UnidenBC92XLT
Member
Should you run the positive and negative straight to the battery? Or is it a better ground just running positive to battery and running the ground to the nearest possible ground? For noise or interference purposes.
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Power for my CB Radio
- Thread starter UnidenBC92XLT
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A lot of CB radios on the market today have a 3-wire setup, where one would go to a constant 12-volt hookup (Battery), one would go to a relay that switches on and off with the ignition (your vehicle stereo would be a good example) and then the third to ground. There are also noise filters than can be hooked up in-line to take out the noise of your ignition, if need be. I never liked hooking directly to the battery myself, but you may find it works best for you. If worse comes to worse, you can always buy a 12-volt plug and plug it into your cigarette lighter for (somewhat) portability or convenience.
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Running directly from the battery, with the power leads run properly, will minimize the noise in the feed. (Properly includes not running along other lines that will induce noise, and putting a fuse in both leads.)
Also use a quality cable for your antenna lead, something with a 100% shield.
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WA0CBW
Member
Be aware that many of today's modern vehicles use a sensing device between the battery and its chassis ground. It is advisable that connecting accessory equipment grounds should NOT be made at the battery but at the point where the battery ground connects to the chassis. Alternate chassis ground locations are acceptable as long as they are electrically the same as the battery ground. Connecting the grounds to the battery may bypass the battery current sensing device and may upset the information it is collecting for the cars computer(s).
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teufler
Member
A comment was made about noise, alternator and static. The best thing I ever did to reduce noise was drill a ho;e in the tail pipe, at about the end of the pipe, install a ground from the tail pipew to the auto frame. Seems the tailpipe is really not grounded as its supported by rubber straps to reduce rattles.This install reduced electrical noise BIG TIME.
UnidenBC92XLT
Member
Wow never would have thought of the tail pipe deal.
jim202
Member
That has been a long time cure for as long as I have been in radios. It effects more the AM and SSB operation in the HF bands than it does the FM signals. But if there is enough noise, even the FM will start to kill the rece4ive signal.
But being a CB radio install, you could consider it still to be in the HF bands. Don't forget to ground the trunk and hood also. If your antenna is mounted on the trunk, it would be a good idea to run a ground strap along each hinge arm.
As for the comment about effecting the vehicle computer with the battery ground connection, I have not seen any effect with all the installs of the commercial public safety radios being grounded to the frame or body of the vehicle. If this was going to be an issue, we would have seen it come up and the major vendors like Motorola, Harris, Kenwood and Tait would have said something about it by now.
WA0CBW
Member
As "jim202" indicated Motorola has always indicated using the chassis for the ground connection. Although there are a majority of people who promote a direct connection to the battery we have never experienced any problems connecting directly to the chassis instead. As "jim202" said if connecting the ground to the chassis was problem the major vendors would have changed their installation instruction long ago. We have been made aware of problems that have occurred with the charging systems in vehicles where the ground of high power radios was connected directly to the battery.
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WA0CBW; Interesting point. I drive a 2008 Mitsubishi. I connected two radios in the vehicle. But instead of connecting directly to the battery. I connected ground to chassis ground. Once I did the dash displayed errors on the LCD screen "Error-DC" and I noticed the voltage inside the vehicle from the firewall back would drop to 10-11v DC. After disconnecting all equipment from the vehicle but leaving the power leads it still showed low voltage. After a couple days of troubleshooting and asking around, the only thing I could do for resolution is connect directly to the battery. Once I did it solved all issues, no voltage issues, no drops, 12.6v DC (engine off) all night long. I have no idea why grounding to chassis caused an issue. However in most of the manuals for ICOM, Kenwood, Yaesu, it suggest connecting directing to the battery (Double Fuse). *shrugs* Direct seems to be the best safest way.
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