Sub install location / other help
09-23-09, 09:14 PM
#51
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I kinda like these Elemental Design subs that were pointed out, but I can't find much on them. And the website isn't incredibly helpful. Does anyone have any experience with them? Looking specifically at the e3.8. Maybe 2 of them.
09-26-09, 03:45 AM
#52
I'm back guys. Not interested in any more insults, just want to get some good info out to all of you.
In an effort to dispell all the stuff that was flying around in this thread I contacted an old friend of mine who designs and installs electrical systems in high-end RV's and motorhomes. That is all he does and he is very good at it. His prize project was a 90,000 watt electrical system he installed in a custom RV that used a hydraulic motor to turn the generator armature located about 12 feet away from the engine of the RV. I discussed the issue of this thread with him in an effort to determine: 1 - if I had my facts straight so I could get the new system right with the least hazard and 2 - to make try to make sure people on this forum got accurate information. I showed him the entire thread and this is part of what I found out.
Starting with my statement that I thought the 2 ohm load killed my alternator. Pete's response was "given the amount of information provided it is impossible to determine if this is what caused my alternator to fail or not." As Kenn stated, what killed my alternator was either excessive current draw or normal wear and tear. Pete says most likely the later. He went on to explain that the 2 ohm load by itself would not cause the alternator to fail, but when taken in conjunction with all the other electrical loads it could have pushed the total current demand above what the alternator was designed for and therefore would have a contributing factor. This is basically what I meant when I said the 2 ohm load caused the failure, but I failed to make that clear. My thoughts were that if I had been wired for 4 ohms the alternator would not have failed. Pete said in order to determine if this was correct he would need to know exactly how many amps was being drawn from the electrical system and exactly how many were being drawn by the subwoofer amp at the time of the failure. If the total current draw was barely over the rating of the alternator then he could use the exact current draw of the subwoofer amp to calculate what the current would have been had the load been 4 ohms. If the reduction in current draw with the sub wired for 4 ohms would have decreased the total current to less than the rated output on my alternator then it is entirely possible that the 2 ohm load was the main cause of the failure. If the total current was well above the rated output of the alternator or if it was below the rated output of the alternator then the chances are slim that the 2 ohm load caused the failure. So, bottom line...yes 2 ohms could have caused the failure, but probably not.
What really got him going though was a couple of the posts by dohckiller. In one he said " have the car running slam the stereo well above the alt. output to the point it drains your battery then pulls from the alt. "And in the other " all the alt. is doing is charging the battery. the more batterys i have the longer it takes to charge and vice versa, the longer it takes my amps to drain them. all a stronger alt is doing is charging my bat faster. slamming your stereo will kill the battery from all the discharging and recharging before the alt blows out " He said both of these statements are totally wrong! In any multiple source electrical system the source with the highest voltage is considered the primary electrical source and will provide the energy required by that system. In a properly functioning automotive electrical system this would be the alternator, proven by the fact that when you start the engine the system voltage will always increase. Therefore, the alternator is what powers all electrical loads in a running autombile with a properly functioning electrical system. In this situation the alternator will power all electrical requirements with any excess current going to recharge the battery. The sole purpose of the battery is to store electricity as a reserve source used when the car is shut off or when alternator cannot supply the demand of the electrical system. For the record, I say again " the alternator is what powers all electrical loads in a running automobile and the battery is only a reserve source ". (I told him I would make sure to emphasize this) He said my experiment with the voltmeter reflects this very thing. The alternator has a max current rating based on the ouptut of the armature in conjunction with the number of pairs of rectifiers and peak current rating of the diodes in those pairs. Pete says the armature will provide nearly limitless AC current, with the limiting factor being the rectifier. As long as the current demand on the rectifiers is below the rated output the alternator will output it's rated voltage. In most US cars that is usually 13.8 - 14.4 vdc. However, once the current rating of the rectifier has been reached the diodes are at their saturation point and any attempt to go beyond that amount of current will result in a decrease in the output voltage, as I experienced in my testing. He also said each time this happens it weakens the alternator until it reaches a point where it finally fails altogether, as he suspects mine did. My tests show that my alternator was being overloaded because as the electrical load was increased the system voltage decreased until it reached the battery voltage. He also said since the largest drop in system voltage was directly related to turning the stereo on/off that indicates the the stereo is my largest current drain.
The other item he noticed was another statement by dohckiller that " most alts. get killed from people washing their engine bay and getting it wet". Pete said most would probably be an overstatement, but definitely a lot are damaged due to this, but not because of getting wet directly. An alternator is designed to be exposed to moisture so water damage is not the culprit here, it's the cooling effect of the water. When the alternator generates electricity it also generates heat. When you spray cold water on a hot alternator it can fracture the PN junction of the diodes in the rectifier making them useless and decreasing the output. If enough are damaged the alternator will have no output at all.
The good news from all of this is once I get the stereo and the car back together Pete has agreed to do some testing with me to enable me to make the most of my electrical system and my stereo system. He said the 20 farad cap in a system of this nature is a good idea, but recommends I add another of the same size or bigger.
Apologies for any rudeness from me in my earlier posts.
Scrims...didn't mean to jack your thread but figured if I started a new thread people would be confused. Good luck with your stereo.
In an effort to dispell all the stuff that was flying around in this thread I contacted an old friend of mine who designs and installs electrical systems in high-end RV's and motorhomes. That is all he does and he is very good at it. His prize project was a 90,000 watt electrical system he installed in a custom RV that used a hydraulic motor to turn the generator armature located about 12 feet away from the engine of the RV. I discussed the issue of this thread with him in an effort to determine: 1 - if I had my facts straight so I could get the new system right with the least hazard and 2 - to make try to make sure people on this forum got accurate information. I showed him the entire thread and this is part of what I found out.
Starting with my statement that I thought the 2 ohm load killed my alternator. Pete's response was "given the amount of information provided it is impossible to determine if this is what caused my alternator to fail or not." As Kenn stated, what killed my alternator was either excessive current draw or normal wear and tear. Pete says most likely the later. He went on to explain that the 2 ohm load by itself would not cause the alternator to fail, but when taken in conjunction with all the other electrical loads it could have pushed the total current demand above what the alternator was designed for and therefore would have a contributing factor. This is basically what I meant when I said the 2 ohm load caused the failure, but I failed to make that clear. My thoughts were that if I had been wired for 4 ohms the alternator would not have failed. Pete said in order to determine if this was correct he would need to know exactly how many amps was being drawn from the electrical system and exactly how many were being drawn by the subwoofer amp at the time of the failure. If the total current draw was barely over the rating of the alternator then he could use the exact current draw of the subwoofer amp to calculate what the current would have been had the load been 4 ohms. If the reduction in current draw with the sub wired for 4 ohms would have decreased the total current to less than the rated output on my alternator then it is entirely possible that the 2 ohm load was the main cause of the failure. If the total current was well above the rated output of the alternator or if it was below the rated output of the alternator then the chances are slim that the 2 ohm load caused the failure. So, bottom line...yes 2 ohms could have caused the failure, but probably not.
What really got him going though was a couple of the posts by dohckiller. In one he said " have the car running slam the stereo well above the alt. output to the point it drains your battery then pulls from the alt. "And in the other " all the alt. is doing is charging the battery. the more batterys i have the longer it takes to charge and vice versa, the longer it takes my amps to drain them. all a stronger alt is doing is charging my bat faster. slamming your stereo will kill the battery from all the discharging and recharging before the alt blows out " He said both of these statements are totally wrong! In any multiple source electrical system the source with the highest voltage is considered the primary electrical source and will provide the energy required by that system. In a properly functioning automotive electrical system this would be the alternator, proven by the fact that when you start the engine the system voltage will always increase. Therefore, the alternator is what powers all electrical loads in a running autombile with a properly functioning electrical system. In this situation the alternator will power all electrical requirements with any excess current going to recharge the battery. The sole purpose of the battery is to store electricity as a reserve source used when the car is shut off or when alternator cannot supply the demand of the electrical system. For the record, I say again " the alternator is what powers all electrical loads in a running automobile and the battery is only a reserve source ". (I told him I would make sure to emphasize this) He said my experiment with the voltmeter reflects this very thing. The alternator has a max current rating based on the ouptut of the armature in conjunction with the number of pairs of rectifiers and peak current rating of the diodes in those pairs. Pete says the armature will provide nearly limitless AC current, with the limiting factor being the rectifier. As long as the current demand on the rectifiers is below the rated output the alternator will output it's rated voltage. In most US cars that is usually 13.8 - 14.4 vdc. However, once the current rating of the rectifier has been reached the diodes are at their saturation point and any attempt to go beyond that amount of current will result in a decrease in the output voltage, as I experienced in my testing. He also said each time this happens it weakens the alternator until it reaches a point where it finally fails altogether, as he suspects mine did. My tests show that my alternator was being overloaded because as the electrical load was increased the system voltage decreased until it reached the battery voltage. He also said since the largest drop in system voltage was directly related to turning the stereo on/off that indicates the the stereo is my largest current drain.
The other item he noticed was another statement by dohckiller that " most alts. get killed from people washing their engine bay and getting it wet". Pete said most would probably be an overstatement, but definitely a lot are damaged due to this, but not because of getting wet directly. An alternator is designed to be exposed to moisture so water damage is not the culprit here, it's the cooling effect of the water. When the alternator generates electricity it also generates heat. When you spray cold water on a hot alternator it can fracture the PN junction of the diodes in the rectifier making them useless and decreasing the output. If enough are damaged the alternator will have no output at all.
The good news from all of this is once I get the stereo and the car back together Pete has agreed to do some testing with me to enable me to make the most of my electrical system and my stereo system. He said the 20 farad cap in a system of this nature is a good idea, but recommends I add another of the same size or bigger.
Apologies for any rudeness from me in my earlier posts.
Scrims...didn't mean to jack your thread but figured if I started a new thread people would be confused. Good luck with your stereo.
09-30-09, 11:34 AM
#53
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I had a pair of 10's in a custom box in my GSL-SE in place of the rear storage - it's for sale if anyone is looking...
But powering that with a 150WRMSx2 amp for the subs had plenty of headroom above the upgraded speakers. Had 5.25" speakers all around run from a 75WRMSx4 amp that was probably only getting about 50W to them since it was higher frequencies only.
But powering that with a 150WRMSx2 amp for the subs had plenty of headroom above the upgraded speakers. Had 5.25" speakers all around run from a 75WRMSx4 amp that was probably only getting about 50W to them since it was higher frequencies only.
10-10-09, 01:23 PM
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yes. in the perfect world we would give our stereos a n endless amount of power from the alt. but noting in the market gives us this power in competition so we rely on our batteries for back up and im not willing to slap multiple alternators in a fd.
in the sense that we drain um hard and a better alt. charges it back up so we can burp it again asap also the alt helps slow the drain on the bat.
dont think any of us was being real clear on what we were saying.
dblboinger- what are you running? i just changed out in my fd to a 1500d sundown amp playing at 1ohm and im not having problems.
in the sense that we drain um hard and a better alt. charges it back up so we can burp it again asap also the alt helps slow the drain on the bat.
dont think any of us was being real clear on what we were saying.
dblboinger- what are you running? i just changed out in my fd to a 1500d sundown amp playing at 1ohm and im not having problems.
10-10-09, 11:37 PM
#55
I'm running an Alpine CDA-9887 head unit, Alpine M850 amp, Alpine F550 amp, Kicker S10L7's, Focal 6.5 components in front and Focal 6.5" coaxials in the rear. I bumped the alternator to 150A with an Optima Yellow and a Tsunami 15 farad cap. Given what I found out from my friend Pete I'm thinkin' I'll wire the subs for 2 ohms again and see what happens. If it doesn't work out I'll change to my other set of Kickers and wire them for 4 ohms.
10-11-09, 03:21 AM
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i was thinking about changing my alt to a 200 amp but my sub is bottoming out before my amps clipping so it wont make a huge difference imho.
my mb quarts are killing me.
how do you have your front stage mounted?
im running the shallow mount 5.25 and they already hit the back of the bose enclosure had to build up on the bose enclosure to seal the ring.
my mb quarts are killing me.
how do you have your front stage mounted?
im running the shallow mount 5.25 and they already hit the back of the bose enclosure had to build up on the bose enclosure to seal the ring.
10-11-09, 11:44 PM
#57
No Bose in my car. The Focal 6.5" woofer fit right into the old speaker location with just a little modification and then I mounted the tweeters on the little plastic panel in the forward corner of the windows. The rear speakers were mounted on a 1/4" mdf panel and then mounted to the stock 6x8 mounting bracket. I also took the stock speaker grilles and painted them black then put the Focal emblem on with some hot glue. It looks like they came from Mazda that way and the black accents the door panels nicely. Now I'd like to put a small enclosure behind the rear speakers in an effort to increase the midbass, since that is my weak point. I'm not a big fan of fiberglass. I've messed with it a little and it's just to messy for my likings.
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