accessary battery... wat to do

guys just had a new sound system installed in ma civic. its crazy, so loud, screens and all... was at the river lasnight watching dvd and decided oh maybe i should turn the car on and give the battery a bit of a charge.

well the battery was flat and the car wouldnt start. long story short me and mates push started it...

enough about that what my question is- I want to now invest in an accessaries(spelling) battery so it runs all ma sound system... will this mean i need to re wire the power lines for the amps etc to the acessary battery or can i leave everything as is when batteries are connected up?

anyone with info about how accessory batteries work let me know

cheers

anyone with this kinda setup please let me know also

i wouldnt think u need to re-wire the system..
get a good capacitor aswell...1 farad is enough..
these batteries are a bit expensive..

You need a higher capacity battery. If you want to watch DVDs with the car off while finishing the whole movie and still have enough juice to start the car, then you need a larger size than the one that your Civic is spec'd for. You'll probably also need to relocate the battery since the locatiion of the battery in your Civic has not much room for an upsize.

yer the battery at the moment is pretty tiny. but i really dont want to have to change the location of the battery. dont want to do the wiring again!! big nightmare.

would rather throw one in the boot (under where the spare tyre goes). and because my amps is right there it would be easy to wire it up..

would a capacitor achieve this over a long time??? 3hours maybe?

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Originally Posted by paps02

yer the battery at the moment is pretty tiny. but i really dont want to have to change the location of the battery. dont want to do the wiring again!! big nightmare.

would rather throw one in the boot (under where the spare tyre goes). and because my amps is right there it would be easy to wire it up..

would a capacitor achieve this over a long time??? 3hours maybe?

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Capacitor won't do anything for long term capacity over an hour or two. You need a higher capacity battery no matter what.

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Originally Posted by aaronng

Capacitor won't do anything for long term capacity over an hour or two. You need a higher capacity battery no matter what.

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hahah damit...

ill just go invest in a secondary battery i think...

Hey Paps,got any pics of ya setup?

bro its nothing custom or super cool like that. just 6x9's in the back, 6" mtx splits in the front tweeters stuck on the doors. and then the amp is drilled to the back of the boot. i got a big screen in the roof the comes down and a retractable pioneer in the front....

but ill take photos if you really want

To do a secondary battery, you will need to do some wiring, need a isolator thingy to regulate the charging from the alternator between the main and 2nd battery. You probably need to go for a maintenance free dry battery, install them at the boot, vent them properly and cover it properly to prevent it from being a fire hazzard.

Me, I would just go for a Optima yellow/red top and forget about adding a 2nd battery. Try not to use the system more then 10 minutes with the engine off.

Thats the main reason I dont get it, why anyone would install a DVD on the car dash, cant watch it while driving, its a distraction, cant watch it while car is not running as it will drain the battery, watch it for 2 hours with engine running, waste of fuel and might cause CO poisoning if in an enclose area.

Install a LCD for the kids at the rear is the only reason valid for me.



Forget about installing a capacitor, it will only drain your battery faster if you watch movie with the engine off.

Cheers mate,I can envision it :)

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Originally Posted by beeza

Cheers mate,I can envision it :)

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next time i clean her up. ill photo the car. then you can have a perve...

back on topic. lights are dimming hard when big bass notes are played so the battery is on its way out im guessing. not good (as i have no money to replace).. getting payed soon ftw

thanks all for advice.

im opting for the secondary battery trick. my mechanic/electrician uncle is going to do all the wiring so il post up how it goes!

im going to use an optima yellow/red top or similar. but ill let the dude at the battery shop decide that for me. chuck that in the boot inside where my spare tyre is(was) and all is good...

hope your mechanic/eletrician knows what he is doing.

Why can't you wire the batteries up in series?

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Originally Posted by tron07

hope your mechanic/eletrician knows what he is doing.

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yer he has done it in his truck but for hunting spotlights instead of car amplifiers. not a hard job once he explained it to me but yer... still over my head hahah

to put my battery in series - all that will mean is that both batteries are being sucked. the setup im going to do will nominate one battery to the ICE and the other only for the car so that if my ICE battery goes dead i can still start my car...

In series????? If you put 2 batteries in series, y ou get 24V!

dual battery setup, like 4wd's

they run fridges and winches etc.

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Originally Posted by aaronng

In series????? If you put 2 batteries in series, y ou get 24V!

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lol...

should be parallel ... but there are more to that... the alt need to know when its fully charge, when its not.. or the older battery will drain the new battery and shorten the lifespan of the newer battery

If your light's are dimming... then it might be a good time to put a cap in.
it sit's as a temporary charge for when your music hit's those big bass note's... then quickly re-charges when the bass note ends.... there's a whole technical aspect to it if someone out there would care to explain.
as far as running your tv while the car is off... ya gonna need a spare battery and not run your cap at the same time.

yer i got a basic understanding in the cooncept of capacitors.. dont really need one atm (dont have subs lol its my speakers bass that dims the ligths, its fukd i know)...

but i did the research and its pretty basic concept to wire up the second battery. basically there is a device (think they call it a "relay")that allows current from the secondary battery to only flow one way. if the second battery goes flat it will therefore not draw power from the primary and will only be charged by the alternator.

so now what i have to do is take my car apart and rewire all the power, which is good as the (insert word) from wow sight and sound thought it would be clever to throw the power cords beside the signal cords and give me some lovely distortion!!! but il save that for another thread lol

A weak battery will dim your lights too

Caps are crap!

Optima Yellow top! :thumbsup:

Also it not a good idea to mix batteries in a car. IE:-Optima(gel type) --Standard (acid type) as the car will charge the weaker battery first and wont fully charge the optima, There are new Batteries from PULSE the will in the standard location with a higher reserve for stereo's, I have a optima tha i have had for 3 years now and i can have the stereo running @ 3/4 volume at shows for over 4 hours and still have no worries starting.

what optima? yellow top?

i use the Optima Yellow Top D34 as the stereo Battery & a Pulse PHB400 as the starting battery.

Hey mate, the Capacitor will stop the lights dimming on the big notes - a cap in this application is sort of like a cmallish battery itself that only stores enough power to support your real battery for high current quick discharges ... like big bass notes.
I have an Odyssey battery (same idea as the Optima) but it still goes flat rather fast.
For a 2nd battery, you will run the 2 batteries in parrallel. I still think that you would flatten both in less than 3 hours though.

not true.

the relay would stop the current being sucked from the primary battery to support the secondary battery thus seperating the batteries to do there different tasks..

think of it as a turnstile at suncorp stadium. you are the current. you go through the turnstile. it only turns one way so you cannot come back out.

anyways thats the least of my problems now. for some reason when i took out the fuse to reset my ecu the sound system now thinks my front speakers are subs... tweeters should not play bass let me tell you that much.

it takes too mch effort to hook up ur system to one batt.
and ur starting to another batt.

ur better off to just intall 2 batts and so wen u drive both of em gets charged therefore u will possibly have 2x the ammount of charge.
cos atm the wiring all goes to one batt. and without knowing wat wire is wat ur like lost. and it s abig headache to find out wat goes where.

(and i just came up with an idea)
u could install another batt in ur boot and all ur amp run off tat. as long as that batt is connected to the thing that charged the batt... i 4got wat thats called
these are only ideas though not 100% sure wat it would produce

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Originally Posted by GIPONU

it takes too mch effort to hook up ur system to one batt.
and ur starting to another batt.

ur better off to just intall 2 batts and so wen u drive both of em gets charged therefore u will possibly have 2x the ammount of charge.
cos atm the wiring all goes to one batt. and without knowing wat wire is wat ur like lost. and it s abig headache to find out wat goes where.

(and i just came up with an idea)
u could install another batt in ur boot and all ur amp run off tat. as long as that batt is connected to the thing that charged the batt... i 4got wat thats called
these are only ideas though not 100% sure wat it would produce

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its called the alternator :thumbsup:

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Originally Posted by paps02

not true.

the relay would stop the current being sucked from the primary battery to support the secondary battery thus seperating the batteries to do there different tasks..

think of it as a turnstile at suncorp stadium. you are the current. you go through the turnstile. it only turns one way so you cannot come back out.

anyways thats the least of my problems now. for some reason when i took out the fuse to reset my ecu the sound system now thinks my front speakers are subs... tweeters should not play bass let me tell you that much.

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Ah cool, didn't realise you were gonna have a changover relay. You're right there though, it will leave you with a battery to start the car. But then you are still only running the system off one battery, and it'll go flat until you start the car from the good battery. Won't be much good for the battery to flatten it/fully charge it/flatten it etc etc

saw these batteries in hot4s, current issue.. cant remember what they are but say they are one of the best for high quality stereos lolzzzz

in current issue.. ill find out for u

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Originally Posted by DC5TYPER

Caps are crap!

Optima Yellow top! :thumbsup:

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you can prove this with studies you have carried out im sure?

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Originally Posted by GIPONU

it takes too much effort to hook up your system to one batt.

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:confused:

what you're really wanting to say is that its too much effort for the installer who originally did the job to do it properly the first time so the owner of the car doesn't get on forums and ask questions and recieve answers from NON-QUALIFIED posters giving the wrong information?

funny how people take what they read or hear as gospel and try to apply it without knowing how something does or doesnt work...

caps are good.
but some ppl just use it to cover up diming problems.


nd have u(person above) tried to wire a complete system from a stock to a 2nd batt in the rear? COMPLETE, meaning H/u,amps,caps? the h/u is the hard part. aye mr non qualified?

if you re-type that in the queens english so i can understand what your asking rather than the bodgy sms style you're using i might be able to reply to what your asking...

and btw, dimming lights are mostly caused to poor ground along the different welded panels along the car getting to the back where someone has grounded an amp, caps in most cases wont fix this, a proper ground will thou...

I think what GIPONU is trying to say is that it's too hard to wire all of your I.C.E. from a 2nd aux battery ..... which in my opinion is rubbish, I think it is easier. Especially for the Head Unit, the only difference is mine ALWAYS has power due to not using the OEM ignition switched power. This could be easily overcome by sticking a relay in line with the power feed from the 2nd battery, and have said relay turned on and off by the OEM ignition power that would have been connected to the OEM head unit.
eeeeeeeeeeeeeasy.

;)

IM CONFUSED with all the arguing....

also i finally completely flattend my battery on the weekend so im prob going to get the new battery this w/e. the indicators dont even blink.... i now get the feeling that my battery went flat as the alt wasn't providing enough power to the ICE while the motor was running meaning it drained the battery...

im just going to get a bigger alternator and a new (powerful) battery. optima are too expensive. im going to that battery discount shop on moss st instead

Quote:

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Originally Posted by paps02

im just going to get a bigger alternator and a new (powerful) battery.

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Good Move!
A good solution:
Get the bigger battery, def the bigger alt.
Have a smaller stock battery that ONLY starts the car. So when the car is switched to ACC (Not IGN or ON) then the 2 batteries are isolated from one another. When the car is running they are in parrallel so they both receive charge.
Sorted.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by paps02

IM CONFUSED with all the arguing....

also i finally completely flattend my battery on the weekend so im prob going to get the new battery this w/e. the indicators dont even blink.... i now get the feeling that my battery went flat as the alt wasn't providing enough power to the ICE while the motor was running meaning it drained the battery...

im just going to get a bigger alternator and a new (powerful) battery. optima are too expensive. im going to that battery discount shop on moss st instead

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who's arguing, not me? :)

When you drain a lead acid battery it will never hold full charge again.
Might want to check with an auto electrician about your alternator.
As for draining your battery, you should never run a system with the power your running without the engine going in any case...

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Originally Posted by ICACHA

you should never run a system with the power your running without the engine going in any case...

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what aabout on fully sick meets when we all wana listen to/watch music? or when we go fishing? but yer i know what your saying..

hire a generator and plug a battery charger up to the battery, think outside the square :p

or... bunnings have a sale, get some extension cords.....:-)

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Originally Posted by AzKik-R

or... bunnings have a sale, get some extension cords.....:-)

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if gone fishing at some remote location, be sure to pack an extra f%$king long one :D

lol thanks guys

what type of battery to u have??

you need to get a good dry cell battery and a good capicitor.. look into soundstream or optima batteries.. they are good..

but if your going to be playin dvd's n listening to ur sytem on accessory.. not matter what battery and capacitor u have it will eventually go flat..

car stereos are not designed to be played on accessory for a long amount of time..

if ur car is for show use... you get a 12v power supple that will plug into the wall...

Since when soundstream manufacture battries?

when someone slapped a Sound Stream "Made in China" sticker on an NRMA battery :p hahahahahaha

And charge a premium for the sticker :D

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Originally Posted by tron07

Since when soundstream manufacture battries?

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since a while...

i have on in my civic and my bf has one in his lex.. they are great dry cell batteries.

and are so much cheaper then optima..

you can get em from Car Audio Excellence..

CER-15E, please go to www.soundstream.com and point them out to us (if you can) as I'm old and a bit blind...

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Originally Posted by ICACHA

CER-15E, please go to www.soundstream.com and point them out to us (if you can) as I'm old and a bit blind...

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call car audio excellence like i said (88149244).. they have them.. i own one... just cos they aint on the website doesnt mean it doesnt exist...

Do you want to buy a Soundstream computer, laptop or desk? I can sell you one too.... [:D]

They exist too...