boat stereo direct to battery?

[eolsen]

Can i hook up a boat deck stereo direct to a marine battery? Can I use the negative post as the ground to the stereo? Should i put an inline fuse from the battery to the stereo?.................... Can someone please advise?

 

[Scott Danforth]

its your boat, do what you want.

however my recommendation would be put a switch on it (so you do not end up with a dead battery from the radio memory) and install a fuse.

 

[tpenfield]

Can i hook up a boat deck stereo direct to a marine battery? Can I use the negative post as the ground to the stereo? Should i put an inline fuse from the battery to the stereo?.................... Can someone please advise?

You can . . .

Usually there is a power lead that would be routed through the main power source for the boat's accessories, and then a 'program memory' lead that goes directly to the battery to keep clock and station pre-sets alive (that is usually a yellow wire).

However, if you want to connect both power leads directly to the battery, it can be done if you do not have a good way of connecting power to it otherwise. A fuse would be good. Your down side is that you may tend to forget to turn off the stereo and run the battery down.

 

[sidewalkman]

Best practices dictate that you don't although like Scott said 'it's your boat'. You're likely going to have a yellow wire coming off the head unit that supplies constant power so you don't lose your clock and presets settings, run that one direct to a constant power source. The main power wire should go to a switched wire meaning either to a manual switch or to the ignition so the ignition has to be in the running position for it to feed power to the head unit. AND if you're running an amp you really should not wire it directly to the battery. Ground isn't that important, I try to put in a distribution block, that way when you have to remove the battery over the winter you're not having to deal with a ton of wires all directly attached to the battery

 

[eolsen]

Thanks guys

 

[H20Rat]

Ground only becomes an issue if you have amps installed. You generally want your amps and head unit grounded to the same point.

 

[gillmeone]

I'm trying to determine what size wire I need to hookup a marine stereo (just a digital media receiver w/radio) on my 25ft pontoon. There is no circuit boards or switches. This boat does not have any guages or anything currently hooked up. My plan is to run the yellow and red wire from the stereo to a toggle switch (lighted rocker switch) and run the ground from the stereo to the toggle switch, and then from the rocker switch run a black and red wire (in a jacket) back to the battery's positive and negative posts. I will be putting an inline fuse back by the battery on the red power line. The stereo is a 200 watt stereo 50 x 4 (no separate amp or anything) and I will only be hooking up 2 speakers. I need to know what size of red/black jacketed speaker wire I need. I know I have some 16ga at home, but I've read several articles stating it should be at least 12-14ga if not 8-10ga. I've read that if you have too small of wire, it can cause the speakers to cut in and out or for the head unit to power down periodically.

Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated. Also, can you confirm if how I plan to do the wiring sounds appropriate?

Thanks!

 

[tpenfield]

It this a thread hijack ??? :nono: