Speakers popping while trimming

black magic

New Member
Mar 25, 2009
100
La Porte, TX
Boat Info
2007 185 Sport w/Tower
Engines
4.3L
I've had this problem from the time I bought it(used). When I hit the trim switch my speakers will make a little "pop". It just does it the moment I hit the switch. This seems to bother the wife more than myself, but in any case I was going to see if I could eliminate it this weekend while I'm installing my new speakers. Any suggestions on where to even start to track this down?

I know this should probably be in the "electrical" section, but the sport boat section seems to have the most traffic and the best advice. :grin:

Thanks in advance.
 
Check the grounding of the Radio also direct wire it to the battery that isn't operating the pump if you have 2 batteries and make sure all connections are tight.
 
The ground to your amp is connected to battery that trim is connected to. It's causing a ground loop when trim is moved. Find a different ground
 
Make sure you have a ground wire connecting all of your batteries, and one to your grounding plate. The engine and pump should also be on the same grounding plate. None of them should be grounded directly to you batteries. Only the grounding buss or plate is grounded directly to your batteries.
 
Make sure you have a ground wire connecting all of your batteries, and one to your grounding plate. The engine and pump should also be on the same grounding plate. None of them should be grounded directly to you batteries. Only the grounding buss or plate is grounded directly to your batteries.

Ok, now I'm getting a bit confused. So, my components aren't or shouldn't be grounded to the batteries, but rather a single grounding plate/bus? If tha is the case, how am I going to seperate the pump ground from the amp/stereo ground?
 
Two suggestions: don't ground your amp to your batteries. I have only installed audio stuff on cars but it can't be all the different. You can get a popping sound when you use the power windows or turn signals when you ground to the battery. The other option is a capacitor. It will store and clean the power coming into your amps and reduce alot of the feedback. Hope some of this helps.
 
Two suggestions: don't ground your amp to your batteries. I have only installed audio stuff on cars but it can't be all the different. You can get a popping sound when you use the power windows or turn signals when you ground to the battery. The other option is a capacitor. It will store and clean the power coming into your amps and reduce alot of the feedback. Hope some of this helps.

This is dead on.

Now, I am assuming you the size of your boat and motor you only have one battery.... So depending on where your amp is located will dictate where you find your ground source. If connected directly to battery. That's easy move it to engine block or motor mount. If it is to a common ground bar..... Yeah it's gotta move somewhere else, that is a little tougher to manage as the ground should be a very very short wire. This is when a capacitor is needed.
 
Two suggestions: don't ground your amp to your batteries. I have only installed audio stuff on cars but it can't be all the different. You can get a popping sound when you use the power windows or turn signals when you ground to the battery. The other option is a capacitor. It will store and clean the power coming into your amps and reduce alot of the feedback. Hope some of this helps.


hehe. the only choice you have on the boat is to ground it to battery, no matter if it is connected to ground bar or to capacitor it is still connected to battery trough those things. you could try few different things first. run heavier wire to stereo or amplifier - if you have one, trim pump draws a lot of power and that cause voltage drop on amplifier and stereo - heavier wire will help compensate that. you could try cheap noise filter for power supply ( goes between battery and stereo or amp - you will need two of them if you have amplifier ) and if you have amplifier - additional filter for RCA connection between stereo and amplifier (to eliminate "pop" which could be caused by stereo not amp ), and last resource would be capacitor (good quality unit will be priced like your stereo). easiest way it would be to turn of stereo before using trim :)
 
I had some alternator whine in my system when I first installed it. I put in a noise filter of some type on the RCA lines coming from the stereo. Once I did this, I started getting the popping from the trim through the speakers. Mine actually only pops when I let go of the button. If I trim all the way up to where the cutoff is (when you have to press the button harder to keep going), and the trim stops automatically, it doesn't pop.

I've got the amp grounded to the amp batteries. I have the amp batteries grounded to the back of the motor, in the same place that the main battery is grounded. I assume the trim pump is grounded to the motor somewhere, but on a boat, it's really all the same.

I'm pretty sure that the alternator feedback I had originally is caused by the way I've got my wires routed... the RCAs are very near the power wires. I could have re-routed them, but I already have them very clean, and didn't want to figure out a different route. I chose to use the RCA filter and just live with the popping.
 
I think your problem could be the high-voltage kick-back when the coil in the trim motor receives power (think of an ignition coil). Connect a 12 V surge supressor across the terminals of the trim pump motor. That will clip the high-voltage, and eliminate the pop if kick-back is the source.
 
Very interesting.... I may have to try this out. I didn't see the part numbers though... what am I missing?
 
Like 3 posts from the bottom...Where I mention they were $1.94 each.

OK, I went to Best Buy and they didn't have anything in stock. So I went to Radio Shack and picked up a couple of 50WVDC 100uF electrolytic capacitors (Radio Shack's number 272-1044).

The Radio Shack ones are polarized so be sure to run the (-) side marked on the capacitor to the ground. I assume non-polarized ones could be wired either way.

I installed three capacitors - one for trim up, one for trim down and one for the trailer up button. Each wired from the power wire to a ground wire.
 
Excellent!!! Are the wires colored as mentioned in the linked post?

I'm going to work on this sometime this week. Probably the same time that install my new transom mounted trim switch. Will be nice to get all of this done!
 
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I just climbed in the boat to verify and apparently I did only use 2 caps. The trim up and trailer up were both the same wire. So disregard the note above where I mentioned you need three...(at least I didn't)

And, yes, the green and blue wires were the ones I had to tap into.

I soldered and shrinked wrapped all the connections..

There was a ground bus not too far away from the throttle control (and trim switch) on my boat. It was just under the gunwale almost straight across, like a foot away.
 
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Perfect. I'm going to run out and pick up the caps tonight and then figure out the best way to tap into the wires. Soldering is not my strong suit, but I will give it a whirl if it's the only way.
 
I wonder why my system does not pop when the rca's are disconnected from the radio but when any of them are connected I get the trim pop? Seems to me that the capacitor thing would only help power/ground spikes.

Tried the RCA ground loop isolators and the pops were still there...

:smt021
 

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