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.