# wiring for 2 amps?



## onecloudyday (Oct 6, 2002)

I have a question here. I am kinda new to doin this and i have just gotten my first dual amp setup. I have the worked out my power and found that i need a 70 amp main fuse from the battery and i should use 4 guage wire. My question is , if i run my power from the distro blocks out should i go 4 guage out as well to the amps or do i go 4 guage in and smaller out? The other this is should i really install the cap or not, i have heard a million and ones things about caps good and bad and not quite sure of what to do here. How many of you guys use them cause just about all the shops around here swear by them. One more thing is that they recommend running the ground directly to the battery , is this what everyone does? Thanks for the help here.


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## tplaya07 (Dec 15, 2004)

Typically, the fuse at the battery should be fused according to the wire size, which for 4 gauge, should be around 125 amps. The fuse is to protect the wire, not the amplifier(s). Is the distrobution block your using a fused distro block? If so, fused distro's usually drop down in size from the input to the ouput across the fused section. I know that some distro's do sometimes have the terminals on the same side as the larger input to connect the same size wire, but even if you use one of these terminals, you should go ahead and put another inline fuse in place. Otherwise, just fuse each wire according to the total amount of amperage the amplifier's fuses have. So, if your sub's amp has 2 40amp fuses, you'll use an 80amp on the power wire going to that one, and same thing with matching the mids/highs amp.
Caps are frowned upon by many and considered "band-aids", but it will NOT hurt anything to put a cap in if you want. It will help to stablize the voltage on high current demands for a short period of time. However, if it is light dimmage or voltage drops that you have on a consistent basis, your probably better off doing the Big 3 (upgrading your cars electrical charging system), getting a deep cycle battery, or a high output alternator. The big 3 is typically the most suggested option, because it only involves the cost of ~5-10ft of wire (4 gauge or bigger), and an hour or so of your time.


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## makaveli (Oct 5, 2005)

tplaya07 said:


> Typically, the fuse at the battery should be fused according to the wire size, which for 4 gauge, should be around 125 amps. The fuse is to protect the wire, not the amplifier(s).


:wtf: Thats strange, i was told you would want to add the amp draw from the amplifers(i have 2 amp thats require a 30A fuse each = 60A fuse) to determine the in-line fuse size. then run it to a distro-block that has the amps required fuse(s) in it. that way you can protect the wire and amps(twice!), which is espically helpful if you have a old school rockford amp like me, they dont have built in fuese. Yikes!


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## xbrandonx (Mar 27, 2004)

I have 4ga ran back to the dist block and then 8ga going from the dis block to my amps. Just make sure to use as much 4ga as possible and get the dist block as close to your amps so the 8ga wire can be as short as possible.

Bumping up your wire sizes will help, but don't go any smaller.


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## makaveli (Oct 5, 2005)

xbrandonx said:


> I have 4ga ran back to the dist block and then 8ga going from the dis block to my amps. Just make sure to use as much 4ga as possible and get the dist block as close to your amps so the 8ga wire can be as short as possible.
> 
> Bumping up your wire sizes will help, but don't go any smaller.


thats same way i got it


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## JeenYus (Apr 5, 2004)

I wouldn't get a cap unless you are going to be doing competitions. For a daily setup, it isn't worth the money. Basically, it's just a storage tank for power. If you are driving around blasting it, the cap won't have any chance to fill up with power and will pretty much just act as wire. In a competition though, you usually only burp it for a few seconds. In that case, the cap can keep voltage up for maximum power to the amps. 

As far as you question on running your ground up the negative terminal on the battery, that generally isn't a good idea. The only time I'd recommend that is if you have a separate battery in your trunk specificly for your stereo. Your negative terminal on the battery is just connected to the chassis of your vehicle. You're better off just connecting it to the chassis back by the trunk. As a general rule, try to keep your ground wire under a foot and a half. Any more is just adding unneeded resistance. I good place to ground is the seatbelt bolt on your back seat. Where ever you decide to ground it though, make sure to scrape, sand or grind all the paint around it down to bare metal to get the best connection.


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