Should I wire my amp ground to my battery?

[BigOleDom 10+ year member]

Simple question, I think. Should I wire my amp ground to my battery, or ground it to the frame? does it matter which I do?

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[ultimate157 5,000+ posts]

what size wire are you using? If its 1/0 or 2 gauge I'd go to the battery.

Edit: If you ground to the body, upgrade your battery to body ground to the same size as your amp's ground.

 

[93 saturn sl2 10+ year member]

frame is fine.

 

[patrick1202 10+ year member]

well either way you have to ground it but the diff is if you ground to batt you have pretty much the perfect ground you ground to frame you can possibly get loop noise from motor and altenator

 

[BigOleDom 10+ year member]

Idealy, what is the best thing to do, ground to the battery? I am trying to make this wiring of my system as "clean" and good as possible.

 

[BigOleDom 10+ year member]

Right now it is grounded to my frame, but I am rewiring the whole system because it is so ghetto rigged, so are yoiu suggesting I use 2 gauge to wire it to the battery?

 

[skadude016 5,000+ posts]

do you have an extra battery in the back or just one battery? if you have one in the back just wire to that //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

 

[skadude016 5,000+ posts]

also if you get noise grounding to the frame. try a different ground location or sanding down to bare metal

 

[ultimate157 5,000+ posts]

frame is fine.

No

Right now it is grounded to my frame, but I am rewiring the whole system because it is so ghetto rigged, so are yoiu suggesting I use 2 gauge to wire it to the battery?

No, I'm asking what size wire you are using to wire your amp, not telling you what to use.

 

[cha0 10+ year member]

http://www.caraudio.com/forum/showthread.php?t=273533

 

[BigOleDom 10+ year member]

Currently my amp is grounded to the frame with 4 gauge wire, should I buy 2 gauge and run it to the battery?

 

[PSturmer 10+ year member]

yes

 

[n2audio 5,000+ posts]

in most set ups the frame is a better option than the battery, and saves you some wire/installation time as well.

The battery will generally work fine, but it's an electrically noisy spot to ground. The currents of several circuits will run directly through, or near that spot - which will probably not be the case near your amp.

Your chances of having ground loop noise at the battery is much more likely than the frame - but rare either way.

And unless you're running 1/0 wire or larger the chassis will be less resistive than a 4/8 ga long enough to reach the battery.

It does become advantageous to ground to the battery if you're running enough current to require 1/0 wire or larger. Somewhere around that point the massive amount of copper has more current carrying capacity than the average car's chassis.

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

The battery will generally work fine, but it's an electrically noisy spot to ground. The currents of several circuits will run directly through, or near that spot - which will probably not be the case near your amp.Your chances of having ground loop noise at the battery is much more likely than the frame - but rare either way.

If you're basing this on the "experiment" done by Tom Nousaine forget that you ever saw that. It's based on fallacious logic and bad science. His "noise sniffer" does nothing more than detect the flow of electrons. As such it detected a high flow of electrons at the battery. Who'd have thought? Oh that's right anyone with the most basic understanding of a car's electrical system. Based on the logic of trying to avoid other return paths to minimize noise, the best argument is going right to the battery. Going right to the battery the amp shares about 1/2" of return path with every other circuit in the car (the battery terminal itself) as opposed to an unknown amount shared with an unknown number of unknown circuits and then 18-24" still shared with every other circuit in the car (the chassis ground strap). I've explained this in more length previously.

 

[DarkFox 10+ year member]

in most set ups the frame is a better option than the battery.

False. The battery's - terminal is THE ground for the cars electrical system. It is the only actual ground in the car. Grounding to the chassis is the electrical equivalent to splicing into something else's ground

,

and saves you some wire/installation time as well.

True, and in some cases perfectly fine.

The battery will generally work fine, but it's an electrically noisy spot to ground. The currents of several circuits will run directly through, or near that spot - which will probably not be the case near your amp.Your chances of having ground loop noise at the battery is much more likely than the frame - but rare either way.

FALSE

Ground loop is a common problem. if it wern't, there wouldn't be a sticky about it

Also, the current from EVERY CIRCUIT IN YOUR CAR runs through it. Thats why you don't get ground loops. A ground loop is a separate loop considered ground feeding into a true ground.... not a direct path of its own (I.E. directly to the battery.)

And unless you're running 1/0 wire or larger the chassis will be less resistive than a 4/8 ga long enough to reach the battery.

FALSE. There is almost 0 resistance in 4 or 8ga wire. Guaranty if you ground a multimeter somwhere in the back of your car, and go to the neagative post of your battery there will be much more resistance then if you measure even a 20ft (long for car audio) peice of 4 or 8ga ground cable.

nty

It does become advantageous to ground to the battery if you're running enough current to require 1/0 wire or larger. Somewhere around that point the massive amount of copper has more current carrying capacity than the average car's chassis.

FALSE

Do you think that a 1/2" thick piece of copper has more potential to carry current then literally a ton of steel and/or other alloys.

The chassis is a noisy place, probably the worst in the car. I think the reason you see people with these massive systems running there own grounds with 0ga or better, is cause if your putting that much into your system you are well informed and trying to set yourself up for success from the start.

In short, the battery is usualy the best spot to ground, though the addition of a long strand of high gauge wire is expensive for the ground, which offten can be taken from the chassis with no ill affects and save money. Though if you take this route, at the very least perform the big 3 so that the wire comming off the battery and going to the chassis isnt the choke point in your system.