Ground disconnect issue

[skip99]

Electrical question, i put a ground shutoff switch in the truck, the dakota gauges are ground isolated from the body, so, no issue, i can run a small ground the cutoff for the computers, but….on the radio, the grd wire is grounded tothe body of the radio which will ground to the dash, how can i wire it so i can have the constant 12v for the radio memory ? Justso you understand, everything is hot, i just remove grd from truck frame by switch, if i run a small grd around the switch to aloow radio memory, if i were to say accidently try and start or elect choke comes on with key i think it will try to seek grd through thr small jumper for radio…8 cant see where a diode would work,,any ideas? Kinda seems like i shoud just not worry about the radio orclock

[Dead Parrot]

Ground is pretty much all or nothing. A lot of things have multiple paths to ground. I suspect that you are correct about trying to start with the large switch open would let the smoke out of the small wire. A lot of radio speakers also ground to the frame even if they have two wires to each speaker. Possible those 'ground' wires from the speakers could also go poof.

Swap the switch to the positive side and run a small fused wire for the radio memory.

[skip99]

Originally Posted by Dead Parrot

Ground is pretty much all or nothing. A lot of things have multiple paths to ground. I suspect that you are correct about trying to start with the large switch open would let the smoke out of the small wire. A lot of radio speakers also ground to the frame even if they have two wires to each speaker. Possible those 'ground' wires from the speakers could also go poof.

Swap the switch to the positive side and run a small fused wire for the radio memory.

Seems to be the safest way …to keep from cooking things…