You have solved ALL my problems. I stressed way to much and now my system works. THANKS!

0 or 4 gauge wire with a ring terminal to a seatbelt bolt in the back seat. Best ground ever! It might also interest some of you to know that most car manufactures put ground wires right on painted studs. I know this first hand from wiring brand new cars on the assembly line. If you are having electrical performance issues, check your factory grounds.

@patrickpeterman8736

4 ай бұрын

Think this seat belt bolt would work on a 70 Chevy C-10 pick up;?? thanks, PJP

Make sure you dont have signal wires (rca's) running with the 12 volt power cable. That puts a lot of noise into the signal and is what youre hearing

@axelcrush1987

2 жыл бұрын

Wow I was looking everywhere trying to find out why I had so much noise going on out of my subs with no music on..

Pro tip: Sativa at work, not indica.

@eadad

6 жыл бұрын

best comment

@supercrip6972

4 жыл бұрын

Indica=In da couch 😂 Sativa=activa 💯💯

@marcello033

4 жыл бұрын

Haha😁

@A6Legit

3 жыл бұрын

🤣🤣🤣

@A6Legit

3 жыл бұрын

I wear my sun glasses inside... 🎶

Hey... Whatever works. I sand my grounds, which are usually overdone, big wire, big terminals, then spray some rust inhibitor over it. Do I HAVE to? No, but it's never bad to go a little over board for some extra protection.

I absolutely love shit like this. I'll try ro prove as many valid points as I can. First off, Long wire doesn't mean shit for a ground. When installing a larger ground I.e. (4 gauge or bigger.) Follow the base rules "Sonic Electronic" teaches you here. If on (any) surface sand down to bare metal. Now for the resistance bullshit... Have a (Multimeter) present and check the wire yourself for resistance. I'm currently running a Planet audio px4000.d all 0 gauge wires, the big 3 and a 200 amp high output alternator. My ground from my amp runs to my seatbelt bolt and a (18 mm) nut a sanded surface as well. The ground wire is 3 1/2 to 4 ft long. No Resistance! Checks at 12v perfectly like it's Supposed to! Been installing car audio for 13 years and I am a Computer programmer/Electrical engineer. If your headlights dim, chances are your pulling too much current draw from your vehicles electrical system. Steps to change include.... 1: Big 3 2: Upgrade alternator. 3: Upgrade and check battery(s). 4: Check and secure grounds. In some cases as such as mine on my 1994 Lincoln town car signature. I have inevitable headlight dimming but very little. Reason you ask? Because of a thin and non productive flaw in the headlight wiring harness. If your amplifier cuts out or goes into protection mode intermittently. Which it should never do .. Proceed to follow checking for (Good) ground connections. If that checks out and all signal cables and other wires going/coming from amp are clean etc. Then check amplifier to be at fault..maybe a bad channel.

@Noi5ee

10 жыл бұрын

This is almost the most informative comment i have ever read on YT

@unsltr

10 жыл бұрын

Booga, that wire has resistance, but it is too low for handheld Multimeters to properly measure. In fact, if it is truly a 0 gauge, 4 foot pure oxygen free copper wire, it has (0.0983 * 4)/1000 = 0.0003932 = 0.3932 MilliOhms of resistance. This is a theoretical best, and doesn't include crappy crimps, crappy body resistance, or the rest of the wire's length. Second, you say "checks at 12 volts like it's supposed to", but you don't say if that is while your system is drawing maximum current while you check. If your system is drawing zero current, it would "check at 12 volts" if you had a 12 volt potato battery connected to it. All of the above is really picking nits, but people are going to read your suggestions and go buy 4ga wire and think it's great, but it all depends on their system. Assuming perfect connections, and 20ft of 4ga in your system, that would be 5 MilliOhms, in a perfect system. If you have a little 200 amp/2400 watt peak system, that system is presenting a load of 60 MilliOhms. This means that your system, at peak draw, is expending almost a tenth of its power into your wires, and you are going to only get a 9/10ths of your voltage at your amps. Even more dangerous, your wires release that energy as heat(basically, in this system, the wires would become 4 60 watt incandescents). Now, as far as "long wire doesn't mean shit for a ground"... Well, it means the same as power wire. Double the total distance, double the total resistance. If you used 40 feet in the example above, it would present 10 MilliOhms, and you are looking at 5/6 of your voltage at your amps, and 1/6 of your power dissipated in your wire. This all boils down to: Do a bit of homework(outside of youtube comments), don't do it yourself if you don't understand it, and ALWAYS go to the next gauge up of wire from your calculations. TL:DR: LOL youtube comments.

@supersolex

7 жыл бұрын

@Justin S You're right Mitchill is saying BS...

A lot of Good Amps have been damaged sold or returned b/c of this great info👍👍👍👍

Sometimes I use a "star" washer between the body and ground cable, sort of digs in to the metal.

@woohunter1

3 жыл бұрын

@Tree Vellacroix why?

@woohunter1

3 жыл бұрын

@Tree Vellacroix hmmm, makes sense.

Do those shades help you see inside that dark trunk? :/

Since the battery is right there, why not ground to the negative terminal?

@d0peboi

9 жыл бұрын

+Bassaholic40 I was thinking the same thing. Kind of dumb not to IMO

@JUANITO5338

8 жыл бұрын

Chris Siercks lmao on both of u. I was thinking the same lol

@gonefishing408

8 жыл бұрын

logic

@Valtra103

8 жыл бұрын

+AspectOfTheStorm Returning all ground to one point is better. So returning all of them to battery would be best way. Electronics are made this way. If you open up amplifier, you will se that it has a few ground traces going back to ground terminal, or other common point, for example near power input filter capacitors. Most of noise exists, just because of violations of this principle.

@mrantisocial1

8 жыл бұрын

its not point, the battery's negative is already connected to the chassis so now you can just ground the amp to a metal surface in the trunk

The best ground in my opinion and the closest to the amp usually is one of the lower bolts to the back seat bracket, they're present whether you have folding seats or just a regular back seat, you only need to scrape a little and theres a huge stud great for grounding, the only down side is you will need either 4 gauge grounding rings or just a really big 8 gauge ring terminal, but they require very little to get to besides lifting up the back seat cushion which is usually just held by two push points

@c.mcdermo

Жыл бұрын

8 years later and this comment helped me eliminate my grounding concerns since my dual tbx10a won't get power

@jalliboy

Жыл бұрын

that depends on where your battery is located ! for me. i have driven a volvo v70 the past 10 years, and i have the battery in the back! i always ground my amplifier in the battery! if possible ofc . also the watt size of the amp playes a part! let us say that you have a THE GREAT WHITE B2 amp.. that one puts out 16k w @14.4 volt. you don`t ground that in your chassie !

@xsmatt81

Жыл бұрын

@@jalliboy lets be reasonable here, the Ground point he mentioned is fine for us common folks with 1200rms ~ watt mono amps for a sub lol..its the point i use for both of my amps in my 2011 mustang, works well under the rear seat. took a good bit of sanding, cleaning..but is a SOLID ground and tested with meter 0.01 ohm...

@jalliboy

Жыл бұрын

@@xsmatt81 yes. What you write is something i can agree with! But like i said. The size of the amp is a major factor here.

@LTSRIDE24

7 ай бұрын

how exactly do you test with a DMM? I find conflicting info every time I research this. @@xsmatt81

How do you check your grounds with a DMM? So much conflicting info on this. HELP PLEASE!!

Great video. The "Best" example is great but you should also mention there should be NO exposed wire if at all avoidable, just as a rule of thumb.

Chances are you have loose connections in your power or ground wire which are causing intermittent contact and thus your system cuts in and out. Fix that ground and go through all of your wiring to make sure everything has a very secure connection. Also, it could be that your amp is drawing power all the time and the cutting in and out could be your amp protection circuit. Make sure the remote turn on wire on the amp is connected to your radio or a 12V accessory wire that turns off with the car.

@luiscolon4961

2 жыл бұрын

I have a problem with my system. When I close the door it’s starts to hum very loudly but when it’s open it’s fine. My system sounds great till I close the door. Some mone said a ground loop?i feel like something is pinching but it’s very strange because it’s all 4 doors.🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

My amp wiring kit's ground cable had an arrowhead shape and three screw holes. I ground to bare metal, nut/bolted the middle hole, and used self tappers in the outer two holes. I took your "best" and "better" and created a bester way. lol

u brushed off all the metals protective coating would you spray on rust protection after the ground is bolted

I’ll use a wire wheel to take paint off, bolt it down with a star washer or a split washer then coat it with some clear coat enamel so it won’t rust. That’s my go to

what is the batteries negative terminal for...making a connection to the frame ? what does the frame do for the battery, give it a place to connect ? you think when you connect to the frame you are connecting to the battery, through a single "8 gauge wire " that's connected to the frame. your frame is the common ground (buss bar) for everything in your car so everything does not need to wire directly to the battery

Best explained video. Thanks.

I had a question regarding grounding multiple amps. I've heard you guys mention on your "my amp shuts off while playing my system" that one of the issues may be that they are using the same ground

I went to an AudioControl seminar that was great. Measure your resistance to ground at the the battery terminal. Is it over 1 ohm? Then it is not grounded very well . a faulty ground not only gives bad performance but also is a major source of ignition noise. Bare metal on Body metal is best

Only worry about the specific grounding point you are going to use. You can use sand paper or a wire brush to take the paint off of the ground location and then bolt your ground in. You can then cover the area to prevent rust or corrosion with either a rust resistant spray or something like silicone which is non-conductive and will keep additional moisture out.

Yes they are, so long as the wire sizes are all correct. They are very common and make connections easy.

It definitely could be a lose ground wire that vibrates along with the base. Definitely triple check it.

Yes it can if it is loose. The crackling would be the connection quality diminishing due to vibration and the contact surface area decreasing.

A few things to try. If you have external amplifiers, you need to beef up your power and ground cables, create a better grounding point for the amps, and then make sure they are grounded to the chassis directly on a shiny metal, non-painted surface. If you have just the headunit, you need to create a better ground for it using a thicker cable.

If you scrape the paint off of anywhere on your vehicle you should coat the surface with dielectric grease to prevent rust down the road, (because rust would of course make your connection go bad, even if it was good at first!)

@iamasmurf1122

5 жыл бұрын

JoeJ8282 or just paint over the top once connection has been done

your videos are the most understandable thing to watch

My brother and I are attempting to install a subwoofer for the first time. I’m not sure what those little bits at the end of the wire are called, the part you actually drive the screw into. We couldn’t find a spot for the ground wire so we unscrewed another one nearby, then rescrewed it with one on top of the other. Is this why our amp isnt turning on? I’m sorry if this is stupid, we don’t really know what we’re doing.

Yes it can, actually. Definitely check your grounds and in some cases, you might even need thicker ground cables.

@dylinwagg4483

3 жыл бұрын

My ground wire is 0 grad lmao and my power wire is a 7 grad I think I’m good😂

@scottrobson4097

2 жыл бұрын

@@dylinwagg4483 grad? It's gauge.

the shop i took it to grounded the amp to the rear seat.. the part where you lean on as somethings to screw so it will be in place, the installer drill a hole in that metal part of the seat to the chasi and used one screw.. if I take the rear seat off the amp isn't grounded anymore

Your grounding location should be close to the amplifier, within 13-18 inches. It needs to be a connection right to the chassis and it needs to have shiny metal showing, no paint on it.

Me too. I have an 96 Oldsmobile Cutlass ciera they can look sick you trickem out right 35% tint with some 18' spoke knock offs. Best of luck on installing your amp.

Does it matter how thick the chassis metal is to drill a hole to ground an amp? My sc300 has no ground in the trunk close enough if I follow the 18 inch ground cable rule. The only metal is near the gas tank where wheel wells are

Do I need to scrape clear coat metal before attaching my ground like chrome finished

scrapping the paint is always a must!

@CaseAgainstFaith1

4 жыл бұрын

And painting afterwards to prevent rust!

Is it OK to attach the grounds to metal before attaching it to the amp?

Closest factory ground to my amp is about 3 feet away give or take, should I try to find another spot?

As long as you have a great connection and very clean surface before you use the silicone. Make sure to wipe the area down with alcohol pads or other non-residue cleaner, test the connection, and then apply silicon. You can also use spray paint as well.

My brothers amp shut off at higher volume. Is there a bolt from the trunk lid we can hook it up to? (just to check if he is getting cheap ground)

Thanks. Tried frame ground first. Unibody. Voltage issues. I run a dedicated ground from front battery to rear batteries because the unibody ground didn't give me the results I wanted. Dedicated run. No voltage issues. I also run a dedicated ground from the center of the earth to prevent lightning cap strikes. One of those things is not true.

i have a ? when hooking up your your car subs to an amp what colors will the remote wire be?

I have a inline 4 channel amp, the ALPINE 445U that I bought from sonic and I'm using a stock headunit. I have it mounted in my glove box. Behind my glove box when I remove the panel there is like metal bracing that I wanted to use as my ground but I did not because everyone says it's better to mount the ground on the chassis. So I ran the ground by my passenger seat where I have my other ground for my mono amp and used a screw that is used for holding the mono amp ground in place. They also say that the ground wire should not be more than 18" Long and it is longer than that. The 4 channel is working but I'm having a static noise from my speakers when there's no music playing, but if I turn off the radio while the car is running there's no noise. I'm also having a "pop" Sound when I turn off the car from the speakers and also from my sub's but I gotten used to the pop sound from the sub. I have a LCI2 for it as well. I need help! lol.

I use OFC wire and terminals, bolt and washers and use contact grease on all the contacts, short route direct to frame after I test for resistance using dmm then I spray rubberized undercoating over the end. Years later no issues.

I recently had a cap installed at a shop and he had the power wire ran from the battery to the amp then to the cap so both power wires where connected to amp along w ground wires, would this cause the amp to fry?? Cuz that's what basically happened!! Would his rigging be the cause of that?? Thanks

I have a question so when I turn my radio off the amp still stays on for about a minute instead of going off right away like the power light still stays on and the fan

Any time! The ground is a protection mechanism and the less resistance, the better when things start to go crazy.

Depends on your vehicle. You have to use a non-painted surface and a bolt that goes right to the chassis.

@nubudyawn107

Жыл бұрын

How long does your ground wire has to be from your amp?

Impresive how you really clean tha paint lol

I have 4 gauge power wire running to my distribution block , what gauge wire should be my output 4 awg or 8 awg ?

Nice oil rigs Corey Hart😉😉

Ground point for both amps but it's said to avoid ground loop you have to. What is your theory?

Will I have any problems if i connect the negative wire of the amp to the negative battery post? My car battery is in the trunk and is pretty close to my amp. Tia.

use a DVM digital voltage meter. Ohm out that post on the seat. See if its grounding from the post to frame? You will need a clean spot to test bare metal only. Then test the negative battery post to frame then negative to alternator. note the difference on the ohms. If your first test shows high resistance say 0.46 or more then run frame to seat bolt ground wire. then ground negative to alternator then alternator to frame. After this you will even see faster starter when starting car up.

Hey thanks for making this educational video

The best ground is right at the battery terminal, And using dielectric silicone grease. Also fuse the ground as well. With new vehicles being junk electrically now a day its a good idea, also wire in a relay to disconnect the amp when the engine is not running...Fuse also the relay coil....Been there done that!!!

Just wondering if you guys can help me, ive recently hooked up an amp to my saturn astra, ive grounded it and done everything like you guys do in your videos but when i brake, indicate or turn the headlights on in my car i get static from my speakers.

That 3rd one you did, was that a self tapping bolt?

I love how short that video is. Thanks.

People if you’re worried about rust or corrosion, remove paint, bolt it down, and shoot some automotive clear coat over it. seals the whole area and it’s clear, so if it gets on something else you won’t notice.

Definitely shorten ground wire length, MECP not recommended to use a vehicle grounding point used by major electrical components. This may cause system noise... personal I love a nice strong seat belt bolt [ if readily avaliable ].... dont forget your handy star washers on the 3 screw method

@lurice0

9 жыл бұрын

Jarrett Lemmey what if your seat belt bolt is bigger than the terminal. where can i find a terminal with a bigger O ring to fit my seat belt bolt?

Agreed, make sure your signal cables are not running along any power or ground cables, or even data cables. Nice looking out, Dayton! :)

I have a question, I grounded my amp by removing the bold that holds down the seat belts to the frame off the car, what i did was after i removed the bolt i stuck the grounding wire in between the metal end of the seat belt and put the bolt back on. So now its, the frame of the car touching the metal end of the seat belt followed by another seat belt then the grounding wire and bolt tightened above it all. Is that a proper way to ground an amp?

I am about to install 2 batteries in my car with a relay of 200 amps, but i don't know what gauge of power and ground wire i should get. Also if it helps i have 2 12's with 600 RMS's a piece. And my amp is 4000 watts. So what is the best wire size for all that.

THIS IS WHAT WE WANT!

ever since I changed my had unit from a flip up to a double din head unit I been having problems with it (shop did the installation). my double din would stay on when the truck was off, did some research and learned that it was connected direct did not want to take it back to the shop so I went to a different guy which was able to fix the problem but now the unit turns on but there is no voice coming from the speakers I am thinking that the amps are not getting power. any advice is appreciated.

So I hooked everything up today in my Chrysler 300 today & the subs are making a weird noise & there not hitting like there supposed to, they were fine a few days ago when I had them in my other car but now I'm guessing something's wrong, could you help me out please!!!!!

Best to make sure you are connected to the chassis if you cant get the battery terminal.

It all depends on the amp draw of your system. You can go ahead and use 4 gauge wire past the block if you want, nothing wrong with that. Just remember that if the combined load on the block is over about 1500 watt you probably want to step the block feed wire up to 2 or 0 gauge. But really, a 200 watt amp doesn't really need more than a 12 gauge. And your 600 amp monoblock will be happy with 8. Why run the extra weight and expense?

I have a jeep the grounding I have is under the back seats and can't a better grounding could I have the growing under the hood or something

is there a maximum length a ground wire should be? Is there a "yay" to 1 foot of cable vs. a "nay" at say five feet?

Definitely make sure the deck, or amplifiers if you have them, are grounded properly to the vehicle chassis with all paint removed from the ground location. You could very well have a short in the radio.

Would you recommend sanding off the metal with sandpaper if you don't have a what ever kind of bit that is?

@yodaddy82daddy70

7 жыл бұрын

it dont matter. as long as the paint is gone. unless the body is aluminum i would spray the contact with paint to prevent rusting around the ground

will check it out.just notice that you can courier to my country.already got the cable.but i already know where to find it next time.thanks a lot.

Make sure that when you put your negative back on, that no part of your vehicle is on, all doors are shut, etc. You dont want any lights on, any amps on, any fans on. All of that creates a difference in voltage which creates a large spark, some spark is ok. However, you could have other problems with such a large spark though, such as a short somewhere.

Can you ground two grounds under the same bolt?

Hi is it okay to ground to the fuel pump ground?? Two wires on stud??

You used an RCA to 3.5 connector and plugged it into the input of the amplifier directly? Are you using a factory radio or an aftermarket radio? Is the sub function turned on in the radio?

@Pure_KodiakWILD_Power

4 ай бұрын

Can you just run a wire from the amp through the firewall to the negative terminal of the battery?

Our local stereo shop likes ti use a single self tapping screw and they've been in business for over 30 years...blows my mind. I've fixed a few of their mistakes for people

What do you mean? If it's a unibody vehicle, the entire body is welded together, and any part of it has a low resistance path back to the negative terminal on the battery(referred to as ground in this case). If the vehicle has an aluminum engine cradle, then you've gotta make sure the connection between the unibody and battery are sufficient for the ampacity you need. If you are adding a 150A load, you probably need to add another ground conductor where they've already made one.

@CxOxLxE If u check a wiring driagran u will not find not components grounded to the negative battery post. It prevent voltage spikes

Thats true. Probably Robin was referring to the installation in the video where the battery is close to the amp.

What makes a ground wire coming from the amp get hot?

I'm no expert but would it be easy to make a factory ground type thing with a bolt, 2-4 washers and one or 2 nuts? All my amplifiers are grounded directly to the battery with the set screw type battery terminal.

I need help! I have a 04 ford ranger and don’t know where to ground my amplifier it’s winding everything I crank my vehicle

Amp keeps turning back on. Grounded to bare metal witn 4g to inside of cab (jump seat frane/ "floor") been fine for years. It is a dry, "interior" surface even tho it's actually thru the s10 cab. Anyways, pulled power wire fuse, pulled fuse on amp and head unit had been off/doesn't auto -on. Remote wire on acc wire from head unit, nothing different from typical bs I've thrown together for past 20+ years..not my big setups but on these pawn shop/Craigslist 12s type of crap I don't care about. But Sumin has gone wrong lol😅. Worked great last 7 years and I'm 90% sure the 2004 model subs were already blown when I got them as the spiders movement is as smooth as an unpolished lava rock..they beat tho haha.. Real question- diode on ground? Try moving ground? Upgrade connections on amp with new crap from shed shelves I may or may not find or do? Any suggestions appreciated and possibly even tried..interested in this diode theory our resusdent DB-Drag /Spl tech keeps talking about as he points and laughs

Can you ground to a second battery in the trunk?

thanks for the excellent explanation ,but i have one question suppose i connect my ground wire to painted point in the chassi,so what will happen? i have it installed on my car yukon 2011

Yes, that could be one of many reasons an amp will not power on. Make sure to check your fuses and that you have a 12V source connecting to the amp turn on lead.

What size drill bit did you use to drill the hole for the nut bolt and lock washer connection?

Can you connect the ground to the battery ground ?..

Okay, so i have a question. I hooked up my ground with a bolt and a washer, the scraping of the paint isnt the best (i didnt do it but i just looked and found out i had a friend do that part while i was hooking other stuff up) So what happend is the subs started working and what not, but they would cut in and out. and then more or less stuff would turn off in my car, then the battery died. so does my subs pull more power than my car makes? (Cobalt ls 2006 5-speed)

I am using a 0 gauge wire for my amp and it is grounded to a flat clean surface and still and there is still a ground loop . I have re wired my system and beefed up the wiring .

The radio could be sending feedback to the amps and blowing their lower quality input stage. Try a different amp type and see if the same thing happens.

I have one ground from amp do I need one grounded from battery keep making noise from engine in speakers

Can I use a ground strap or does it have to be a wire

the depends on the setup refers more to the 4 gauge being the right cable for your set up to begin with

Can I ground to the Metal under the carpet or is that a fire hazard

Can i run it from the car battery as opposed to the body of the car?

thanks for the answer.I prefer liquid electrical tape since it more easy to apply.should be no problem if i apply if after tighten everything, do I.