Grounding Issue

[phish368 10+ year member]

I'm pretty sure I have a ground issue. When i have my car turned on my front right tweeter whines when I accelerate (im told is caused by the alternator and grounding). I checked my amps and they are definitly grounded. I've replaced the RCA cable going from my processor to my amps and still have the same whine. I pulled out the speaker wire from my amp to the front right tweeter and had it outside my car (to make sure the speaker wire wasent getting any interference) and im still getting the whine. I pulled the power plug from my processor and i still hear the whine from the speaker. Any ideas on what I could do to investigate more?

Can I use a voltmeter to see if the grounds are correct on the amps? if so, does anyone know how to do that? I've only used a volt meter to set my amps gains.

thanks guys

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[thatkidbob 10+ year member]

do you get whine when the engine isn't on?

if not its alt whine and in my experience it's usually a routing issue involving your RCAS...

 

[phish368 10+ year member]

Hey man.. thanks for replying

When i have the car turned off and just the battery running (engine off) i do not get any whine in my speaker at all..

 

[Trey803 5,000+ posts]

Umm yea even thought people say RCA close to power wire doesnt have any effetc I have seen it happen. Also this may help when I used my remote wire to power my neons and then went to my amp if I had my neons on with the volume on 0 it wasnt a whine like most say but sounded like flowmaster coming out of my subwoofer when I was was idling was the most noticeable. Volume up to 1 and sound went completely away.

 

[Trey803 5,000+ posts]

Try running them on the ceiling if nothing else work I had a freinds brother show me this and thought it was stupid but hey if all else fails

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

It's not usually a ground issue with the amps and almost never a routing issue with the RCAs. Try regrounding your head unit and processors. Most likely going to be a processor ground since you are using Ai Net between the HU and the processor.

 

[phish368 10+ year member]

oooo.. the AI-net cable.. I didnt even think about that cable.. yea im using that cable and an optical cable from the HU.

Should both the processor and the HU's ground be going to same point? I am pretty sure that the ground cable is just going to a peice of metal in the car.. Should the ground be going to somewhere else instead?

As far as the roof idea.. That sounds pretty funny.. I bet it does work but i dont think i could get into and out of my roof.

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

The Ai Net cable isn't going to pick up noise. If your noise is present regardless of source (CD uses the optical cable which is immune to any kind of induced noise) you can pretty much rule out the HU. Try grounding the processor to the same point as the amps and make sure it's to bare metal.

 

[phish368 10+ year member]

cool... I shall try that out this week when i get a few hours to play... Thanks again guys