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Ultralite distant squeels from laptop power
Posted: Wed May 28, 2008 4:44 am
by chrislewis
I'm using the ultralite with a laptop running cubase. Everything is great as long as I don't have the power lead in the back of the laptop. As soon as I do I get what I can discribe as an electrical swirl/squeel through my speakers.
Any suggestions/sollutions please.
Posted: Wed May 28, 2008 8:08 am
by acidrecords
it`s a grounding problem.
1) put motu + laptop powerlead @ the same distributor box.
2) check that the powercables do not run parallel to the audio cables.
(if you are going unbalanced)
3) put a wire from the grounding on the distributor box (yours may look different
), to the metal cover of the vga output on your laptop.
this should fix the problem
Ultralite distant squeels from laptop power
Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2008 5:30 am
by chrislewis
Cheers acidrecords
I've not tried it yet but it sounds like a good fix.
Posted: Fri Jun 13, 2008 9:26 am
by arth
WARNING!
Do NOT attempt the above recommendation unless you know that the electrical system in your country has earthed ground (like most but not all of Europe), or ground linked to one of the main wires (like the US).
If it has floating ground, you may be in for a shock (literally), unless you make sure that either all the devices use ground from the same circuit, or none of them are grounded.
Some countries use a five phase system with floating ground. This has the advantage of being very resilient to occasional shorts and spikes on the overall system, including lightning strikes and ground faults, and also has a lower energy loss over large distances. It does, however, imply that the "ground" will carry a current, and the potential between ground and live varies depending on the outlet you use and which two of the five phases it is hooked up to.
And if you didn't understand any of the above, play it safe and don't do it.