"Big Three / Grounding Kit" - Improving your electrical grounds

donpisto

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Please see post 1.


WILDMAN This one's for you:



I got the 1/0 gauge "wire". It's actually what they called a welding "cable" at the store. It has a high copper strand count obviously. Now my question is about the ring terminals. In your post you said to "Make sure it is Gold or Platinum plated, other than that, you can just get what's affordable (no reason to spend $8 on a pair of ring terminals if you can get some for $1 lol)". Could you please elaborate?

img2289kl1.jpg


As you can see I got the copper ones from the same welding supply store. Is there a reason it should necessarily be gold/platinum over copper? Would those copper ones be just as good as gold/platinum?

The guy at the store said that's what they use to ground their welding machines.

Please get back to me and thanks.

Good choice on the copper lugs, an alternative is tinned copper, which is the same exact thing. There is a difference between welding 1/0 and car audio 1/0 (depending on the brand you get). You used to have 1/0 from weldingsupply.com and then got Kicker Hyperflex 1/0 and there was a noticebale difference.

Here is a good link showing the actual size of wires, not just the thick sleeving on some of the wires. http://www.caraudiojunkyard.com/for.../258-comparison-10-different-brands-wire.html

This is where I got my tinned copper lugs from: http://www.solarseller.com/

Call the guy and he'll tell you what you need. If you need quite a bit, I'm sure you can get a discount. I got 50 lugs so it was a bit cheaper. Also, if you get wire that is thick like the Kicker 1/0 I have, make sure to get get the 3/0 copper lugs, as the 1/0 welding will be too small (as you can see in relation to the pics I posted from the 1st link)
 
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Russianred

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Hey thanks for that info man!

What kind of a noticeable difference was there when you upgraded the wire? The place I was at wanted $10/ft for audio wire! I was like Fk that!
So total 6ft would have = $60! No way was I paying that much. That's why I went with welding wire. Again my purpose for this is to prevent dimming and a smoother idle - I don't have an audio system really, just stock. I will get one in the future maybe though.

What kind and how much of a difference was there??
 

donpisto

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Hey thanks for that info man!

What kind of a noticeable difference was there when you upgraded the wire? The place I was at wanted $10/ft for audio wire! I was like Fk that!
So total 6ft would have = $60! No way was I paying that much. That's why I went with welding wire. Again my purpose for this is to prevent dimming and a smoother idle - I don't have an audio system really, just stock. I will get one in the future maybe though.

What kind and how much of a difference was there??

I still got major dimming because my electrical wasn't enough for my audio setup, so it's a bit difficult for me to tell, but it would probably be like putting another run of the 1/0 you have. I recommend going to a car audio forum (www.caraudio.com) to buy Kicker wire or you know, even ebay. I paid about $60 shipped for 20 ft. So it was like $3 per foot. Sidenote about caraudio.com: beware, lots of douche's over there which is why I primarily go there only to sell and not post actual threads, unless I'm bored.

If you have no issues and your voltage is staying up, no need to replace IMO. And the only way I would pay the amount that shop quoted you is if it's Pear Cable, which is some good stuff from what I hear and that runs $8 per ft.
 

Russianred

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the cable from the shop was Rockford Fosgate - what a rip.

I installed the grounding kit as previously pictured in my posts, and installed some of those connectors as well - the platinum ones Wildman was talking about, the same exact ones. I don't even have a sound system and my lights and instrument cluster still dim with the engnine on, and when I pull the close window switch. :eekwtf:

What causes this? It's as if the grounding kit did absolutely nothing...
 

donpisto

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That is a big rip, though RF cable is good, I wouldn't buy it. Like I said, I'd take Pear cable over that if I were to pay that high of a price. As for the dimming, I'm not sure what causes it, but I have a 170A alternator, an Odyssey PC 1200 under the hood, big 3 in 1/0 and when I roll up my windows, the lights on the dash will dim. The more windows I roll up, the more it dims. I guess the real issue is what the voltage is before and during the time it dims. I'll try that out this weekend. As long as the voltage is constant, then the dimming shouldn't be a problem, at least I wouldn't think it to be.
 

pewyee

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I didn't do this mod yet, but when i use my close window switch, the light that tells you what gear you're on dims..Is this normal?
 
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