mp31500

Just came in from working on the old player. I have finally eliminated the whine from my system. I ran a new ground wire from the battery and grounded the inverter, head unit, and case too it. It worked!!! Now all i have is a very slight hum when there is no music or when paused. I think it is because the winamp volume is at 100% on the player. I am going to try different levels but if I go lower on the winamp volume I have to go higher on the head unit and then if I switch back to the radio it about blows me out of the jeep!!! Stay tuned.....

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Tekati

Yes I had this whine in my system as well in my Tahoe. The way I got rid of it was purchasing a Heavy Duty noise supressor from Radio Shack. It is a 20A suppressor and all it needs is the positive leads passed through it and it worked like a charm. The noise is from the alternator and yes you could most likely solve it by running grounds all the way to your battery but for my installation in a Tahoe that was not very practical.

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[This message has been edited by Tekati (edited 11-01-2000).]

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blkdragon6

Tekati,

I have engine whine as well and was wondering if you could give a little more info on hooking up a radio shack repressor (which one to buy and whatnot). Would really appreciate it because I'm an electric dummy when it comes to wires.

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Rifken

I would like to give some advice without being a jerk. Please do not take this the wrong way. I have dealt with car audio for many years now. I still have a lot to learn though.

If your noise problem is engine noise related then there is almost always something that you can do to rid it of the noise, without using a suppressor.

Running the ground back to the battery is generally not a good idea. The reason is that the longer your ground the better the chance is of picking up noise. Now in several cases is have heard of guys doing this and not having a problem. I am not saying that it can not be done, just try to avoid it at all cost.

Your ground needs to be short. The shorter your ground wire is, the better. Less chance to pick up noise that way. It needs to be the same gauge as your power wire, a little bigger would not hurt. Also try and ground all equipment to the same point. You shouldn't have to move your radio ground. Leave it where it is if you can. The guys that design the cars will not gound to a bad point. Your factory radio didn't have noise did it. If it did, then I suggest you get it seen about. Not saying that you can't, just that it generally isn't done. Make sure that you ground to the frame. Typically the seat belt bolts and what not will give you a very good ground. Make sure that your gound is clean. Scrape, rub, buff what ever you have to do, to clear the paint away and get to bear metal.

Follow your power wire from the battery. Look and see if is running close to a probable cause of noise, i.e. fan motor. Keep the RCA's away from sources of noise. This one is more important than the power wire. KEEP IT AWAY FROM THE POWER WIRE. This is not an option. It is a must.
There are other things to do that I am not thinking of. Please do not take this as "THE GUIDE", but as a collection of suggestions. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask.

I have a problem with my setup. I am also looking to cancel noise in my carputer. The noise that I am getting comes from my inverter. It is actually a UPS with the battery connections running to the battery under my hood. There are a few minor issues that I need to work out on the operation of it, but it does work.

I am getting a constant and steady noise out of it. I know that it is coming from the inverter because if I turn it off the noise stops. Also there is no noise in the rest of system. Radio and CD player play with no noise. The noise is a hum. It sounds like 60hz coming from my tweeter. I know that is not possible. My tweeters are crossed over a lot higher than 60Hz. I do not know if the 60hz is riding on the line seperate of the music. It may not be 60hz either but it is something and it remains constant.

Also I use an EQ for the inputs into my system. The EQ is a clarion. When I have the head unit and the carputer pluged into the unit (one is plugged into main and the other one is on aux), I get horrible noise. If I unplug one or the other, it goes away. Anyone have a suggestion?

Sorry this turned out to be so long.

blkdragon6

Rifken,

I understand what you mean about doing it the correct way. I guess I'm just trying to find the quickest fix that I can. Today I'll take a look at my ground points and rca cables running next to power cables. Hope that fixes everything up.

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Catlas

I used to use a radio shack noise suppressor to get rid of alternator whine but then I upgraded amps and they didnt make a model higher than what my amp might draw. What I ended up doing was to bolt an industrial grounding block(available at Home Depot) to the frame of may car. There wernet an bolts very close and I wanted to keep the ground wire as short as bossile so i just driuled sanded and buffed with stell wool screwed in the grounding block and attached the 4-guage wire. My system has never sounded cleaner. Oh and another tip chep low guage wire can be obtained at Home Depot and bougfht byt the foot. The casing is tougher and may not look as pretty as the transperant red of the 'high quality car audio' type but its still copper on the inside. The strands are also a little bigger so its a little bit harder to bend into place but for the price I paid its worth a little extra muscling.

Catlas

DJ

to Rifken:

i have a 60hz buzz coming from my inverter also. it's noticeable only when my stereo volume is turned up pretty loud. i can't figure out how to kill the noise. if you find any solutions, let me know!

thanx


//dj

Tekati

blkdragon6,

Radio Shack has a heavy duty noise suppressor that works really well with out the hassle of having to run stuff right Yes paying better attention when you run your cables might help but sometimes that wont completely get rid of the noise.

To hook up the suppressor all you have to do is splice in to your positive lead as close to your inverter as possible. I actually have several relays that run my system and I have the suppressor before any of the relays. Besides cutting the positive lead and splicing in to it you will have to also attach a ground lead coming off of the suppressor to any ground point. I used the mounting screws that I mounted the suppressor with. I was totally amazed. The noise was completely gone.

Good luck hope this helps you a bit.


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Chevy Tahoe

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Tekati

Dj and Rifken,

Are you by chance running inverters with a built in cooling fan? Can you post the type of inverter you are using? I have an install that I am working on tonight that I am getting such a noise. I am confident that a suppressor is not the answer as the noise is there with or without the engine running. The inverter in my Tahoe is older and does not have a cooling fan in it so I am trying to determine if may the fan is producing noise or if maybe we all are using inverters that do not have clean outputs.


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Dima

As my work as electronic technician I see a lot of problems with ground noise.Let me tell you something - there are no specific rules or laws that can solve your ground noise problems.You should try everything tou can - run the ground cable from the battery,or try grounding to the cars case, try to use capacitors,loop isolators or everything you think that might help.If some way works to you it doesn't mean that it will work to another.
Rifken:About hearing 60hz noise from your speakers: did your tried to modify your inverter? You can remove the squearing capacitors in the input section of the inverter,if you now what I mean.And I think that the noise from tweeters is actually the harmony of 60hz,I mean,it maybe 600hz or 6000hz.Do you use crossover?If yes,is it active or passive?

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Aaron Cake

I think a lot of people would agree with me when I say that the first step in getting rid of noise is to replace then inverter with a DC-DC converter. DC-DCs by their nature are noise free, while inverters are by nature noisy.

As far as grounding goes, it has always been better to keep ground leads as short as possible. That way there is less chance of picking up noise.

Also, with respect to alternator whine, it can sometimes be a sign of a dying alternator, rectifier, or voltage regulator.

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Aaron Cake
London, Ontario, Canada

Player: Cyrix 200, 32MB RAM, 10.2Gig Quantum HD, Onboard EtherNet/Sound/Video, Custom Lexan Case, Arise DC-DC, Win95 Kernal w/Custom Player
Car: '86 Mazda RX-7 w/Basic Performance Upgrades

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Player: Pentium 166MMX, Amptron 598LMR MB w/onboard Sound, Video, LAN, 10.2 Gig Fujitsu Laptop HD, Arise 865 DC-DC Converter, Lexan Case, Custom Software w/Voice Interface, MS Access Based Playlists
Car: 1986 Mazda RX-7 Turbo (highly modded), 1978 RX-7 Beater (Dead, parting out), 2001 Honda Insight
"If one more body-kitted, cut-spring-lowered, farty-exhausted Civic revs on me at an intersection, I swear I'm going to get out of my car and cram their ridiculous double-decker aluminium wing firmly up their rump."

blkdragon6

Aaron Cake,

I'm sure that the people using inverters, including myself, are not going to switch to dc-dc ps's. I'm sure there still has to be away to get rid of any inverter noise, if there's any at all, depending on your inverter.

I know that I can cancel out a dying alternator for engine whine because my car is brand spankin' new. Today I'm going to sand and polish the grounding spot and see if that makes a difference.

Update: Well, I did a bit of rewiring and fixing up ground points and whatnot, but still had the same old engine whine and slight hum. I went to radio shack and bit the big one and bought the ground loop isolator. No whine or noise at all. I'm extremely excited and best of all, I don't hear any lose of sound quality (but then again, I don't play my music at ear bleeding levels).

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[This message has been edited by blkdragon6 (edited 11-02-2000).]

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Rifken

Sorry about the delay since the last post guys. Been busy trying to take care of a dim LCD and fuzzy TV tuner card.

First, to Tekati, I am not trying to start a fight here, but using a device so that you don't have to install something "the right way" is a bad practice. I understand that some people can get away with doing that, but not all can and in general it is a bad pratice. I use an APC back up ups to power my carputer. It is with out a fan. I am still unsure of the generation of the hum. I have since taken the carputer out of my truck(broken LCD at the moment. Carputer wasn't properly install yet, so I removed it for now). I know that I will eb able to get rid of the noise somehow.

This is to Dima. I am using crossovers. They are passive. I think they are 18db also. I could not tell if the sound was coming from all the speakers or just the tweeters. They have the highest level played through them right now. Most of my other speakers are attenuated to some degree. They are also closer to ear level and aimed toward my ears.

Blkdragon6, I am very glad that you got rid of the noise in your system. I am going to probably do the same thing to my setup. I will go through my installion first and make sure everything is up to spec there first. I think my battery ground needs to be addressed. I need to purchase a pair of those good battery terminators for my system. Truck sometimes didn't want to start till i twisted the clamp on the post a bit. I have since fixed that and the truck starts fine, but sometimes, I think that I can hear a slight whine in the cd player. This is of course after I replaced the 10 gauge wire in my system with 4 gauge. I grounded to a different point and think I may have issues there. I have a few places that I can check out.

When I find my solution to the inverter noise I will definenatly share with everyone else.

Catlas

blkdragon6: Just because your car is new doesnt mean a thing about whether your alternator might be going out. I'm not saying it is or isnt or anything...but after working a truck chassis plant for a couple weeks...well just trust me things go on you wouldnt want to know about....

Rifken

I can vouce for that. My wife has a 2000 Mustang and we bought it in May. Was a special order so I know that it was built with in a month of may. Her fan motor is making a really annoying squeal the higher the ac/heater is going. But with a custom setup like you are doing, you might want to not let them see what you are trying do with your new car, or they might void your warrenty. They suck!

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