a few 100 Hz to 100's of MHz. Much of this noise is created by the engine's electrical systems (spark and injectors are the most notable). The very rapid voltage and current transitions can lead to strong high frequency noise. It is a very challenging electrical noise environment.

2) Complete filtering of the high frequency signals present in a automotive environment requires circuitry employing multiple bypass capacitors, because each one has a fairly narrow "sweet spot" of frequencies that it can effectively filter. It is not uncommon to see capacitor banks employing three to five different values to cover the fully range needed in a given manufacturer's circuit. To suggest that your circuit using only two values capacitor can do an superior job over those circuits is just incorrect.

3) The automotive battery not only stores the charge needed for the starting system, but it also acts as a good, very large capacitor, providing a great deal of filtering. It works so well that most cars will not operate without one because of the extreme noise that is present without it.

4) In an electronically noisy environment, electrical filters must be placed at the points where stable voltages are required. Points in the system that are located on the opposite side of the vehicle from the filter, separated by a substantial length of wire (study wire inductance) will behave as if no filter were ever added. Your circuit, which appears to by applied at the dashboard power connector, connected with a relatively long wire, is so far removed from the engine environment that will not be effective beyond a few kilohertz.

5) Believe it or not, automotive engineers are fully aware of the the negative effects of electrical noise on the car's operation and reliability. They already design filters into their circuits, located at the point where they are most needed.

Finally, to the points made previously, for any given driver, a 1 mpg increase in fuel efficiency is not measurable, because driving conditions accurately enough to do a side-by-side comparison. What you're really selling is an automotive voltmeter, and while that might be desirable to some, I don't see any other value in the product.

[sracing]

I know this thread is old, but.... GARBAGE. This unit is simple fraud. I have 3 dynos here (chassis and 2 engine) and I will be happpy to offer a test. This unit will OFFER nothing in the way of HP or MPG. There are a couple of these things around that are complete shams. I have tested and reverse engineered one of the units. (not this one). It did NOTHING other than light the display and filter noise right at the unit. The stock ECU has far better filtering and decoupling than this thing offers and even if it did do ANY filtering it would not show up in the any MPG or HP form. BTW, We do testing for several other companies on aftermarket performance products. (Including Granatelli motorsports, K&N, Valvoline, etc. We also build and test data acquisition devices for race engines and dynos.

If someone has one of these things and would like it tested on one of several vehicles, I will be happy in our free time to give you REAL dyno results in statistically valid form.

We have tested fuel line magnets, pills, chips, ignition sytems, on-board hydrogen production, and much more. We KNOW what works and what doesn't and can back it up with REAL testing.

[sracing]

BTW. I often do a local talk radio show here on Automotive stuff. Yesterday a gentleman called in with a question about how these units work. I ripped them. I have been asked to come back next week to do the show again. If I get a chance I will rip them again.

[curtis73]

I've temporarily banned AndrewChan and removed some of the commercial links. This thread is a nice discussion, so I'll leave it open for now.

You guys have been very mature and honest about the product review, but unfortunately AndrewChan has been found to be a commercial seller which is a big no-no

Carry on. I'm enjoying the discussion.