electronics/wiring/grounding question

**blarg** · 07-27-2006 10:37 AM

I'm setting up wireless in my car, which requires several 5V devices. Several of the devices are USB-bus powered. I will have to run two 2A DC-DC converters (unless someone knows where I can get one that delivers around 4A....all the ones I've seen are 2A or less).

anyway, I was going to run my 12V devices (the bluetooth adaptor) and my 5V adaptor, connected to the PDA and hard drive, on the same circuit, and running to the same ground, which is on the stereo.

I know that grounding audio devices to the same ground as the stereo is a MUST to prevent noise, but will running a 5V adaptor on that same circuit cause problems?

the way I see it, the 5V devices will ground to the 5V adaptor, which will, in turn ground to the radio ground. Will this cause noise?

**kevbolax26** · 08-18-2006 10:24 AM

a wise man once told me "ground is ground...all around" i know it sounds lame but you should have no problem grounding the 5v with the same as the 12v. if your a little nervous you can always ground it some where else if you like. let me know how that works, cuz i just orderd my bluetooth car kit and am going to put it in this weekend

**Timmmy** · 08-18-2006 10:35 AM

You will have no problems hooking the 2 grounds together as far as functionality. There is a very very slim potential for interference from 5v adapter. If it was my car I would hook the grounds together without a thought. That is assuming you have a good ground.

**blarg** · 08-18-2006 10:39 AM

the kit worked fine, buy I think the PDA didn't have quite the power necessary to stream A2DP without drop-outs or noise. worked great with my laptop, and cell phone, but I ended up taking it out and going with a wired audio. I still have the wireless hard drive and BT GPS reciever wired up. The 5V thing worked fine. The only problem that some people have run into is when they ground audio equipment somehwere other than RADIO ground, they get noise. I ended up tapping the ground wire on the radio harness and grounding everything to it. I had no noise, except the noise that was generated by the crappy BT capabilities of my PDA. Fvking Dell. They PROMISED me it was 100% compatable with ALL BT funtions. I found out that most of the BT stack was DISABLED and DELETED!

I had to install a hacked BT stack that someone else put together from MS's version of Windows Moble 5.0. Anyway, even at 625 mhz, the sound quality was just not satisfactory over BT.