Tower Speakers Buzzing when Navigation Lights turned on....

[Alerberg]

All,

I had an ambitious start to the offseason... I mounted a Lumitec Seablaze 3 underwater LED light on the transom of my 2015 Moomba Mondo as well as two new MB Quart 8" tower speakers and a JL audio amplifier that I mounted next to the battery. I connected the amp power and ground direct to the battery and also connected the remote wire. The speakers are working great except when I turn on the navigation lights/curtesy lights in the boat (which also powers my underwater LED light) in the back. As soon as I turn on the lights I get a serious buzzing sound coming from the tower speakers.

Possible Causes:
1. Could be a wire that I accidentally pulled the sheething off of during install. It is one of the wires going to the tower speaker, I just shoved it back into the tube. It was down to the bare wire, I learned an important lesson, don't ever use needle nose pliers to pull wire.

2. Could be my new LED Underwater light causing some interference?

3. Could be the location of the amp, I mounted it next to the battery on the little divider board by the battery switch?

Anyone have experience with this????

Al

[MLA]

As to #1, if you indeed pulled the insulation off, down to bare copper wire, theres no putting it back in. You mean you shoved bare wired back into the tower tube? Can you clarify exactly what happened here? Bare wire WILL be an issue for the amp

#2, sure. LEDs can give off a pulse frequency that can leak into the speaker output.

#3, likely not the amp's location, but maybe the location where the amp's B+ cable terminated. Does this boat have an in-boat amp? does this boat have a dual battery bank and switch setup? May be worth sitting down with your JL amp dealer, and getting some setup and tuning details for preventing noise. Once those are checked. corrected, then time to go deeper.

[Alerberg]

Decided to run a test... I took a second battery and wired the amp to just that battery, walla... buzzing went away. So I am now assuming it is some sort of ground loop problem. Can I run dual batteries? If I connect them together will the buzzing come back? Hope this helps.....

Al

[MLA]

Sounds like you made a significant find, so stay on that path, however, I would not jump in just yet and install a dual bank setup as the fix.

[stevemarich]

I had a similar buzz when would turn on factory underwater lights, I have factory dual batteries,I believe the what fixed my buzz was , the head unit power and remote power we're tied together, for whatever reason when I changed it so all amps and head unit remote power we're on same circuit it went away.

[Alerberg]

That might be a problem, I have two amps located in different parts of the boat. I am looking into a dual battery setup but only need to charge the second battery somehow.

[stevemarich]

60 or 100 amp isolator , most auto part store should have one

[MLA]

I have two amps located in different parts of the boat.

Their physical mounting locations may not be the issue so much as how and where they are wired as well as how the head unit is wired into the mix.

I would pass on a diode style dual bank isolator and go with more traditional marine dual bank switch or similar. A couple of the cons:
voltage across the diode
no means to use the house bank as backup cranking battery
All boat loads wired directly to battery with no master disconnect
ground loop noise may not be eliminated.

Id consider taking the off season to reconfigure the audio system so both amps are close, use a common trunk line and branch line, proper circuit protection and wired in a manor to reduce the chances of unwanted noise.

[Alerberg]

Would a blue sea systems ACR fix my problem? In other words, have two batteries, one starter, one house. Use the ACR to charge only as needed? Or will I still get noise in the system? I would prefer not to relocate amps and rewire everything. My sub and amp (wired to distribution panel under helm) are on one side of the boat while my tower speakers and other amp are on the other side of the boat wired direct to the battery. If I were to move amp, I would have to run speaker wire all around boat as well as RCA's, would prefer not to do that if I don't have to.

[MLA]

The blue sea acr setup is one of two commonly used dual bank setups. It alone, will not cure the noise any more then a traditional 1/2/BOTH/OFF switch. Adding a dual bank system is likely not the fix. However, through the process of properly rewiring in order to correctly configure either switch, there is a chance that the noise issue would be resolved. As stated above, I would resolve the noise with the system as is, then move forward with a dual bank setup. I say this because, in a perfect world, th lights suspected of inducing noise, would be drawign off the house bank along with the audio, similar to now with the current single battery.

[Alerberg]

Project: Installing 2 tower speakers on 2015 Moomba Mondo with Aviator Tower
Goal: To have MB Quart tower speakers running on separate amp, have LED lights working, be able to turn off tower speakers when not surfing, riding behind boat.

Status: Amp installed, speaker installed, speakers are running great off amp. LED lights not working, I have not been able to independently turn off tower speakers.

Feeling: Frustrated

Need Help with: My system is pretty straight forward. I have the Fusion head unit running my in-boat kicker speakers (per factory setup). I then added an 8" JL Audio sub (under passenger seat behind driver seat) then amp I mounted to the foot board (drivers seat) and connected power and ground to distribution strip under the helm. It worked fantastic by the way. Next I wanted to add tower speakers so I installed the MB Quart speakers on the tower, found the pre-wired tower wires on the passenger side of the boat just dangling, connected them to wires that then ran to a JBL Audio marine amp by the boats single battery. Grounded the amp to the battery and ran power direct from battery as well. That all worked perfect, no problems.

Next I wanted to connect second set of wires coming out of speakers to run LED's. I found the light blue and black wires that were pre wired in the tower BUT CAN'T FIND WHERE THEY GO? Does anyone know where the heck the pre-wired aviator tower lights wires terminate? It looks like they run to the under the helm but I CAN'T FIND THEM! I found the pre-wired speaker wires on the other side no problem just hanging there, but these go into split loom and disappear!

Next - I still have the buzzing sound in the speakers because I installed underwater LED lights that are causing some type of interference or ground loop issue. Not sure what it is but when I added a second battery and connected the amp to it, the buzzing went away. That would be a great solution but the battery will quickly die without being connected to the motors alternator which will (I assume) re-introduce the unwanted noise. I agree with MLA above but thought I would throw out these new issues/problems with more details that may or may not change the proposed solution.

So here is what I am trying to figure out:
Where do the pre-wired wires terminate from the Aviator tower for lights (not speakers)?
How do I turn off my tower speakers independent from the rest of my system so I don't blast the lake when there isn't a rider?
How do I stop the buzzing that comes when I turn on Nav/Underwater LED lights?

Appreciate your professional opinions...

Al

[MLA]

How do I stop the buzzing that comes when I turn on Nav/Underwater LED lights?

https://forum.moomba.com/showthread.php?30339-Tower-Speakers-Buzzing-when-Navigation-Lights-turned-on

Besides the test with a spare battery, what else has been done to isolate the noise? Have you reached out to your amp and tower speaker retailer for technical support? This is never a bad idea.

Still some unanswered questions about the boat, in that previous thread.


How do I turn off my tower speakers independent from the rest of my system so I don't blast the lake when there isn't a rider?

One question from the previous thread, are the in-boat speaker on their own external amp or driven by head unit?

What model head unit does your boat have?

[stevemarich]

For turning towers off , I used a universal zone control knob that plugs into the rca's , I plugged mine in right off the back of the fusion head unit , I only use it for full on or full off , not as volume control , control volume through zone 1 of head unit, it works great ,but if I use the zone control knob as a volume , it does have buzzing everywhere in between

[Alerberg]

I still haven't been able to locate where the heck the lighting wires terminate on the starboard side of the boat... This is a 2015 Moomba Mondo with the Aviator tower pre-wired. I have read other posts that the wires go all the way around the bow to the Amp area to a white harness but that is on the new 2017 boats with the newer tower. I even called Roswell, they don't know. I am stumped, they go into split loom and then disappear. Any help appreciated.

Al

[stevemarich]

My 17 tower the speaker wires and led wire for speakers terminated on the port side , they were about a foot short of reaching the amp rack, the nav light and wires for the light bar are on the starboard side , mine were zip tied with the in boat speakers under the base of the tower

[Alerberg]

I will look there... Thank you...

[Alerberg]

Long weekend at the lake working on the boat... I found the wires after a long search. On the Port side, four wires exit the tower, on my boat they were inside a rubber sheath so I could not see how many wires were inside. Only two wired come out the end of the sheath, so I assumed only two wires exited the tower on that side, which didn't make sense because of all the wires in the tower itself. I ended up cutting the sheath where the wires exit the tower, and found the extra two wires inside, they were hiding inside the sheath and I couldn't see them. I got everything hooked up but I have some buzzing coming from one of the speakers when the LED speaker lights are on. Next step is to trouble shoot that problem by reconnecting the ground and seeing if that eliminates the buzzing. I have to admit, I have spent a lot more time on this small tower speaker project than I anticipated. Might have been worth having the experts do this one.

[Alerberg]

Quick follow up note... I ordered a little interference eliminator from amazon that plugs into the RCA's and bingo, all the buzzing is now gone!