Grounded Rear Speaker Wire January 07, 2023, 10:52:28 pm 2004 26.5 MB. The radio was working when I took it into the solar installation shop. When I picked it up I noticed the radio worked but there was no sound. I took it to a car radio shop & he found that the left rear speaker was grounded. When he removed that speaker wire the remaining 3 speakers worked fine. So the wire was compromised somewhere between the radio and speaker. Very difficult to trace where that wire runs - it appears to be in the walls. The solar shop did remove the refrigerator and did remove the flooded batteries and installed lithium batteries on the opposite side of the rig, so they did a lot of wire running. Any ideas as to where the speaker wire could have been damaged? Could it be behind the refrigerator or once it leaves the cab is it in the wall?
Re: Grounded Rear Speaker Wire Reply #1 – January 08, 2023, 02:35:51 am Hi Toothvet; While some wiring is in the walls, and it could be in this case. If the solar people added any clamps to run wire on the surface, they could have put a screw through the speaker wires. That wouldn't necessarily ground the wire, but they could be shorted to each other, unless there was an aluminum surface somewhere that was grounded. Did the stereo shop verify that the radio wasn't damaged? That is: check that with a properly connected speaker, it still worked? Go back to the solar place and complain. It is their responsibility to not ruin other wiring when they add their own. I usually find that some, but not all, wiring is run on the surface in black split loom, underneath shelves, inside cabinets. Hard to see, but accessible. There are channels under the floor in two or three locations that go across the aisle, for cold water going to the water heater (passenger side) and heated water back to the sink and bathroom on the driver side. As far as I remember your speaker wires for the back left (driver side) do go from beside the driver seat in the step well, near the battery box, and all the way back along the wall behind the toilet, under the shower and into the storage compartment on that side, Then up into the floor of the across storage compartment above the back window. Somewhere near the battery box would be my guess, RonB 1 Likes
Re: Grounded Rear Speaker Wire Reply #2 – January 08, 2023, 09:47:06 am Quote from: RonB - January 08, 2023, 02:35:51 am Did the stereo shop verify that the radio wasn't damaged? That is: check that with a properly connected speaker, it still worked?Yes, as soon as that speaker wire was cut there was beautiful clear "K-Jaz (88.1)" coming out of the other three speakers! I now have entertainment and most important, hands free phone!Thanks for the information! I'll go back to the solar shop somewhere along the line they put something in that wire that formed a connection. Speaker shop was willing to figure out a way to run another wire, but certainly nicer to find where the wire was damaged and fix that.
Re: Grounded Rear Speaker Wire Reply #3 – January 08, 2023, 11:30:02 am Hi Toothvet; (I always prefer real names). The reason I asked about the car audio test, is that the outputs to the speakers can't be grounded. Both outputs are 'floating', in order to provide a better quality and higher power sound. It's been decades since one output of the speaker was grounded. If you are comfortable about just 3 speakers, then you are ok. But just fixing the wire, may not return your radio's output on that channel. If you ever wanted to upgrade that radio in the future, especially now that you have more battery power and solar, you'll need a working wire to that back speaker. I'm mystified why they would take out the refrigerator. They shouldn't have needed to. Quite likely that speaker wire ran through that space underneath the refrigerator platform, near the outside wall. I've seen haphazard wire looms from other manufacturers, maybe the LD wiring was too well organized compared to what your solar/battery installers are used to, or were expecting. They are still 'on the hook' for damage to the radio wiring. RonB 1 Likes
Re: Grounded Rear Speaker Wire Reply #4 – January 08, 2023, 12:10:07 pm Quote from: RonB - January 08, 2023, 11:30:02 amHi Toothvet; (I always prefer real names). The reason I asked about the car audio test, is that the outputs to the speakers can't be grounded. Both outputs are 'floating', in order to provide a better quality and higher power sound. It's been decades since one output of the speaker was grounded. If you are comfortable about just 3 speakers, then you are ok. But just fixing the wire, may not return your radio's output on that channel. If you ever wanted to upgrade that radio in the future, especially now that you have more battery power and solar, you'll need a working wire to that back speaker. I'm mystified why they would take out the refrigerator. They shouldn't have needed to. Quite likely that speaker wire ran through that space underneath the refrigerator platform, near the outside wall. I've seen haphazard wire looms from other manufacturers, maybe the LD wiring was too well organized compared to what your solar/battery installers are used to, or were expecting. They are still 'on the hook' for damage to the radio wiring. RonBReal name is Steve, but I use Toothvet because when we went the Cachuma Lake Caravan with the LD Caravan Club I was greeted several times with "You're Toothvet from the Yahoo LD Group." This is our 4th LD, but went away for a while! Could not stay away. The radio technician was a native Spanish speaker, perhaps he used the wrong word. What he probably meant was shorted. Or whatever term you use when a screw has been put through a wire. He did unscrew a few of screws holding the solar installer's work & they were very short and hopefully did not penetrate wires in the wall. You are correct, we should have hooked up the wire out of the radio to the speaker to test it out. That would have been the definitive test. But the radio is back together now and a real PIA to get it apart. I don't like things that do not work & would like to bring back to working condition so will check out the refrigerator. That would be an easy fix!Sorry that I did not mention the additional solar & equipment that they had to remove the refrigerator to run. Here is a photo of the new battery/inverter compartment, I think you can imagine the wires run were huge.
Re: Grounded Rear Speaker Wire Reply #5 – January 08, 2023, 12:22:18 pm If speakers are under cabinets in your back bed/lounge area, those ones run inside the bottom of the cabinets 9lift out the inside bottom panel0.We are looking at an electrical issue currently and our back speaker wires are connected to the tv dc12 outlet and cable outlet next to one of the speakers. But I can not imagine any reason to be back in that area running solar wires.We only have those 2 speakers in the coach area.Things can change year to year, model to model. 1 Likes
Re: Grounded Rear Speaker Wire Reply #6 – January 08, 2023, 12:31:44 pm In my experience, LD runs many of the wires inside the walls where they cannot be accessed without incurring damage to the walls, if even accessible.Running a new wire may be the easiest way of resolving this problem.Better automotive electricians own a high-end signal tracer, a tool that injects a signal into a wire and then uses a handheld receiver to trace the wiring path and locate shorts and broken wires. A signal tracer could be attached to the wires at the speaker end, eliminating having to remove the radio.Triplett 3388 Fox & Hound HotWire Live Wire Tone and Probe Wire Tracing Kit...More powerful versions are used by plumbers and electricians to find buried pipes and conductLarry. 1 Likes As an Amazon Associate Lazy Daze Owners' Group earns from qualifying purchases.
Re: Grounded Rear Speaker Wire Reply #7 – January 08, 2023, 12:32:25 pm Quote from: Jane and Scott - January 08, 2023, 12:22:18 pmIf speakers are under cabinets in your back bed/lounge area, those ones run inside the bottom of the cabinets 9lift out the inside bottom panel0.We are looking at an electrical issue currently and our back speaker wires are connected to the tv dc12 outlet and cable outlet next to one of the speakers. But I can not imagine any reason to be back in that area running solar wires.We only have those 2 speakers in the coach area.Things can change year to year, model to model.The wire's closest to the speakers were for the Starlink connection. No longer have to run wire around the rig to hookup. Just plug into the back. Also ran wires for additional outlets. We got used to the convenience all the convenient outlets on the Lance TT. We had them from the factory in our 2015 LD.
Re: Grounded Rear Speaker Wire Reply #8 – January 08, 2023, 12:40:11 pm Quote from: Larry W - January 08, 2023, 12:31:44 pmIn my experience, LD runs many of the wires inside the walls where they cannot be accessed without incurring damage to the walls, if even accessible.Running a new wire may be the easiest way of resolving this problem.Better automotive electricians own a high-end signal tracer, a tool that injects a signal into a wire and then uses a handheld receiver to trace the wiring path and locate shorts and broken wires. A signal tracer could be attached to the wires at the speaker end, eliminating having to remove the radio.Triplett 3388 Fox & Hound HotWire Live Wire Tone and Probe Wire Tracing Kit...More powerful versions are used by plumbers and electricians to find buried pipes and conduit.Larry.Wow, thanks Larry, that is quite a gadget! Step 1 will be to go back to the solar shop. If they can't do anything form me I might consider it, or maybe THEY should buy one! I can think of other projects where this could have been very handy! As an Amazon Associate Lazy Daze Owners' Group earns from qualifying purchases.
Re: Grounded Rear Speaker Wire Reply #9 – January 08, 2023, 01:11:19 pm How about this one: https://www.harborfreight.com/cable-tracker-94181.html?_br_psugg_q=cen-tech+cable+tracker
Re: Grounded Rear Speaker Wire Reply #10 – January 08, 2023, 02:19:36 pm Quote from: toothvet - January 08, 2023, 01:11:19 pmHow about this one: https://www.harborfreight.com/cable-tracker-94181.html?_br_psugg_q=cen-tech+cable+tracker I have no idea how powerful or sensitive this tracker would be, only having experience with pro-grade tracers.For $27, it is an inexpensive experiment.Larry 2 Likes
Re: Grounded Rear Speaker Wire Reply #11 – January 08, 2023, 06:27:55 pm Quote from: toothvet - January 08, 2023, 01:11:19 pmHow about this one: https://www.harborfreight.com/cable-tracker-94181.html?_br_psugg_q=cen-tech+cable+trackerI used one similar to that many years ago (but one of the very reputable brands like Dewalt/Milwaukee/etc.Using it to trace wires (follow the path of a wire) was pretty useless. It didn’t work if the wire was not right under the drywall (eg deeper in the cavity). Even if the wire was right under the drywall other wires could be close by and they go in different directions so if you already knew where the wire went it might give some help but not otherwise.It worked about 70% well to be at an outlet/fixture and say which breaker in the panel it belonged on, lots of false reading so we had to sort thru the results and make a. Educates guess. My easier and more accurate to turn a breaker off and confirm what doesn’t work (checking everything else does).My experience was about 15-20 years ago… they may have improves since that time…..Jane 1 Likes
Re: Grounded Rear Speaker Wire Reply #12 – January 09, 2023, 05:24:17 am Hi Toothvet; Well the Harbor Freight one is worth a try. You should disconnect the wire from the radio at that end. And maybe disconnect at the speaker end also. Should be removable connectors there. You can probably trace the wire pretty closely to the wire, less than an inch away even through the walls. Mostly just wood panel 1/8" to 1/4" thick and so on. If the 'pinger' end is attached to the wire, you might not have to trace it all the way from the speaker. You could look around the area of the refrigerator. Possibly the wire pair, light weight and just 1/8" away from each other could be broken somewhere also. If you can isolate both ends, check for continuity (DMM) from the radio to the speaker. If the two were shorted to each other, that would make the speaker not work, but I would think the other speakers would be unaffected. If the wire is just damaged in one location, and it is accessible, a local fix is all you need. Probably easier than running an entire new wire pair all the way from radio to rear speaker. RonB 1 Likes
Re: Grounded Rear Speaker Wire Reply #13 – January 21, 2023, 05:34:22 pm Just giving some feedback on a wire tracer as I tried a new one this last week.I reported earlier that the lower cost models were difficult to get accurate info from but it has been 20 years so maybe things improved. At that time I used something similar to this model.. The Home Depot Logo. It was pretty worthless and could not follow a wire running thru the walls. Used in a house where wire path was somewhat predictable but other wires could run along the same path for part LD it or cross the wire you were trying to trace. Wired much more spread out than an RV and zero confidence we were getting any accuracy at all.At that time I also played with a two part tester - I don’t remember enough to pull up the type of tester it was but one part was put on the end of a bare wire and the other part was used in the main panel to “identify” which breaker the wire was on (giving a fine). Information was roughly 50% accuracy, a tone was received for multiple locations, it was a matter of guessing the best signal and with practice guesses were about 50% accurate. I do not believe that what we used was at the caliber of Larry’s link (only because I don’t think it cost that much). But it worked similarly.This last week we got this tester https://www.homedepot.com/p/Klein-Tools-Tone-Probe-PRO-Electrical-Wire-Tracing-Set-VDV500-820-VDV500-820/309927727We don’t feel this tool is worth buying, it didn’t give accurate info at all and didn’t help with our goal.Our goal.. we had a separate wire bundle (went thru the inside of the monitor panel) - 4 wires (2 red 2 white) and I thought (based on how I knew wires ran thru most of our LD) that one of the red wires would be the old evaporative cooler wire that we could use to replace our non-functioning red wire in the monitor panel.But I needed to figure out which wire was which (my guess was one was rear lights, other was evap cooler). I was not real confident of my guess.First we got to know the tool by testing a line we knew (from the monitor panel to the tv d12 outlet). This worked fine but we knew what the line was (continuity test previously done), we could connect to bare wires on each side, and it was a pretty clean run (just a red and white wire, for the most part not close to other wires, we connected to raw copper wire at each end, and at both ends we could separate the wires being tested by at least 5 inches).Once we got to know the tool, we checked the two red wires we were trying to figure out, one end at the monitor panel and one at the power center. This was a more difficult test - both wires were very close together (I could stretch then about 1” apart only for an inch or so), we started testing thru the shielding which the tool said would work, and there were longer spots where many wires ran close together. The wire being tested must not be energized for this tool so we pulled the likely fuses. We tested for about 10 minutes with the expected unclear answers but by the end we felt it was clear which wire was the one marked evap cooler.So we cut that wire to do a continuity test - epic fail, that wire did not go the evap cooler location at the power center.In reading the reviews for the link Larry provides a couple people talked about the difficulty in getting an accurate reading.I would guess in a house these testers would have more value.But I believe they work by putting a small voltage on the line and listening for it at the other side. However the electricity of a live electrical line (not the one you are testing) bleeds past the shielding out into other wires running along side it and a smallVoltage is read as a positive at the other side (when it is not the correct wire).It remember being shocked the first time I learned that electricity didn’t stay inside the shielded area - we were adding coax cable and the rules were the coax could not run parallel to an electrical wire unless it was 2’ away or more. Crossing was ok, but if it ran parallel it would pick up a small electrical charge which would interfere with the data transmissions.So am RV with several/many wires often run next to each other, this tester does not work as well.Other interesting things that came up - the tester did with better when connected to a bare wire but we still got strong signals that were wrong. If I touched the tester to my finger (not the wire) it tested strongly positive. This added confusion when I was touching a wire but got too close to my finger and got some signal back (when looking for the strongest signal).After we cut the wires we tested with bare wire and still didn’t get accurate signals.We did not do this (as I just thought about it), we could have taken down the entire dc12side of the power panel (we had main breaker off but batteries were not disconnected). We might have gotten better info with this - look for strongest signal as the wires getting bled into should have a weaker electrical signal and therefore a weaker tone on the tester.But someone would have to test this.Again with a RV and a lot of wires run as a bundle this kind of tool will have difficulties.Jane 1 Likes
Re: Grounded Rear Speaker Wire Reply #14 – January 22, 2023, 10:53:57 am A disappointing experience, that's for sure. Thanks for sharing, Jane.These two-piece testers work by injecting a signal ("tone") into a wire, effectively turning it into an antenna, and then using a receiver probe to search for the wire that's radiating that signal. You can trace the general path of a wire this way, even if it's in a bundle. But picking out an individual wire from a bundle is difficult, unless you can separate each wire from the others, one at a time, and probe it for a tone."I remember being shocked the first time I learned that electricity didn’t stay inside the shielded area - we were adding coax cable and the rules were the coax could not run parallel to an electrical wire unless it was 2’ away or more. Crossing was ok, but if it ran parallel it would pick up a small electrical charge which would interfere with the data transmissions."Right. Electricity itself stays in the wire, but any live wire creates a magnetic field around it, and any adjacent wire will have an electric current induced in it if that magnetic field changes. (The transformer principle, in other words.) You'd think this wouldn't matter with DC wiring, since the flow of current is steady and hence the magnetic field is too. But when you turn power on or off, that changes the magnetic field generated by that wire, and thus current spikes can be generated in nearby wires. And of course AC signals in adjacent wires can interfere with each other all the time.Coaxial cable, in theory, should eliminate both emitting and picking up these signals. In practice, it doesn't quite... so it's best to keep it away from other cables.
Re: Grounded Rear Speaker Wire Reply #15 – January 22, 2023, 12:28:58 pm "Electricity itself stays in the wire, but ..."I don't know when I've heard such a concise explanation on this topic unless it was in Tech School, yay those many years ago!
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