Oh god... I effed up something electrical... help.

[MadAudio 10+ year member]

you could also try disconnecting the battery waiting a few minutes and reconnecting it.

i know it sounds to simple to work but it certainly wont hurt and you would be surprised how often it does work.

 

[bangandow 10+ year member]

Oh I forgot to ask, what do I do now knowing that it's a bad HU RCA ground?

 

[the727kid 10+ year member]

I had my Pioneer do the SAME THING....now I have a CD5000. ACC...sound great, ON, staticy. Ended up being bad RCAs on the HU.

One way to check is to dissconnect the RCAs from the HU and plug them into an ipod or cd player.....This is how I figured out my issue, my system played perfect off the ipod.

 

[enzowho 10+ year member]

Oh I forgot to ask, what do I do now knowing that it's a bad HU RCA ground?

It seems like you might be missing something; its not necessarily a HU ground issue (although Pioneers traditionally have poor internal grounds).

What you are doing by disconnecting your RCA's is removing a variable in your noise problem. Just disconnect your RCA's (either at your HU or at the amp), turn your key to each position (and turn on your car) and listen for noise.

If you still hear noise (alt. whine, tapping, etc.) it means your amplifier's ground is at fault. Insure you have the following: all amps (eq's, caps, active filters, etc.) grounded to the same location, short ground wire, the grounded surface is free of paint and corrosion, and it is tightly bolted down.

If the noise goes away when you remove your RCA's then its a headunit/RCA problem. If this is the case insure your HU ground is good. Next search for the thread about properly grounding your Pioneer RCA outs. I dont even know if its on this forum, but I'm sure somebody can find it. Also, make sure you RCA's aren't picking up noise somewhere (not likely from your description).

Hope that helps.

 

[ultimate157 5,000+ posts]

If it is a bad RCA ground, do this:

 

[01sugar2 10+ year member]

I would also like to add something to the conversation on this subject. Coming from the professional side of the automotive industry, there's another possibility. Just because your alternator is putting out perfect voltage, this doesn't mean that you can rule out your alternator. Alt's use diodes in them to convert AC signals to DC voltages for your vehilce to operate off of. There are a few AC Signal voltages on most vehicles (like wheel speed sensors), but very few. Anyhow, when your diodes start to fail, you start to leak AC voltage into your system; this causes RFI noise.

Optimally speaking, you want less than say 20 mV (or .020 volts) of Low Pass AC Filterd voltage coming off your alternator's charge wire; range of 10 to 20 mV is great. Over about 25mV and you start to hear some RFI noise coming across the speakers.... I have a neat diagram from my labscope that I put together from a previous problem I had on a police car. The same noise you experianced through your speakers, I had happen to me on a police car (I repair them for a living) with all their radios and such installed. Simple 1 min. test and you can see the bad results (diodes that are bad/failed) versus a new Alternator on the same car; concern was fixed.

http://dustin_palmer.tripod.com/comparealternator.gif

Take a trip to an Autozone or whatever and see if they can do a diode test on your alternator. Their test results will only show good or bad (mine is a digital signal obviously put across a high speed labscope), but if they're bad your signal could look exactly like the one there (linked from my site).

I Won'T say that's what the problem is, but it's def. another possibility if you don't find something wrong with your wiring.... hope this helps!

Dustin

 

[bangandow 10+ year member]

That's ghetto as hell... but I'll give it a try when I can get to a garage.

:edit: I meant that in response to ultimate's post...

The alternator is making this funny rubbing noise... anyone know if that could have anything to do with it?

 

[01sugar2 10+ year member]

Please see my above edit. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif at the bottom of my post. I'm willing to bet that's going to cause your alt. noise (not for sure of course, but it's most certainly possible). Good luck!

Dustin

I guess it dropped my edit, so I'll add it here instead. The wave form(s) I linked you to are shown on a .2 volt scale (far right of pic). But anyhow, that same alternator did have some rubbing sound coming from it, more so noticed after I removed the alternator and spun it by hand. I wanted to clamp the wire and do my quick check for fun mainly (an AVR machine could have given me the same results... same machines alternator tests are run on), but I wanted to play with my new AC Filtered test lead. It's just a thought, but it may help you get a free alternator check as places like Autozone don't charge for those services. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif Best of Luck.

Dustin

 

[luvinthebass 5,000+ posts]

If it is a bad RCA ground, do this:

that works wonders for a Pioneer head unit! it saved me from buyin a new one

 

[bangandow 10+ year member]

Wow, that ghetto-rigged setup worked //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif My preouts are on pigtails, so it looks even more shoddy, but it sounds better than it did before.

Thanks for the help

 

[sue bee 10+ year member]

it doesn't have to look that ghetto as long as it's completely grounded

 

[60ndown 10+ year member]

you telling me that grounding birds nest figure of 8 worked? just sent my 880prs in for repair, after a similar 'sqwauk' alarm sound? i tried a few grounding tricks but nothing worked, improved yes, but silent no. got told it was an internal fuse (lke all pioneer hus?) any way its at the shop and we will see what they say?

 

[bangandow 10+ year member]

Yup //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif Figure 8 birds nests FTW!

it doesn't have to look that ghetto as long as it's completely grounded

How could the picture above not look ghetto? Since I had to lengthen each of those figure 8's to reach the pigtails, the inside of my dash is filled with even more random-*** wires.