Bad Alternator Whine!

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#21
Ok here we go.

1. I assume your step one was this. Speaker wire from amp to crossover DISCONNECTED. Crossover to Speakers CONNECTED. When the box is outside the car, no whine, when its in, you get whine. If this is the case, try an experiment, and wrap everything in foil and see if you still get whine when its in the well.

2. Your 2. I assume you had the crossover CONNECTED to the speakers, where it was placed outside the car. (no whine). You then attached the speaker wire of the crossover to the amp and you got whine.

If I am correct on both those statements and understood your post correctly, then you have some SERIOUS EMF going on. I would try this next.

1. When you did step 1. in your post (if its what I assumed it was). Was the amplifier itself on? If it was, I want you to try step 1. again with all power wires disconnected from your amps so there is no possible way they can turn on.
If you still get whine, then we know the crossover itself is picking it up. If you do NOT get whine now no matter where the crossover is with the amps off, then its the amps emmitting the EMF.

Lets say you do still get whine, You will have to figure out a way to sheild the Power wires running through the car, if you can even get to them. Check all your grounds in the car too, make sure they are all clean connections everywhere and the wire is in good condition.
Besides that I wouldn't really know what else to tell you beside relocating your install, which is not going to be the easiest thing to do.

If you don't get whine at this point, (Amps off/disconnected totally, and crossover in the car), then I would recommend you check all power connections to your amps. And hook one up at a time with that crossover over there, and see if you get whine. If say you disconnect one amp, where another is connected and you don't get whine, then you will narrow down which amplifier is the source of noise. If its all the amplifiers creating noise, and all your connections are good. You may want to try relocating your amplifiers, or sheild all wires going to the amp, or buy some sort of power line filter. Maybe you are picking up noise somewhere else on the positive in your car, and its causing interference in the amps.

Finally, this didn't happen before with the stock system, 1, cause the power levels were much lower, so noise didn't amplify as much, 2, the amp was located in the front of the car probably and was far enough away from the main power source of the battery where it didn't pick up EMF.

If you try all this and still no luck, I would consult a professional installer. Tell him everything you did and maybe he has some tips and tricks to fix it. Crappy situation though. Let me know how it goes..
 

gedwyn

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Ocala, FL
#22
First off: Thank you for your help. I really do appreciate it.
Here is an update. The crossover box picks up the noise wheither the amp is on or not. It is just louder with the amp on. So I have used some velcro tape and taped the box high enough as it is not effected by the noise.
Thats taken care of. I then cut my ground power cables shorter (They were quite long) and mounted them to a bolt on the frame in the trunk. This has seemed to cut the noise down in half. In doing what you said I have narrowed the noise down to the 450/4 amp. The other 500/1 amp is clean. Now the whine is still there but no where near as bad as it was and it stops now when I shut the system off as before it still whined with the system off. So maybe if I get a noise filter it would pretty much take care of it as it is not that much now. First
off though I no nothing about filters or where to buy one?

A thought: I was wondering if I should run the ground from the head unit back to the trunk with the other grounds to eliminate maybe a ground loop? Just a thought. I did not install the head unit so I do not now how it is grounded or to get it out. What are your thought on this? Would help help to change the ground of the head unit you think? Maybe it is the antenna ground?

Thanks again.
Paul
 
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#23
I wouldn't worry about where the head unit ground is located. Just make sure it is a "good" ground somewhere. I assume its not a stock head unit, so just double check the wiring. But don't bring the ground all the way to the back of the car.

Also, your amps I assume will turn on with the remote wire from the head unit, correct? The amps will have a 12V source, Ground, and 12V turn on. The 12V turn on should NEVER be connected straight to the battery. It should be connected only to the remote turn on controlled by the head unit. (Again if you did this incorrectly, its a possible chance for noise).

Also, if you have a power antenna, you could also connect the amp turn on to the antenna turn on (Antenna goes up when you turn your radio on, which is obviously what you want when you want your amps on).

Last, as for noise filters, I did a little quick research on it, but I'm not really sure if they make them to handle the curent rating of your power wire. What size fusing are you running off the battery? I've seen filters that will run up to 10A, but I bet you have a good 60A or higher fuse protecting your system.

Just do a search on yahoo for 12V car audio power filter. You can reword it to get different matches and maybe find something. I never used on in my car, so I don't have much experiance with it. I assume its just something you put inline with the power cable between the battery and amps..

Another thing to check is make sure that the speakers themselves don't happen to be connected to the car ground. Say the metal frame holding the speaker in place is somehow grounded and its somehow getting to the terminal of the speaker, that will cause a ground loop since the amp has a ground going to the speaker and the car is also grounding it out. It's a bad thing to have, considering it happened to me once, and my speaker caught on fire. hehe
 

gedwyn

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Ocala, FL
#24
Yes the Remote on cable is just coming from the head unit. I also do not have a power antenna so I guess I do not need to worry about that. Well at least the whine is nowhere near as bad as it was thanks to you. I will do some research on some power filters and see where that takes me. I will keep you posted. Thanks again for all your help.

One other thing if you do not mind. Do you have any idea how to get the factory subwoofer out?
I tried removing the back seat but could only get the bottom out. I would love to remove it as this would cause somenice airflow back there.

Paul
 
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#26
Jumping into the thread a little late.... but a quick question. You referred to it as alternator whine. Have you checked to see if it occurs with the engine running vs. engine not running but ignition on? Just a thought.....
 


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