I upgraded the grounding point last night. Or, maybe I should say that I hope that I upgraded the grounding point last night. I had it grounded to the trunk pan, which was causing a lot of noise in the audio. So, I took out one of the bolts that hold the back seat in, sanded all the paint off of the surfaces, and grounded the system to that.
I couldn't actually test it last night, since my DC-DC power supply is still on its way back from Opus Solutions. I sent it back to them to have it modified because it was powering USB devices even when the car was turned off. The PSU should be waiting for me when I get home from work. I can't wait to hook everything up and see how it works now. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that my ground loop noise is gone.
UPDATE
Moving the ground point did help a little, but I still had some noise, especially when the computer read from the hard disk. I then tried re-routing the audio cables away from the power cables, which did not help at all. So, I finally broke down and bought a ground loop isolator. I don't notice any signal degradation, and all of the noise is gone. With this noise problem solved, I'm finally ready to build the trunk installation and post some pictures.
I couldn't actually test it last night, since my DC-DC power supply is still on its way back from Opus Solutions. I sent it back to them to have it modified because it was powering USB devices even when the car was turned off. The PSU should be waiting for me when I get home from work. I can't wait to hook everything up and see how it works now. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that my ground loop noise is gone.
UPDATE
Moving the ground point did help a little, but I still had some noise, especially when the computer read from the hard disk. I then tried re-routing the audio cables away from the power cables, which did not help at all. So, I finally broke down and bought a ground loop isolator. I don't notice any signal degradation, and all of the noise is gone. With this noise problem solved, I'm finally ready to build the trunk installation and post some pictures.
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