Thread: Eliminating Ground Loop

What kind of car do you have?

The long ground line may or may not cause more problems by picking up more inducted noise.

You might want to try running a wire between the radio grounding point and the amp grounding point. That way your grounds stay short but the grounding points are connected. I would use at least 8 gauge wire.

It's a Daewoo Lanos, I just thought by grounding everything to the same place it would eliminate the loop.

Originally Posted by Shadow

What kind of car do you have?

The long ground line may or may not cause more problems by picking up more inducted noise.

Ground lines do not pick up inducted noise or we would have one hell of a problem.

Entire car chassis = VERY long/wide ground line

Originally Posted by norbie

It's a Daewoo Lanos, I just thought by grounding everything to the same place it would eliminate the loop.

Unless a component finds it easier just to ground through the interconnect. You are correct though, in theory that should take care of a ground loop. Just keep in mind that the longer a wire, the higher its resistance. When a component is grounding, it will take the path of least resistance. Also its not always the interconnect OR ground wire. Sometimes it can be a little of both until it finds an equilibrium.

Would you do it yourself? (grounding headunit to the same place as amp in the boot)

I'm still getting a little intereference, I'm upgrading the audio cable soon and will try with and without ground loop.

When you talk about high resistance do you mean I would need quite a thick cable as it goes over distance?

Thanks for everyone's help

Is it grounded to the car's wiring harness or is it grounded to part of the dash behind the radio?

It's the wiring harness as far as I can see, I haven't followed the cable to see where exactly it's grounded too though.

Did you install your radio? It may need to be grounded to your floorpan or firewall or something.