Problem: Alternator Wine

Possible Solution:

–          If you hear a wining noise that fluctuates with the RPMs of your vehicle, and lessens when the car engine is turned off, you are dealing with Alternator Wine. Alternator Wine is cause by having a bad ground to either your head unit or your speakers’ amplifier. Check your ground wires and find a better place to ground them, e.g. the frame or body of the car.
–          If you are experiencing headlight dimming when you have your radio turned up with aftermarket amplifiers and subwoofers, your stereo is pulling too much power for the alternator to keep up. There are a few solutions to this problem:

• Wire in a Capacitor. Although curing headlight dim is far down on the list for a Capacitor’s use, a capacitor might be the solution to your problem. A capacitor is made to curve the spikes in power from the battery to the Amplifier, to create consistent 12v power. Adding a capacitor with the correct farad, in some cases, will curve your amplifier power drawing spikes enough to limit headlight dim. The rule of thumb farad – wattage conversion is 1 farad to every 1000 watts.
• Upgrade the Alternator. Sometimes OEM alternators don’t generate enough power for your upgraded stereo. Upgrading the alternator to one that can produce enough power to handle your upgraded amplifiers/stereo will solve your headlight dim.
• Get a Bigger/Better Battery: Sometimes old/cheap batteries can be one of the sources in your headlight dim issue. Replace your battery to a newer, bigger batter to handle more power and load. Although this might not fix the problem it might help.
• Add an Auxiliary Battery: Wire in a completely separate battery to power just your stereo. This will lessen the load on your engine battery and sometimes will fix your headlight dim.
• OPURADIO