I drive a 2001 blazer ls 2 door & finally got tire of hearing the aftermarket component speakers attempting to put out bass notes. so i bought a 12" sub & an amp. The sub is 300 watt RMS, 1200 watt Peak. The amp is an MTX TC3002, which is a 300 watt RMS & 900 watt peak when bridged (which is what i plan to do). http://www.mtx.com/caraudio/products...ers/TC3002.cfm

75-200 watts is about where it will be at most of the time. I don't plan to push it past 300-500 watts ever, but you know... sometimes ya want to see what it can do. I'm wondering if my stock alternator will handle that power demand or am i going to need to upgrade my alternator. i have no idea what the factory alternator puts out, & wondering if that amp is going to burn out the alt. i figured what i want to do is pretty low power compared to what some of you folks are putting in your rides... so i am a bit puzzled.

Any help you folks can provide will be appreciated.

 

you should be fine. i had a 600 rms amp with no problem and now a 1000 rms amp with no problem. my alternator and battery are stock and i have yet to do the big 3. the only time i see even a bit of voltage drop is on the song woofer cooker with the gains set high.

 

I agree with jshark I'm running an 800watt system and don't have much issues with voltage drop, just don't run the system long with the engine off lol

 

You should be able to play that system as loud as you want all day with no negative effects on the stock alternator. I'm running a 650 watt rms system, only when I'm idling with the subwoofer cranked do I notice the dome lights dim slightly.

Just for kicks, what subwoofer are you buying?

 

the sub is a sony xplode. i figure it's durable & functional for my application

 

hello, i dont mean to steal the thread but... i currently have a sundown saz 1000.1 D(90 amperage fuse) amp for sub and a kadence xneth xa 120.2 (30 amperage fuse) for my frnt comps which are 4 ohm . i have a optima red top and bid 3 upgrade using 1/0 power wire. i also have the stock alt and i was wondering if im in the need of an alt upgrade. feed back wpuld be great thankd

 

well, are you using all 1200 watts? or are you only running the sundown at 600watts? and the cadence at 100 watts? that all determines what alt you need

 

I use over 2000 watts on all of the things on my truck. like 1000 watts on lights alone... and then close to another 1000 watts on my system. I have the stock alternator and stock wiring with a red top optima. my volts drop down when I'm at idle especially when I'm in reverse or breaking. I'm probably pushing my alternator to its limits

 

just noticed in my email that this thread was active again. since i posted this... I blew my stock alternator. The voltage regulator was not prepared for what i was going to throw at it & have now upgraded to a 200 amp. i took it apart & the brushes were still in great shape but the regulator was cooked.

IMO the best way to check what you are pulling is to add up the amps your system is pulling... not the watts. a stock alternator produces about 25 amps at idle & around 105ish @ 2000 RPM's. if running a heavier load with a stock alternator you really should be adding some rpm's to the motor to produce this power, although i have seen my old alternator produce 39 amp spikes at idle.

comparing lighting to audio seems like a stretch IMO because voltage drops are a lot higher & more sporadic when it comes to audio systems where the lighting is a pretty consistent power draw.

yeah i would say 2000 watts is a lot of amp draw for your alternator. the formula to use is (watts / volts = amps) - 2000 watts / 14 volts = 142.85 amps.

as to the sundown Question... 1000 watts / 14 volts = 71.4 amps... 120 watts / 14 volts = 8.5 amps. your vehicle runs 8 amps just to run so you are borderline but still in the clear @ 2000 rpm. 71.4 + 8.5 + 8 = 87.9 amps

by the way, having fuses rated higher than the amplifier is practically useless because if it exceeds the current draw of the amp, the fuse will not blow because it didn't exceed the draw of the fuse first. best way to buy fuses is to try to match then to the amp load or the fuses that are already in the amplifier (examples 2 - 20 amps fuses etc.) just figured i would throw that out there.

 

I'm currently on a 2 ohm load on the sundown amp. i will be replacing my sub in the future so i can deaw the 1k watts I heard that the 130 amp alternators are known to put ouy 220 amps... is this a rumor? this was supposably bench tested...