quick question

[yessam430]

Ok so my current setup which is relatively small is making my headlights dim whenever the bass slams. So I was wanting to get 2 d3400's and putting 1 under the hood and the other in the trunk. Now I heard having two batteries doubles the drainage on your alternator. Which brings me to this I have a stock alternator so its like 130amps so like 60amps to run the car and 70amps for equipment so the batteries would have to make up the difference right?

My current amp is 2200w mono power acoustik crypt series. Its wired at 2ohms it says 1300@2ohms, but I know that's not happening. So I plan on getting (2) aq1200's and running them instead.

*Sorry i'm so scattered I just wanted to know if I get the 2 batteries will it kill my alternator. I dont plan on having this car for that much longer so I really dont want to get a new h/o alternator seeing as to how I just replaced it about 4 months ago. Oh and I know the 3400 will be me more than enough,but I wanted to have a little breathing room for if I decided to upgrade to a bigger system.

Sorry its so long thanks for reading though

[yessam430]

no replies? no help?

[Supercharged DCs]

Have you done the Big 3?

[kickass audio]

The idea of having multiple batteries kill your alt is b.s. if you ask me. I ran my first system in my Envoy off the stock 120 some odd amp alternator and i had a XS S3400 and D3100 in the system for power. I did NOT do the big-3 and only had a volt to at most 2 volts of drop at the peak of a bass hit. I never got the alt hot or anything either nor did i burn out a wire on the stock system. It can run it but the only real way you burn out alts is if your draw a shit ton of current and cannot get the power replaced. For example if you have amps like i do now and run them at the ohm load i do off a stock alt, you will slowly kill the alt as it will work its ass off to try and charge the batteries back up. As long as you dont drain the crap out of the batteries you will be perfectly fine to add them in your vehicle with the stock alt.

I would if you can perform the big-3 as it does help more than you think with voltage drop and power transfer. I always have the tendency to get better batteries then a alternator to wrap it up for the electrical system. If your batteries are in good shape (floating voltage of 12.5+) you can just get a better alt and use that for now then get the batteries.

[yessam430]

Have you done the Big 3?

yes I have

The idea of having multiple batteries kill your alt is b.s. if you ask me. I ran my first system in my Envoy off the stock 120 some odd amp alternator and i had a XS S3400 and D3100 in the system for power. I did NOT do the big-3 and only had a volt to at most 2 volts of drop at the peak of a bass hit. I never got the alt hot or anything either nor did i burn out a wire on the stock system. It can run it but the only real way you burn out alts is if your draw a shit ton of current and cannot get the power replaced. For example if you have amps like i do now and run them at the ohm load i do off a stock alt, you will slowly kill the alt as it will work its ass off to try and charge the batteries back up. As long as you dont drain the crap out of the batteries you will be perfectly fine to add them in your vehicle with the stock alt.

I would if you can perform the big-3 as it does help more than you think with voltage drop and power transfer. I always have the tendency to get better batteries then a alternator to wrap it up for the electrical system. If your batteries are in good shape (floating voltage of 12.5+) you can just get a better alt and use that for now then get the batteries.

Thanks for the info really appreciate it. Don't think I'll be running anywhere near your set-up anytime soon....unless I sell my house.

[kickass audio]

Haha my setup wasnt that costly actually. Only 6k for what i paid and its worth over 8k.

And another good tip is that batteries are mainly for storing power when your vehicle is off to give you some play time, to assist with voltage drop when your alt cant produce enough amperage to run your equipment, and to act as a buffer for storage from your alt to the amp. Other than that, your alt is what takes the full on force of keeping your voltage up high and charging your batteries up to the normal operating range of them.

Also, for voltage drop, where is your amp in the vehicle grounded off to? If its a unibody construction vehicle, ground it to the strut tower or go full out and make a dedicated ground from front to back. If you have an actual frame you can use that to ground to. And you dont happen to have a capacitor in your system at all do you? I had one and as soon as i drained that puppy out of juice, it attacked my battery and alternator up front to get its power back and my voltage would drop badly until i removed it from the system for good.

And finally, you cant really get rid of voltage drop unless you have more power from your alts than your max amount of current draw from your entire vehicles electrical system (this includes your amps) and a capacitor (very large one in my case but i wont use them ever again) to help with those quick bursts of voltage drop. Capacitors are made to work with a system where the electrical system is perfect but you have quick moments of voltage drop because your alternators Voltage Regulator does not work that fast and takes some time before it tells the alt to produce more power. The capacitor will take that time it takes for the alternator to realize it needs to pump out more juice and keep the voltage the same as well as it can.

For a ground in my system, i didnt go balls out for the ground (yet, lol) and run a dedicated ground from the rear battery bank to the front battery. What i did was in the engine bay i took a ground from the negative of my battery, drilled a hole in the frame to fit a 3/8 bolt through it (threaded the frame hole so it screwed into itself) and then took a wire wheel brush to the frame to remove the paint and put the ground on up there. Then when i got done with it i painted over it 2 times to prevent rust and corrosion. For the rear, i took the cargo bolts that my truck had and removed one of them, then i bought a longer bolt at Valu and put that through the existing hole for the cargo bolt. Then under the truck i got a nut for that same bolt and put a wire from the bolt to the frame in the rear. I have .1 ohms of resistance in that ground wire and my power is equally the same for the front and rear.

The ONLY time my lights flicker is if im at a stop and i dont rev up my engine (i idle at 600 RPM's) and my alt isnt putting out full power so when i go full tilt my lights will flicker and my voltage drops down to 13.5 some volts, give or take a few millivolts. Then if i start driving it goes right back up to 14.45 like its supposed to.

[yessam430]

Haha my setup wasnt that costly actually. Only 6k for what i paid and its worth over 8k.

And another good tip is that batteries are mainly for storing power when your vehicle is off to give you some play time, to assist with voltage drop when your alt cant produce enough amperage to run your equipment, and to act as a buffer for storage from your alt to the amp. Other than that, your alt is what takes the full on force of keeping your voltage up high and charging your batteries up to the normal operating range of them.

Also, for voltage drop, where is your amp in the vehicle grounded off to? If its a unibody construction vehicle, ground it to the strut tower or go full out and make a dedicated ground from front to back. If you have an actual frame you can use that to ground to. And you dont happen to have a capacitor in your system at all do you? I had one and as soon as i drained that puppy out of juice, it attacked my battery and alternator up front to get its power back and my voltage would drop badly until i removed it from the system for good.

And finally, you cant really get rid of voltage drop unless you have more power from your alts than your max amount of current draw from your entire vehicles electrical system (this includes your amps) and a capacitor (very large one in my case but i wont use them ever again) to help with those quick bursts of voltage drop. Capacitors are made to work with a system where the electrical system is perfect but you have quick moments of voltage drop because your alternators Voltage Regulator does not work that fast and takes some time before it tells the alt to produce more power. The capacitor will take that time it takes for the alternator to realize it needs to pump out more juice and keep the voltage the same as well as it can.

For a ground in my system, i didnt go balls out for the ground (yet, lol) and run a dedicated ground from the rear battery bank to the front battery. What i did was in the engine bay i took a ground from the negative of my battery, drilled a hole in the frame to fit a 3/8 bolt through it (threaded the frame hole so it screwed into itself) and then took a wire wheel brush to the frame to remove the paint and put the ground on up there. Then when i got done with it i painted over it 2 times to prevent rust and corrosion. For the rear, i took the cargo bolts that my truck had and removed one of them, then i bought a longer bolt at Valu and put that through the existing hole for the cargo bolt. Then under the truck i got a nut for that same bolt and put a wire from the bolt to the frame in the rear. I have .1 ohms of resistance in that ground wire and my power is equally the same for the front and rear.

The ONLY time my lights flicker is if im at a stop and i dont rev up my engine (i idle at 600 RPM's) and my alt isnt putting out full power so when i go full tilt my lights will flicker and my voltage drops down to 13.5 some volts, give or take a few millivolts. Then if i start driving it goes right back up to 14.45 like its supposed to.

Your set-up sounds sick

I used to have a power capacitor, but it was making a huge impact on my system and my lights flickered even after I did the big 3. So I got rid of it and my system sounds even better now. The ground I have is grounded to the metal inside my trunk. I know I can get a better one its just the concept of me not being so damn busy so I can get out there and do everything right. I plan on redoing my entire system except subs (i.e: running 1/0awg all throughout, (2) aq 1200s, a new hu, building a new box, adding batteries, and new components and tweets) and while I'm getting all that done I'm going to do the ground more secure. Right now I'm dealing with a shitty install done by the previous owner of my car.

Thanks for the info though I really appreciate it. I always get a lot of useful info from this site. I took my car to a local installer once to see if they could help me diagnose a problem I had. They went over all the shit I had already went over and couldn't figure it out either. I was like man I got a lot of my info from SMD, but you guys are trained a don't know more? I eventually figured it out though it was this shitty pioneer amp I had

[kickass audio]

Yea smd is deff a great site. I learned about 75% of my tricks from the site and the rest was either from good old google or experience i had from screwing around with it all. My setup sure does kick ass and rocks. This is what i had today for termlab results:

146.6 db on the dash

148.1 db in the kick

151.7 db next to the port of the box

Peak freq on the termlab was 49Hz

Peak freq from my ears seems to be like 35-38Hz

This was with the windows rolled up, doors shut, tailgate shut as well. I played the song Its Doja from Ren Da Heat Monsta and got a 135 on the termlab.

I also had the bassboost all the way off on the db8000's since i didnt want to do any of that crap anymore and was playing with absolutely no distortion.

If your car is unibody grounding to the strut tower is alright but a direct ground from the rear battery (if you have one) to the front battery will help out a ton for resistance. If you ever get stuck feel free to pm me, im on this site almost daily and it is deff the best site i have ever been a member of. There are so many great things to learn and great people on here to get help from or tips to the trade. Yea SMD has their a-holes but hey every site has them. lol