Ground Loop

[Twista89 10+ year member]

OK well out of the blue I just started having ground loop issues. I am in college taking finals so I cant go out and try to find the problem right now. Saturday my friend bought a amp for his car and we tested it in mine since I already had wires running and after everything was done I went to rehook up my RCAs and swaped one while the HU was on but as soon as I did that I remembered it wasnt good to hot swap RCAs on my 6900UB. So I shut down the HU and continued to figure out which channel was which turning the car on and off. After that I drove on a 2 and a half hour drive back to my college and everything was great no ground loops the entire trip. Now I go to turn my car on yesterday and the music played good for the first couple of seconds and then out of no where I get alternator whines. I was wondering is it possible to still blow the fuse even though everything was fine on the trip back or can it blow at anytime. Also is it ok to use speaker wire such as 14 AWG to ground the back of it and what do I do with the 3rd set of RCAs on the back of the HU. These are not directly on the back of the HU but connected to it from a cord...How do I ground this one.

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[ProgMtl 10+ year member]

Sounds like you popped the grounding on the one set of rca's you hooked up before you turned the HU off...Pioneer sucks for that...way to sensitive.

Did you hook up the "front" rca's when it was still on? Do you use the "rear" rca's? If not, use the "rear" now instead of the "front" and your problem will more than likely go away.

 

[sdmtnbiker420 10+ year member]

i had to use a ground loop isolator on my 6900ub... solved my whining problems

 

[Twista89 10+ year member]

I use all 4 channels for all 4 speakers in my car. I have no subs so I cant switch channels. I was going to get a ground loop isolator as a last options. Also I forgot to mention I blew both fuses in my amp about 5 hours before I started to take apart the wiring and put it in my friends amp. Could blowing those fuses have done anything to the amp??

 

[IDSkoT 5,000+ posts]

I use all 4 channels for all 4 speakers in my car. I have no subs so I cant switch channels. I was going to get a ground loop isolator as a last options. Also I forgot to mention I blew both fuses in my amp about 5 hours before I started to take apart the wiring and put it in my friends amp. Could blowing those fuses have done anything to the amp??

Do it the easy way... don't spend $40 bucks.

Get a wire, strip a long part off, take your HU out and wrap the wire around the shielding of the RCA's on your HU. Then ground it to your frame. It's an isolator - the money + better quality IMO. Most isolators don't really re-ground the wire. If you find one that does, go for it. I'd rather make my own.

And as for the amp: I hope that's not a real question.

 

[Twista89 10+ year member]

ok well im about to ground my RCAs right now but I have another question on my model I have 3 RCAs and the rear set is coming out of the HU from a cord I was wondering do I have to ground this set to? If so how?

 

[IDSkoT 5,000+ posts]

ok well im about to ground my RCAs right now but I have another question on my model I have 3 RCAs and the rear set is coming out of the HU from a cord I was wondering do I have to ground this set to? If so how?

If you're using them, do the same thing you'd do with the other ones.

REF Link: http://www.caraudio.com/forum/showthread.php?t=198477

(Yes... this question was answered in a sticky...)

You'd just wrap the shields in exposed wires and ground it.

And, the shield is the outside part of the RCA //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/fyi.gif.9f1f679348da7204ce960cfc74bca8e0.gif