my D3 "whines"

[tillithz]

then a) your cables are bad, or not run properly (see above recomendations) or your amp is bad or not installed as noted above.

[etong]

if the rca cables are bad, i need to replace the whole harness?

[tillithz]

harness? we arent talking about the avic side, we are talking about the rca's run in the car for amps and such

[etong]

after some research, the factory amp has no rca plugs, they are just wires

[tillithz]

then it would appear you need to match the gain out of the avic to your factory amp, usually by a bose adapter or whatever for your particular vehicle. should probably find out what you ahve in it before continuing

[fenguin]

I got dug in again last night, here's what I did:

 

• [*:dpz3r6kj]Taped all exposed RCA ends and RCA joints
  [*:dpz3r6kj]Grounded one Avic output RCA shield
  [*:dpz3r6kj]Switched main ground wire from harness to bolt in sanded chassis.

That took care of the low buzzing engine noise and greatly reduced the alternator whine. However, when I added the surround-sound processor back into the mix, it was back to squealing. I re-grounded the processor to chassis with a 1.5 foot wire, didn't help.

 

I don't know where my amps are grounded to, but I do know that the ground wires they have are very long, like 8 feet or so, so I'm going to try re-grounding them to something closer.

 

Tonight's menu:

 

• [*:dpz3r6kj]Ground the rest of the output RCA shields
  [*:dpz3r6kj]Upgrade all ground wires to nice thick 10 gauge wire, solder connections
  [*:dpz3r6kj]Ground amps closer to where they're at

[tillithz]

id guess guess you have to use a special wire harness just for your bose system, i wouldnt fool with the grounding of the factory amp.

[fenguin]

Engine whine is now 95% gone, buzz is 100% gone without using any noise filters/ground loop isolator. And I've got my surround sound processor working with it too. Here's what did it for me:

 

• [*:2j66vrlo]Replaced teensy harness ground with a beefier 10 gauge wire, grounded directly to a portion of the chassis with a bolt, sanded down to ensure metal-to-metal contact.
  [*:2j66vrlo]Grounded Avic D2 chassis. There is a screw opening in the middle back of the unit, I used that to ground it.
  [*:2j66vrlo]Grounded the shielding on all output RCA cables from the D2.

 

I also ensured that all used connectors were covered in electrical tape, and there were no exposed wires.

 

Judging by the fact that this problem developed over time and by the working solution, I'm guessing that the microfuse inside the unit was blown. From SoundDomain:

 

i've noticed a lot of people having issues with getting sudden alternator noise with their Pioneer headunit. if you suddenly get alternator noise, you probably popped the microfuse inside the deck thanks to a poor ground. with a Pioneer you MUST ground the chassis of the headunit to the chassis of your vehicle. same with the main ground. if you don't, you will pop that microfuse that's less than half the size of an eyelash. with this fuse popped the headunit tries to seek a ground through the rca's. this can wear out your speakers a lot faster than they should because of constant flutter. any authorized Pioneer benchtech can fix this problem in less than an hour if he can get right to it. just taking a couple extra steps during the install will save a lot of headaches later on.

 

Circuit City did a poor job grounding everything initially, which created a ground loop. Eventually that burned out the microfuse, creating a permanent ground loop. Grounding the shields of the RCAs is a fine temporarly workaround, but eventually I'll have to get the fuse replaced.

[etong]

so to ground the D2 chassis, you use a wire and hook it up to the back screw of the unit and the other end to the car chassis? also which chassis bolt off the car did you use? i have the same car

[fenguin]

Yeah, in the back of the unit, right in the middle, there's a hole for a screw. I built a little ground wire using 10 gauge with O-connectors on both ends, and fastened it pretty solidly to the back of the unit.

 

The ground that I used was in the dash opening, in the back on the top. There's a little piece of metal that sort of hangs down with a hole in it that you can put a bolt and nut on. It looks sort of like this:

 

__         __
  \  O  / 
    --- 

 

Use a star washer so it stays put.

[tillithz]

Hey, glad its sounding the way you want.

 

some points to note though:

 

1. the ground you used on the back of the head unit, is not necessarily for a ground, more infact its usually for a strap, or mounting purposes. You can achieve a similar result using the holes on the side of the head unit and the supplied screws. But it seems to work for you good. Whats funny is, everything taught to me, and that I've learned over the past 15ish years im guessing, tells me that you shouldnt ground the unit itself like that, but anyhoooo.

 

2.the rca's i thought you didnt have? I thought you said it was all speaker wire? I sure as hell hope you arent just grounding the outside shielding of the rca's on the back of the head unit itself.. on the avic harness. There are rca's on the market that are made specifically a certain way so that you can ground a "grounding" loop wire, for noise suppression. This takes in consideration how the rca's are spun, for example, clockwise and counter clockwise. Also, things like if there is a center fiber, or filament within the rca wires to help decsipitate the nose that does make it on to the line, because that 'noise' likes to hang around the center of the wiring, and wrapping the wire in tape or other insulation only contributes to more noise being let in.

 

3. If you did do that above (#2) then id suppose its not Circuit City's fault, I dont think they caused the problem, just judging by what you have said so far.

 

 

while I agree with alot of what SoundDomain said there in the post, the part about having to ground the avic unit is a little mis leading. there are hundreds, even thousands of people who do not ground the chasis of the headunit and it works just fine. Hence the reason some avic units even have multiple grounds coming off the wire harness.

 

but anyways

 

hope this helps you

[etong]

i didn't understand the part he said about grounding the rca sheilds either. He must be talking about the rca cables off the unit and harness because there's none connecting to the amp. Care to explain?

 

this is what my harness looks like btw:

 

[fenguin]

you shouldnt ground the unit itself like that

Yep, I haven't heard of that either until I found out about this Pioneer microfuse situation. It's sort of like wearing a belt and suspenders; if something goes wrong with the main ground it won't burn the fuse out.

 

I sure as hell hope you arent just grounding the outside shielding of the rca's on the back of the head unit itself on the avic harness.

Pretty much, except I'm grounding the shields to the car chassis, not the unit chassis. I've been reading a bunch of Pioneer-specific threads on several forums that recommend that, and it seems to have solved my problem, or at least worked around it.

 

He must be talking about the rca cables off the unit and harness

Exactly.

[tillithz]

yeah, honestly, you may have 'fixed' it in theory, but not the right way. You surely shouldnt ground the rca's coming off the deck like that, thats going to be a problem, maybe in the future. Nothing should go wrong with the main ground anyways, if properly connected. I think what has been lost here, is that this 'microfuse' thingy, is causing a problem WHEN no ground is present, and the avic unit tries to locate a ground on the rca line. Thats assuming the ant. isnt plugged in because that gets grounded on the outer shielding usually as well. I dont think the 'whine' is present IF your fuse doesnt get blown by poorly grounding it.

 

But if your happy with the way its working RIGHT NOW then its up to you of course. But like others would probably agree, this doesnt sound like the right way to do things.

[slammnlex]

I have the same problem with my is300. Last night I installed my sirius tuner and then plugged everything in and when I turned the car on, there was that annoying whine. I checked all my wires, rcas, and amp. After some experimenting it seems the culprit is the rca that come with the d3. Plus I forgot to mention my right front speaker get about 25% of the volume. I tested the rcas and found out it was the front output rca on my avic so it might be those crap cables. It worked fine when I bouught it a month ago. I had a similar problem about 6 months after I had my n3. U might want to just get a new rca harness for the avic.