Alternator Whine solved by direct Ground to the Battery

[Zermelo 10+ year member]

Hey I know topics about "alternator whine" has been beaten to death. I have a pretty straight-forward question.

I had a slight alternator whine that I isolated - it was coming from the Head Unit. I tried to re-ground the HU in several different areas with the same result.

I finally grounded it to the battery and the whine was gone. So my question this, since I'd rather not run another line all the way from the battery through the firewall is there a more practical solution to this?

I'm going to try re-grounding the battery itself, but short of that is there anything else I might try?

If not I'll just ground the HU directly to the battery, but I'd like to use that as a last alternative.

Thanks.

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[*SlappinAzz*]

Id say nigga, your avatar is creepy and ghey,

 

[basscort2009 5,000+ posts]

thats what i did is just ran 14 gauge from battery ground to HU and its always worked for me. dont be gay and try to find another way than the way that works.

 

[goingdef 10+ year member]

That avatar is creepy as hell looks like something from the rocky horror picture show, as for the whine problem I would do the big three and see if re-grounding the battery/engine helps out before I would go running from the battery to the radio unless you can find a clean way to do it.

 

[x1le 10+ year member]

if both the battery and headunit are grounded to the chassis then there should be no prob.

 

[mossberg385t 10+ year member]

seriously you guys dont know what the avatar is from?

a clockwork orange, nice job OP

movie is a mind**** and a half

 

[Zermelo 10+ year member]

I'm not going to justify the avatar. It's from one of the most critically acclaimed and (at the time) violent movies of all time: A Clockwork Orange. Anyone with a half-assed education should have read the book in school.

But nevertheless thanks for the suggestions.

 

[jdmferio13 10+ year member]

can you explain your alt whine does it sound like a blower and get louder when the car revs up

 

[Zermelo 10+ year member]

can you explain your alt whine does it sound like a blower and get louder when the car revs up

The whine is consistent with the rpm of the alternator, the greater the rpm of the alternator, the higher pitch the whine.

I'm going to upgrade the ground from the battery tomorrow to 0 gauge and make a clean connection. I'll see how it goes.

Edit: 6/27/2010

Well, I pretty much rewired the entire system:

0/1 Gauge from Battery to Distribution block,

0/1 Gauge from distribution block to SAZ-1500D,

4 Gauge from distribution block to 16-MCA5004,

0/1 Gauge ground from SAZ-1500D to New Clean ground in truck

4 Gauge ground from 16-MCA5004 to same ground as the SAZ-1500D

0/1 Ground from Battery to Chassis, 0/1 Gauge from Engine Ground to Chassis, 0/1 from battery to alternator

and I still got the alternator whine. So I just bit the bullet and ran another ground wire from the negative batter terminal to the HU, and no more noise.

Really not sure why this worked other than the fact that other electrical throughout the chassis were causing the noise, but everything I've read suggest that with proper grounding to the chassis should have eliminated the noise since the chassis is a better conductor than the wire.