[quote=AppleMac*Fit;145367]Thus says an electrician (me)...
A capacitor is only effective at stabilizing voltages in AC (alternating current - such as in your home)... not DC (such as in your car). In an AC system, it helps to eliminate ripple current, and straighten out the waveform of the AC pulse.
If one REALLY wanted to stabilize the voltage in a DC system, a 1:1 transformer would help somewhat... but the effects would likely be minimal.
The electricity of a car is known as 12VDC. There is no questionning about that. But the alternator that supply or maintain the juice to the system is AC (for Alternative Current). This supply is regulated (or translated into DC) through a sort of "bridge of Diodes" integrated nowadays in the Alternator itself. And this supplied current is neat and clean under 13.2V but rough and full of ripples above.
The battery itself cleans out part of that noise as it a chemical accumulator. But I beleive that high peaks and harmonic noises are carried out in the whole system... unless filterd by a voltage stabilyser. I would not swear on this statement since I did not put a car charging system under an oscilloscope, but I welcome anyone to give it a try
I have not installed mine yet as I am waiting for nice weather to work outside. And even then I will not be able to compare gas milage since I never kept records
