When i Use my headlights , empeg powers down ?

I have a little problem, when I switch on my headlights , or flash them at slow people to overtake them :-), my empeg screen blanks for 1 second and then comes back with the battery in the screen and continues to play...
I already switched off my foglights (they where always on)
but even when i switch from OFF to Dimlights it does the same. Also when braking for a stoplight it sometimes does the same shitty thing :-(
I checked the voltage and with normal operation its 13.8 volts
but when switching something electric , Airco or whatever it goed briefly under 11 volts and yes .. empeg doesnt like that.
Is there something i can place between the battery and the empeg which will act as a buffer ????

the car is a heavily modified 4x4 cosworth 380 bhp.
I cant attach a picture ??

a capacitor might help some. I know they sell some on ebay that are around .12 to .25 farads for pretty cheap. this would also help filter out any AC noise too.

Sounds like an issue with the wiring being incorrect, or maybe your car's battery is nearly dead.

This is "Car Stereo 101" stuff, please go here and avail yourself of the resources linked there. Especially this one.

Definately sounds like a wiring issue. From the description I'd suspect a poor ground connection, causing it to float upwards in voltage instead of staying down at 0V when other stuff that uses the same ground point pass current through it.

First thing I'd do is to make a new ground connection for the empeg, to a solid piece of metal (and make sure the metal part actually is connected to the rest of the car, as I recall someone who had grounded to a metal piece in the dash, to find that it was mounted all in plastic... )

/Michael

A friend of mine had the same problem in a Rover 220 Turbo Coupe (Tomcat). Replacing the alternator fixed the problem.

It might be an idea to get the alternator and battery tested, as the voltage should never drop this low when the engine is running.

Personally, I had an Evo 6 which showed similar problems, and this turned out to be the battery.

Andy.

Well, it's possible that the problem isn't the overall voltage of the car, it could just be a problem with the voltage going to the particular wire that's feeding the empeg.

Someone else who had this problem, as I recall, solved it by doing some rewiring work and running a direct line to the battery (FUSE YOUR BATTERY RUNS EVERYBODY).

Heh, I can attest to that. I accidentally made a very nice little black scorch mark through my carpet when someone sat in the back seat of my jeep, crushing through the shielding on the 12V lead. I had fused the cable, but was lazy and did it on the wrong side (near the amps)... Chris jumped in the back seat, and all of a sudden... WTF is that SMELL!!! ;8^) I'll never make that mistake again.

To clarify the problem that my friend and I had.

When the problem occurred, the voltage level across the whole car was dropping. You could see this from the fact that the internal courtesy light would dim, the headlights were not as bright as they should be, the instrument illumination would almost go out, as would the tail lights.

As Tony says, though, it could simply be the wiring to the headunit itself. The sure way to tell is to measure the voltage directly across the battery terminals when the electrical system is under maximum load (e.g. air-con, full beam headlights etc.). If it drops below about 12 volts (should be 14.8 with no load), then I would have to suspect either the battery or the alternator.

If the voltage drop is only on the wiring for the headunit inside the car, then it's likely to be this wiring that is somehow causing the problem.

Andy.

Right, what he said, plus the following:

The original problem description did not include a description of what kind of amplification the stereo system had. If you've got super-powerful amps running very loud, you might be over-taxing the car's electrical system...

I would have to agree there, I have seen cars have the whole lighting system (including headlights, interior lights, head unit, etc.) go almost black because he was pushing 1000 watts with out capacitors