Noise and the joys of condo living...

toolfanem

toolfanem

Power User
Hey folks!

After many months of frustration chasing down intermittent ground/interference issues, I finally made a break through this weekend!

When unplugging my guitar after playing for a bit, I dropped the cable onto the floor in the middle of the room. All of a sudden there was lots of buzz coming through my rig. To test where the noise was coming from, I dragged the cable across the floor into the corner of the room and to my surprise the buzz was gone! Now this has been puzzling me for months because there are multiple sources of interference in my condo, and some come and go on a day to day basis, so this has made it very tough to narrow things down.

I called my neighbor that lives below me and asked if he has dimmers in the bedroom (the room right underneath my rig). Sure enough he does, and when he turned them off the buzz was gone! Go figure his light fixture is dead center in the floor of my room! Argghhh!!!!

Now with the dimmer off I could finally chase down the other interference issues which included:
- A wireless router and Wii U power supply on the opposite side of one of the walls
- Interference coming down the CAT5 cable from the router in another room.
- A mystery source of interference this is also in the floor, but still causes issues even when neighbors lights are off. Its a small "hotspot", I ended up moving my rig to face the other wall so I don't pick that up.

Luckily my neighbors are SUPER cool and said that if they cant figure out a way to shield it that they'll switch it for a regular switch and remove the dimmer.

Any other tips on making this situation work out even better? Will something like a guitar cable with one end floated like the Planet Waves?
 
Get yourself a Mat with a wire mesh in it to act like a Faraday cage/emf shielding. Or just get the cloth and put a mat over it and some protection for the cloth so it doesn't start fraying and getting damaged. If you know the frequency of the interference you can figure out the mesh sizes you need.

To give you an idea (never bought from this company, just came up on a quick google search, the place i useto buy from is not around anymore)
http://www.lessemf.com/fabric.html
 
Thanks for the advice! Have you ever tried this stuff yourself? Did it work for you?
I thought that you needed to build like a grounded cage and everything, but even if it helps a little its worth it to me. The frequency of the interference is across the spectrum from what I can see on my meters, plus it changes I am guessing based on what position their dimmer is in.
 
I haven't used a partial cage before. I have built cubed enclosures and isolated them from their surroundings for electronics testing. Though I think its likely to help to a degree in this situation as along as it doesn't get grounded out to something else and become a transmission source. Part of the premise of a faraday cage and cloth is that the size of the grid disrupts and cuts a frequencies length and amplitude. An example for instance is the front of your microwave. The Mesh there allows you to see through while nullifying the damaging frequencies from extending out.

If you can get some actual wire screen you can use that as a quick test, and it should be fairly cheap i believe. I am sure theres someone probably more knowledgeable but than i am about this. But it seems like a good easy starting place before going for more extreme solutions.
 
Moving to an SFR an option ??
I don't know how people can play an instrument and live in an apt/condo - it would drive me crazy...
I knew someone that lived in a condo and had quite a nice guitar collection - some jackass neighbor upstairs was washing dishes and put a stopper in the sink to fill it with water and walked away and forgot about it - next thing you know, his whole condo was flooded, and so was my friends - along with all his guitars and equipment....
 
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