rca’s popping when plugging in?
Printed From: the12volt.com
Forum Name: Car Audio
Forum Discription: Car Stereos, Amplifiers, Crossovers, Processors, Speakers, Subwoofers, etc.
URL: https://www.the12volt.com/installbay/forum_posts.asp?tid=114497
Printed Date: May 02, 2025 at 2:02 AM
Topic: rca’s popping when plugging in?
Posted By: rlemere
Subject: rca’s popping when plugging in?
Date Posted: June 16, 2009 at 1:06 PM
Hi guys, here is my set up and situation. 2007 Ford Expedition, Pioneer AVIC-D1 Head unit, Polk Momo C500.1 and C400.4 amplifiers. 3-12" Polk Momo Subs in a enclosure and 4 Boston Acoustic 5X7 coaxials in the doors. Now my problem. Everything was working fine and no engine/static noise whatsoever.......until I decided to clean up the wiring in the rear cargo area where the amps are located. All I did was wire loom all the wiring to keep it looking nice and neat. Only wires I took off from the amplifiers was the grounds, power leads and RCA's from the bass amp (C500.1) Put everything back together and now when I start my truck up it has a lot of static in the coaxial speakers and loud! I read a lot of the issues here on the site and still no luck. Both front and rear speakers have the noise, bass was left unplugged as it did not seem to effect it. Now I might have "stretched" the bass RCA's a bit to get them into the amp? What I tried next was removed power and ground from the bass amp and had the truck running and stereo on, took the RCA's from the bass amp and went to plug them into the amp with no power and I got a loud popping noise when doing so? Seems like there is still power to this RCA and it is loud when plugging into my amp? So..........help me out here fellows, should I try an new RCA lead from the deck to the bass amp? maybe thinking I tweeked the RCA's for the bass amp? I did not touch the RCA's or speaker wires going to the C400.4 as there was a lot of extra wire left so I did not have to remove them from the amp. C400.4 wires were zip tied together so I just cutt them off and added the wire loom, now I got NOISE! Thanks in advance for your help or suggestions........... Roger
Replies:
Posted By: DYohn
Date Posted: June 16, 2009 at 1:42 PM
You've described the perfect way to destroy the ground plane inside Pioneer head units. Where is that link "i am an idiot" posts all the time? ------------- Support the12volt.com
Posted By: tommy...
Date Posted: June 16, 2009 at 1:54 PM
And another one...And another one... Bites the dust...There were 376 posts for that same thing(round'a'bout)...You can do a search for more detailed instruction...But try grounding outside shield of rca's to the chassis of the radio...See if noise goes away...You can achieve this by temporarily wrapping a wire around outside shield of rca, and then touch it to the radio's chassis. If it cures your noise problem , proceed and do a permanent fix w/ solder. I believe since you un-hooked the ground wires, the amp used the rca's for ground, and as dyohn stated,destroyed the ground plane on the inside of the stereo...!
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M.E.C.P & First-Class
Go slow and drink lots of water...Procrastinators' Unite...Tomorrow!
Posted By: rlemere
Date Posted: June 16, 2009 at 2:01 PM
DYohn, thanks! So it seems this is a common problem for the average Joe. So how does one not make this mistake when removing wires from amplifiers? This would be more helpful then your sarcastic remark, I did remove the fuse from the stereo hot lead off of the battery prior to removing any wires..........
Posted By: rlemere
Date Posted: June 16, 2009 at 2:02 PM
Tommy, thanks for the info. I have read those posts but I was not sure what my problem was at the time....Does it matter which RCA's I need to ground to the radio? Just the left / right from the bass RCA's?
Posted By: DYohn
Date Posted: June 16, 2009 at 2:27 PM
My remark was not intended to be sarcastic at all, I was being 100% serious. Here's the link I was talking about: https://bcae1.com/images/rca/temporaryrcashieldrepair.html------------- Support the12volt.com
Posted By: i am an idiot
Date Posted: June 16, 2009 at 3:16 PM
When you remove the ground wire from some amplifiers, the amp tries to find ground through the RCA cables that are connected to the radio. Pioneer decided to protect their radios from amps that could have a shorted transformer and inject Positive or negative 12 to 80 volts to the shields of the RCA jack. They protect their radio with a 3 amp fuse. The Ironic part of the whole thing is, I have been doing this for nearly 30 years, I can count on one hand the number of amps that have the transformer shorted in a manner that the fuse would have protected the radio. However, I can not count the number of radios I have seen with the fuse blown.
Posted By: tommy...
Date Posted: June 16, 2009 at 4:22 PM
DYohn] wrote:
p>You've described the perfect way to destroy the ground plane inside Pioneer head units. Where is that link "i am an idiot" posts all the time?
Did you think he was calling you an idiot...I could see how his name in a sentence could seem very OFF...LOL ------------- M.E.C.P & First-Class
Go slow and drink lots of water...Procrastinators' Unite...Tomorrow!
Posted By: rlemere
Date Posted: June 16, 2009 at 4:40 PM
LOL.........my apoliges to DYohn...... Did not know there was an actual guys user name " I am an idiot " on this forum. Just call me Dumb! I checked out the link you sent, great illustrations by the way. Is the internal fuse an easy fix on the head unit or better off just doing the RCA repair the best way to go?
Posted By: tommy...
Date Posted: June 16, 2009 at 5:23 PM
The rca repair is a pretty quick fix...If the unit is under warranty, you could return it...I cant guide you on the actual repair, but if time is short,might be the way to go!
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M.E.C.P & First-Class
Go slow and drink lots of water...Procrastinators' Unite...Tomorrow!
Posted By: i am an idiot
Date Posted: June 16, 2009 at 7:31 PM
I really think the warranty has expired on the D1, but that is just me.. Easier than doing the repair as pictured, on the RCA harness on the D1, The RCA cables are stripped and black heat shrink tubing is placed over the shield wires of the cables. It is very easy to cut through the heat shrink tubing to expose a bit ot the Shield. Now using some very small wire, one conductor of an IDE hard drive cable works really good. simply strip a very small amount of the insulation off of the ribbon cable and solder it to the shield you exposed earlier. Now ground the other end. Of course you need to put the fuse in there. Read My last post carefully. Like I said make sure you put the fuse. Actually repairing the deck with the new surface mount fuse is not an easy task. 60 dollars is cheap to get it repaired.
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