Thread: newb grounding question...

Originally posted by bstanton
ok i searched and I want to solve the 'noise on the line' issue. And I know I should ground the power inverter and the case/motherboard to the car. How exactally would I go about doing it? Ground via one on the screws holding the motherboard to the case? And how would I do it with the power inverter / case psu?

Sorry I dont any electrician skills...

you searched? did you read this one ?thread1
or
thread2


Inverters other than pure sine wave (expensive) introduce noise
Bad grounds introduce noise.

Good grounds, Nice big wire from each component (like the metal PC case) to the same ground point ( a bare mental car chassis connection)

So give the ground a shot but noise could be from the inverter. which should be grounded by the negative side power cable to the same spot on the car chassis.

good luck

you didn't search.. I have like 3 replies with this same subject

ok first off ground everything to the same spot. if you use different grounds you create a ground loop which will create more noise.

Ok to ground your inverter.. you should have a +/- end. Take the neg end and ground it.

Ground your psu to the same spot as the inverter. Just find a screw thats holds the PSU in place to the case and use a o-ring attached to wire and ground that to the same spot as your inverter.

Thats all i needed to ground. everything else should be grounded to your case which then gets grounded to your ground point. If you need to ground your mobo just do it on a screw that holds it in to the case. Others have even grounded their sound card.

going from the cig lighter, I think, is a very bad idea. That could be some cause of noise also. Its a bit tricky with some of those inverters that have cig lighter plugs. You should see like on cord coming off the cig lighter input. It should look like two cords that are attached. Hopefully one is just black while the other might have a red stripe or white down it. The multi-color one is the +. Now just cut off the cig lighter head and split the two wires apart. Run the postitive to your battery and the neg to the ground point.

depending on the car you have you might have some troubles getting through the firewall. Also you'll want to run a in-line fuse in between the battery and inverter. MAKE SURE the fuse is no more then 12 inches from your battery. Also they make shielded wire with covering with a built in in-line fuse you can buy. They are usually like amp wiring kits. You can pick them up at any audio store or like a best buy.

i'd just run a 20amp fuse.