ECU Talk Interfering with Radio Signal

[joesouthgate]

Just a quick one,
Noticed I was getting really crap radio signal when the engine was running so I just assumed that it was some sort of interferance from the engine? But I happened to unplug the ECUTalk today and the interferance dissapeared?
Any Idea why it would interfer so much? And how I could solve it?
Cheers
Joe

 

[ronin_kid]

never had any problems with mine - how have you routed the wires?

 

[joesouthgate]

doesn't make any difference where i route the wires just whenever i plug it in it goes mad!

 

[ollyc98]

The ecu and radio probably share an earth being so close together, run an earth from your battery to the radio cage, that should clean it up. Otherwise buy a ground loop isolator

 

[joesouthgate]

Already have an earth running from the battery to the stereo. Ground loop isolators only plug into RCAs though don't they?

 

[joesouthgate]

Could get something like this and see what it does : http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/10A-150W-NOISE-SUPPRESSOR-FILTER-Ground-Loop-Isolator_W0QQitemZ250474953148QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_CarsParts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM?hash=item3a517879bc&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14

 

[ollyc98]

Yeah, you'd need one on the ignition live and one on the battery live so 2 in total. I've used sommat similar on my dads car and it fixed the problem. Although if you don't get the noise when playing CD's then these won't help

You can also get ones that go on the aerial socket. My K10 had really bad noise but only on radio, I cleaned up the ground on the aerial mounting point

 

[joesouthgate]

should only need one on the perm live in theory as i'm sure the ign live is just tells it to switch on.

 

[ollyc98]

should only need one on the perm live in theory as i'm sure the ign live is just tells it to switch on.

Good point lol. Does it happen even with the CD player? As said above if it's just the radio then unscrew your aerial base and clean up with a piece of sandpaper, you may have to replace the screw ifit's really rusty, worth a try as it's a free fix, plus a lot of stereos earth through the aerial, I know alpines don't work til the aerial is in

 

[joesouthgate]

No it is just the radio reception effected. I will try that mate.

 

[ronin_kid]

had this problem today for the first time ever, but only on the local area station (96.6fm), all other radio stations were fine :suspect:

let us know if you manage to sort it MM

 

[PeterC]

ive had about 10% of users have issues with radio interference - the problem is some cheap (and expensive) radios dont have proper power supply filtering, so the use of any switching power supplies (as in the first batch of ecutalk displays) connected to the car may cause interference to the radio signal. so technically its an issue with the radio itself and the incompetent (or time/resource constrained) electrical engineers who designed it, but the end result is when the display is connected.

there is a reasonably simple modification you can do to remove the switching power supply chip (8 pin socketed one up top right), and wire in (an external/outside the box) LM7805 linear regulator screwed onto a heatsink (e.g. something like this) in a small bit of prototype PCB (electronics shops should have prototype PCBs, e.g. like this and then wire up the 3 legs of the LM7805 to the 0(ground), 5v(output), 12v(input) lines located on the bottom left of the PCB (see very bottom right of the PCB here). then i would just wraped up the heatsink/pcb in electrical tape and place it somewhere out of the way (it will get warm/hot to touch, but probably not hot enough to melt/burn anything).

Peter

 

[Bombardier]

It is a suppressor.

Were a standard fitment on cars for many years.

SIlicone suppressed ignition leads reduced the noise in most cases but in some this little item was required.

Can you tell this older fellow what ecutalk is please?

 

[PeterC]

take a look here: http://www.ecutalk.com/consultlcd.aspx

 

[Bombardier]

Thanks PeterC.