Bonneville America Forums Forums Off Topic Discussion Forums Lounge Any electronic wizards amongst us?

Upgraded the stereo on the America to a 300w Uniq system. Wired up and fitted-plugged samsung s2 phone in and goes really well. However as soon as I plugged the charger from 12v supply to phone got heavy static. Engine switched off.
Supplier suggests a ground loop isolater whcih I have ordered but fail to see what this will do. Power to amp and 12v supply run direct to battery and same length so the pd for voltage drop would be next to nothing. I have made up a loom which has the power supply for both in it- all connections are soldered and heat shrink. Is it possible that magnetic induction between the two could cause this? Thought I would ask before pulling it all apart again and making up seperate wiring looms. I suspect that the frequency that the charger works on is the problem but no doubt there are far more knowlegeable riders out there with electronic backgounds. I seen a post from a honda rider with the same issue who tried a apple phone and charger and the problem disappeared. Can use running off phone but on long trips the battery will give up the ghost fairly quickly.

Dunno if its any help, but ground loop interference/buzz was a common issue for me when playing keyboards. The ground would travel from the amp to the keyboard (or vice versa) via the audio cable. The solution was always to disconnect the ground on the keyboard. Of course that was using 240v but the same principle would apply with 12v. I think the ground isolating thingammy will do the trick.

Hi Richard,
Hope you are right, not seen hide nor hair of Island Bum Benny for many moons!!! Maybe won the lotto and taken the speedy over to the Riviera or suchlike!!! Going up to Mac Kay for the Wogs in the bush run at the end of June all going well. Have that gear here to do valves when you get to the 25,000k mark. Another 10 and I will be doing the 50,000 k check.
Regards
Kent

Hi Kent. I would really appreciate your experience when I do the valves. I just rolled through 25000km last week, so maybe in the next month or two? Whatever suits you mate - it's not critical when.

Have you held the unconnected but powered on phone next to the powered on stereo to rule out the phone as the source?

An old install trick we used to use back in the late 80s early 90s when we encountered noise was to ground the outside of the RCA cable to the ground of the amp.
Easy to do... use a length of wire, attach one end to the ground connection at the amp and the other end to the outside of one of the RCA connections. If the noise goes away you find a way to make it permanent, if not your issue is magnetic interference and you'll need to separate the wires.

Thanks for the input guys, Ground isolater will be here in a few days so see how it goes. If that fails will try the connect between amp grd and the rca cable. Phone held next to amp with charger on did not cause any interference.
How about the Sat 15th June to check your valves Richard?

The 15th June sounds great. I realized this morning that it was 24000kms I just hit not 250000 (sorry) but I guess it doesn't make much difference. I've moved to Griffin so i will pm my address to you.