Amp Ground Question?...

[mike70wu 10+ year member]

I know this may seem like a stupid question but I am planning on hooking my new amp up soon, and I was planning on just running the ground wire to the negative battery terminal, so this will make the ground wire around 10 feet long, is this okay? or will it cause a problem?, my friend told me that it shouldnt be done because the ground wire shouldnt be over 3 feet long...Thanks in advance.

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[PaulD 10+ year member]

This should be fun ....... I'll sit back and get me some popcorn //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

http://www.caraudio.com/forum/showthread.php?t=328037&highlight=ground

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

You'll be fine, though depending on the size of the amp you may not gain anything by running all the way back to the bat. You def. won't hurt anything.

 

[mapolley07 10+ year member]

you're fine doing it that way, the only time wire length makes a difference on a ground is when you ground to the frame

 

[DidUHearThat? 10+ year member]

As long as the wire is thick enough to handle the job your fine. It is kind of a waste of wire, since you could use the cars chassis as the ground connection, there is no real advantage either way. What may seem like a 10 foot run frequently turns into 15 - 20 feet of wire. With heavy gauge wire that price adds up quick.

 

[king ranch 5,000+ posts]

i read that running a ground for the back battery to the front battery will help voltage drops is that true

 

[TurdFergueson2 5,000+ posts]

i read that running a ground for the back battery to the front battery will help voltage drops is that true

I read that running 2 L7s off a Sony Xplod amp is how you roll. Is that true?

 

[Pioneer~Saturn 5,000+ posts]

i read that running a ground for the back battery to the front battery will help voltage drops is that true

Depending on situation and what wire+how much of it youre using for your ground run back to the front...im going with 3 runs of kollosus...that should be a far better connection than my ground

 

[DidUHearThat? 10+ year member]

i read that running a ground for the back battery to the front battery will help voltage drops is that true

Probably not. Depends on how much power your talking about, and how much current the chassis can carry without voltage drop. I think you would have to be an extreme system to exceed the amp capacity of the car chassis. Greater than 250-300 amps of draw minimum. Below that, I think it's a waste of cable. Also a light weight small car chassis can carry less amps than a full sized HD pickup chassis.

For 99% of the people out there voltage drop is mostly because of too small of positive wire (and Big3), not enough reserve battery capacity and not enough charging power from the alternator.