You turn on the electricity, and the music starts playing. When you start the engine, the music has to pause for a brief moment before continuing after the engine has finished starting. Why is that?
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it’s all about how cars are wired. basically, when you start the car, the starter motor uses quite a lot of power. to make sure it gets as much as possible, most cars are designed to pause non-essential electric systems – like your music – for a sec. once the engine’s running and the alternator’s up to speed, power’s back to everything and your tunes can kick in again.
The car’s engine needs to be started with an electric motor called a starter which requires an extremely high amount of current. When the key is turned to the start position there is an electronic switch that cuts off electricity to every circuit except to the starter so the battery can send all available current to the starter and not divide it among all the other unnecessary circuits.
Before the engine starts, all of the power comes from the 12V battery. When the engine is starting, a lot of current is drawn from the battery, which causes a drop in voltage. As the starter motor is trying to start the engine, this adds a great deal of noise (fluctuations in voltage). The irregular and noisy voltage during the engine start can be unsafe or hard on electronics in the car, so they’re temporarily disconnected until the engine is started and the alternator is providing a steady supply of power (or it’s back on battery).
The full voltage of the battery is needed when starting the engine. So basically:
* Engine off – Audio system runs off the battery
* Engine starting – Battery is powering the starter motor, all other electric items get cut off
* Engine on – Engine powers the car and charges the battery
The starter motor takes a lot of juice to get the engine, well, started. So, to make sure it can do its job, everything else non-essential is cut off until the car starts.
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