I have two 1 farad capacitors that I want to hook up together. They are powering 2 amps which power 2 12" subs and all of my components as well. Right now I only have ine of the capacitors hooked up, but that isn't doing it because sometimes the subs get quieter than they normally are, and then after awhile they will get louder back to where they normally are at. I am assuming this is because of how much power I am trying to draw when I have the music up loud. So I do I connect my other one into the system?

 

It sounds like your amps are overheating and cutting out when you have you music up loud. When they cool down enough, they start working again. Caps won't really help much with that problem. But if you'd like to know, if you hook up the caps in parallel, they will add up together to be 2 farad. What you really need is to get more air on your amps so they don't get heated up and cut out on you and make sure your running a big enough wire gauge on your power to the amps. Try useing a fan to cool down your amps. Good luck.

 

The compoenents don't get quiter it is just the amp I am using for the subs, so you are probably right. Damn, I was thinking it wasn't getting enough power. Just in case, how would I connect them in parrell exactly, I am pretty sure I know how to but just want to be 100% Thanks!


It sounds like your amps are overheating and cutting out when you have you music up loud. When they cool down enough, they start working again. Caps won't really help much with that problem. But if you'd like to know, if you hook up the caps in parallel, they will add up together to be 2 farad. What you really need is to get more air on your amps so they don't get heated up and cut out on you and make sure your running a big enough wire gauge on your power to the amps. Try useing a fan to cool down your amps. Good luck.

 

parallel = positive to positive and negative to negative and you will just connect your positive supply to the two positives and the negative to the two negatives. In capacitors this will add capacitance and in your case give you 2 F. If you connect one positive to the other's negative then you have a free positive and free negative then you have what is called a series connection but this will subtract by the reciprocal of the added reciprocals, which in your case would be .5 F. This is just the opposite in resistors but that is another topic :-)

 

Thanks, that helps. But do I need to connect the power supply to both of them, or can't I just hook it up to one of them since they are both connected together?

 

as long as both positives on the two capacitors are connected together and both negatives on the two capacitors are connected together, you can hook the positive power to either of the positive leads and the negative power to either of the negative leads since they both are electrically equal.