Drop in voltage.

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Old Nov 7, 2018 | 05:22 PM
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Drop in voltage.

Tried to research but don’t really know how to put it.
I have been having a issue with my subwoofers, had this newer set-up for 4 months now (had a single12” 2 years prior) and it started acting up a month ago.

I am getting a voltage drop too mid 10v too 9v (as the power capacitor reads) and that’s when the subs cut off,. It will be high 13s then when deep bass hits it’ll go too 13.2 if it’s continuous bass I will see it drop too 12.8 but then it go back up too 13v’s but then drop all of a sudden to 10.2 and below. It’ll be like that for 5secs then get the volts back up. Then I’ll adjust the bass lower so it won’t do it again since I’m driving. But even lowering the bass it will still cut out, most times I just lower the bass all the way down to not deal with it. I checked all the fuses connected to the system - good.
Made sure the grounds were still good. Amp is less than a year old Cx600.1 kicker and 2 12” kickers. Like i said before 1 out of 4 months it was working perfect. Can a bad LOC cause this or power capacitor cause this drop. Been trying to chase this down for a month anything will help

Last edited by jon.mar27; Nov 7, 2018 at 05:30 PM.
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Old Nov 7, 2018 | 05:37 PM
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I can't see how a LOC would cause a voltage drop, How are the rest of your components (i.e. lights, dash, etc.?) Any issues starting? What's the voltage of the battery when the cap reads 9? The cap being a culprit is much more likely
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Old Nov 7, 2018 | 06:28 PM
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Originally Posted by thoiboi
I can't see how a LOC would cause a voltage drop, How are the rest of your components (i.e. lights, dash, etc.?) Any issues starting? What's the voltage of the battery when the cap reads 9? The cap being a culprit is much more likely
i tested battery running strong, had a volt tester on it for 2-3 mins no drop, as well as alternator, lights on dash and everything is fine, starts normal, no struggle what so ever.

what is cap? Capacitor?
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Old Nov 7, 2018 | 06:28 PM
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Cap = capacitor
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Old Nov 7, 2018 | 06:30 PM
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Originally Posted by thoiboi
Cap = capacitor
Thanks ! I’ll see if a friend can let me put his on and see if that works
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Old Nov 7, 2018 | 06:52 PM
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Try it without the capacitor hooked up (straight to amp) and see if still acts up. If it does than you just replace it.
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Old Nov 8, 2018 | 08:23 AM
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From: KCMO Burbs
You need to have voltage readings at the battery and at the cap at the same time to compare when the voltage drop happens if it is at both points. Only a couple of issues can cause this behavior:
1.) High resistance within the wiring
- Could be ground or positive
- what gauge wiring was used
2.) Too low resistance within the load
- Is the sub/amp clipping and pulling too much current?
3.) Failing charging system
- if the alternator can't provide the amperage needed for the amp, overall system voltage may drop
4.) The capacitor itself has issues
- bypass it to see if behavior changes
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Old Nov 8, 2018 | 08:36 AM
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Last but not least, please set the gain level appropriately and turn off the bass boost... Sorry had to say it because it's abused so often. For every 3db of boost it takes the amp double the power to produce that frequency. This alone will account for voltage drops in a system.
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Old Nov 8, 2018 | 08:53 AM
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Originally Posted by Bchester6
Last but not least, please set the gain level appropriately and turn off the bass boost... Sorry had to say it because it's abused so often. For every 3db of boost it takes the amp double the power to produce that frequency. This alone will account for voltage drops in a system.
As long as I had it I never set everything to the max, I Dialed it a little over half and bass booster at half as well, but I will check everything, also changed the alternator recently too
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Old Nov 8, 2018 | 09:50 AM
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From: KCMO Burbs
Bass boost and gain are pointless in the discussion at this point. If your amp and your sub are not being over driven is what matters here. You could put the gain at minimum and bass boost at full....or gain at full and boost at low....no matter, if you overdrive stuff...it will sound like arse and possibly draw way more current than normal.
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Old Nov 12, 2018 | 06:16 AM
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From: FL
Originally Posted by thoiboi
I can't see how a LOC would cause a voltage drop, How are the rest of your components (i.e. lights, dash, etc.?) Any issues starting? What's the voltage of the battery when the cap reads 9? The cap being a culprit is much more likely
looks like you were right, bypassing the capacitor and wiring directly too the amp solved the problem, so must be a bad cap.
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Old Nov 12, 2018 | 08:08 AM
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You can probably go without a cap since we're only talking 600 watts (40amps). It's debatable whether capacitors are actually useful in a car audio application just depends who you talk to.
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Old Nov 12, 2018 | 08:16 AM
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Originally Posted by Bchester6
You can probably go without a cap since we're only talking 600 watts (40amps). It's debatable whether capacitors are actually useful in a car audio application just depends who you talk to.
yeah I was doing a whole bunch of research on it when I found out it was the capacitor. I don’t have any dimming putting the volume up or anything so I may just skip the capacitor
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Old Nov 12, 2018 | 07:19 PM
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The cheapest and easiest thing make things flow freely is upgrading battery and power/ground wire.
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Old Nov 16, 2018 | 11:42 AM
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Thanks for checking back in. Glad you found the culprit
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