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i was driving once and my car shut off for a second, all my gauges fell to 0 and then suddenly jumped back up. it was a split second...thats when i ordered my ho alt.


and Will, didnt your van break down in a really bad part of town? Really really bad part ?

Basstronics wrote:Its what amplifiers you run and at what Ohm your running them at.

Thats what dictates amp draw.

It has nothing to do with SPL scores or different subs etc etc.

Comparing your system to mine is about as irrelevant as it gets, especially when referenced back to a dB...

Thank you, come again.

I was simply making a point...

My sole purpose in life isn't to piss you off...

kevinberry1 wrote:Maybe speakrman was trying to say that you can avoid putting additional strain on the alternator by running a more efficient setup. I think the SPL talk was just a way to provide evidence for his point.(giving him the benefit-of-the-doubt here)

:)

This was my point!

To even get your system to a listenable level, its taking a significant amount of power... while, i just used myself as an example here, in my setup I need next to nothing to get it listenable.

600-900 watts = you at your listenable level, 100-200 watts = me at my listenable level. And my listenable level is louder than yours :) . That was the point.. I didn't come on here to remind myself that I'm louder.

KikiTheCat wrote:in a properly operating electrical system in a car, as long as the engine is running, the alternator should be supplying all of the current, and the battery should be in a charge state, since the battery voltage is lower than the voltage of the alternator set by the voltage regulator. If you draw more current than the alternator can supply (already a bad sign, and this is what kills the alternator) then the battery tries to compensate until the battery's voltage begins to drop as well.
If you're going to play the stereo with the engine running, you need to be able to supply the current to feed the amplifiers, regardless of how much power they draw, or what your SPL is, or anything else. It's simply supply and demand. In this case, being able to supply the current the amplifiers along with the car's own systems demand.

exactamundo

Depending on the car and what accessories you run, sometimes you can have next to no extra power from the stock alt, particularly if you do alot of stop and go driving... while running the AC, the system pulling 50-60 amps, and on top of whatever your car pulls to just run.

spkrman wrote: That was the point.. I didn't come on here to remind myself that I'm louder.

Wow, could have fooled me.

Justin from Detroit wrote:Wow, could have fooled me.

Gets me all bubbly to think i can beat someone doing a 135... yea.

My point has been made... that is all.

spkrman wrote:Gets me all bubbly to think i can beat someone doing a 135... yea.

My point has been made... that is all.

Well the fact is you bring up the fact you are hitting 150dB when it isn't even relevant to the post. He's talking about his alternator dying then you reply with "I hit 150db and you hit 135db" or some dumb shit like that. You brag every single chance you get about your super-amazing, nice looking Type-R install. It sure is a nice looking install, too.

spkrman wrote:1500-3000 is a big difference ]MY FRIEND[/b] using 100 watts to do a 140, you are using 900 watts to do a 135... so even if you arent at "full" volume you are still pulling quite a bit of power, whereas MY FRIEND could pretty much run HIS SUBS off the deck and get decently loud.

Its not really how big your amp is that dictates whether your alt blows or not, its how you use it :)

Yet another reason why its imperitive to build/buy a proper box.

feel better now?

If you don't see the relevance of my post, i feel sorry for you - it makes perfect sense and everyone except the anti-spkrman fan club can at least see that much.

Justin from Detroit wrote:Well the fact is you bring up the fact you are hitting 150dB when it isn't even relevant to the post. He's talking about his alternator dying then you reply with "I hit 150db and you hit 135db" or some dumb shit like that. You brag every single chance you get about your super-amazing, nice looking Type-R install. It sure is a nice looking install, too.

If I wanted to brag I would have used my 2 MA Audio 8's that did a 140.9 off my 150 watt front speaker amp. I've spent more on food than I have on that setup... and it still pulled a 139 tuned to 35hz... didnt sound half bad.

Perhaps I don't care if my (insert classic muscle car) has some rust spots - she's got a blown 454 and will walk your (insert sexy ride) all the way down the track. To the entusiast.. that 454 looks much better than your car ]http://www.oznium.com/gallery/photos/fu ... onte-carlo[/IMG]

spkrman wrote:I was simply making a point...

My sole purpose in life isn't to piss you off...

Your point is irrelevant to the topic at hand- period.

I know its not to piss me off. It is to be an asshole through and through...

spkrman wrote: This was my point!

To even get your system to a listenable level, its taking a significant amount of power... while, i just used myself as an example here, in my setup I need next to nothing to get it listenable.

600-900 watts = you at your listenable level, 100-200 watts = me at my listenable level. And my listenable level is louder than yours :) . That was the point.. I didn't come on here to remind myself that I'm louder.

This is irrelevant to the topic at hand. My subs RMS is 500 WRMS. Due to the VC config I have to feed them 750 WRMS.

spkrman wrote: exactamundo

Depending on the car and what accessories you run, sometimes you can have next to no extra power from the stock alt, particularly if you do alot of stop and go driving... while running the AC, the system pulling 50-60 amps, and on top of whatever your car pulls to just run.

I do know why this happened. As stated in my first post I called this outcome on Sunday.

I did find out a cool thing today at Auto ZOne. My car at idle draws almost 48 Amps with nothing else running...

The other thing I learned is spkrman is an asswipe

just let it go, people.. geesh

in regards to stock alternators though, some cars come with a big alternator stock, but they need it for all of the electronics in the car. a loaded Durango is an example, with a 165A stock alternator. Some companies, many Hondas for example, use alternators with very little reserve, so you don't have much to play with for adding accessories. Other cars as mentioned above, will give you as much as 50% of the stock rating as reserve. The big problem is knowing how much reserve there is... and there's no easy way to measure that. This is why I suggest using about 20% reserve at most, as a guess when figuring out the size for a replacement alternator to handle additional loads. Then you know you're not going to eat into any current the car itself needs. Remember too that even though your system may be rated for "3000 watts RMS" that doesn't mean you'll be drawing that much current when you're driving the car, so you can get away with an alternator rated for less than the total RMS of the system+stock if you know you're going to want it loud, but not burping at full volume loud.
Just some more obscure things to consider.. none of it is easily put in black and white, but once you have a little experience at it, you can usually ballpark an alternator size with that sort of data.