How much power do u think we have to puch before we look at upgrading the alt?

 

need more info,,,what are pushing and why do you need more than 110volts. you would only need it for running additional acc like audio.

 

Im looking to redo my stereo system and wondering how much power (additional amps) the stock one can handle.

 

Kwame@z1 has one. Forgot where he got his from.

 

^ Excessive Amperage

OP list your equipment (or planned equipment) and I might be able to assist you in whether or not you simply need to do the "big three" or if you need the big three and a high output alternator.

 

The stock alternator is 110 AMPS.

 

Right now im running 0 gauge to a elemental designs 5 channel. continuous it puts out 600X1 and 125x4. Might be looking at a dual amp setup with something close to 100-120x4 rms and 1000 x 1 rms. Id rather be safe then sorry. I think my alt is messed up right now anyway so figured might want to upgrade if Im getting close to maxing out the stock alt.

 

The easiest way to figure it out is to look at the Power Requirements of the equipment you will be using. Look at the max amp draw of your amplifiers, take the sum of them all and if they are anywhere close to 110amps then you might want to look into a HO alternator.

Also make sure you do the Big three upgrade as well to ensure you have your bases covered.

I feel like breaking out Ohms and Watts Law up in this ****!

 

Thanks for the info! Go ahead and lay down some knowledge in this ****! I bet a ton of us could use it!

 

I don't think you'll need a high output alternator with that setup. If anything you'll probably be good with a secondary battery. That's IF you're getting voltage dips like crazy. If 2nd battery doesn't give save you from voltage dips then I'd go as far as a high output alternator. They sure aren't cheap.

 

If the system is not being played while the car is off then a second battery really would not be the way to go especially if his alternator is possibly on its way out as he stated earlier.

 

All a second battery does is put additional strain on the alternator already in the car. Now charging duties must be shared between 2 batteries vs one. Not the hot setup at all. As Kwame mentioned, it's for when you do extended playing with the car off.

 

110 Amps is a good sized alternator and that will provide 1430 watts give or take some losses. With music playing though an amplifier rarely will it use even 1/10th of it's power even at pretty high levels. I run some pretty big 600 and 800 watt amplifiers at home are rarely see them peak at about 50 watts even at loud levels. Of course I'm listening to music which hasn't seen the living crap compressed out of it so your mileage will very.

Once the car is shut off you're talking about watt/hours of energy stored by the battery and most will have 45-60 watt/hours which even the stock system will drain in 5 hours.

 

This can work. When you're pulling more than 2000 or so watts a second battery can help, acting like the planet's biggest capacitor storing more energy then all the caps sold by Crutchfield in the last year. The problem is you can only pull power out of the batteries for so long before they too die. Rule of thumb is that you don't want to drain a battery deeper than half way down.

I'm assuming that someone is approaching the three horse power or above amplifier size for competition where they'll have access to AC mains power. Get yourself a set of SB Series Anderson Powerpoles (I get mine from www.powerwerx.com) in the 350 amp size, and a matching bank of 4 90 amp $440 AC/DC battery chargers (I get mine from www.batterystuff.com) and plug into the AC power. The issue is that you'll need four separate AC circuits as one of these chargers takes up the entire 20A AC that a normal house circuit is wired for. The other alternative is to go 120 VAC amplifiers in the car ... but that's a whole 'nuther thread.