Stereo wiring gurus out there?

[ak96ss]

Quick question for anyone who has some experience.

I'm hooking up the stereo again, after many months of having it out as I work on other issues.

I am getting sparks, nice fat ones, when I go to hook up the ground cable from the battery. If I disconnect the capacitor, no sparks at all, it goes on the stud normally.

I made sure that the capacitor was recharged using the resistor before trying to hook up the battery, and it charged normally. I have verified that all of the ground wires go to ground and the positive wires go to positive.

I know I don't need a capacitor, so don't tell me that I should just remove it, please.

[Tonyb]

I hooked my cap up to a fuse block first, then charged it with the resistor in between the cable and battery. If the cap is charged already, it will spark. Why do you have a cap anyway? More details would help.

[doigal]

Get a multimeter and see what the cap is putting out. From your description, the cap just isnt charged and is sucking a monster load from the battery when you connect it up.

[ak96ss]

I think I have it figured out, I just had to wait for yesterday's torrential rains to go away before I could fiddle with it.

I am using the antenna power wire as my remote-on source, through a relay. During a brief respite in the rain yesterday I went out and removed the cap from the power line to the amp. Hooked up the negative battery cable, and my amps came on for about 2 seconds, then shut off. No spark show, the negative cable went on without drama.

For some reason (I would imagine to make sure the mast is down, but I don't know) the antenna gets power for a few seconds when you first hook up the battery.

My thinking is that, even though I made sure the cap is fully charged before I hooked everything up, because the amps are trying to come on the instant you connect the ground cable, they are draining the cap, which tries to 'refill' itself as soon as it can.

I think if I disconnect the remote power lead I should be able to hook it all up then reconnect the lead without the spark show.

I have a cap because, well, I bought into the hype. When I initially put the stereo in, I was running somewhere north of 1000 watts - no dimming lights or anything, but the bass didn't seem to hit as hard as I thought it should.  Now that I have built a proper enclosure for the sub, not to mention removing a couple of the amps that were, realistically, unnecessary, it should sound fine. But I already have the cap.  :rolleyes:

BTW, it is almost impossible to seal the passenger compartment from the trunk! I was running a free air setup in my SS, two Pyle 10's with around 650w sounded great. The 318is trunk is damn near porous - which was why my sub didn't sound as good as it should have. I bit the bullet and enclosed the sub in a box and am expecting much better sound out of it, but I've been unable to get the damned thing hooked up to try it out!