stereo issues. im mind boggled....

so installed new stereo and speakers in our pontoon. everything worked fine for the first time we took it out. now we are having issues and cant figure this out.

we have 2 speakers hooked to the stereo, there wired correctly. our deck has a audio meter. when the boat is in the on position, and the stereo is wired straight to the battery so I can have the stereo on when ever, the stereo works fine like that. but when we turn the boat on the stereos audio cuts off. the stereo is still on but no audio output.

if I hook the stereo to a issolated battery and leav it in the console it still has that issue.

if I disconnect the speakers and leave it in the console it still does it, and it doesnt matter what battery is does it on both.

if I pull the stereo out of the console and have it hooked to an issolated battery it works fine.

if I hook it to the boat battery and its out of the consol it works fine.

The console is made of fiber glass. so its not conducting electricity.

please any ideas?

Re: stereo issues. im mind boggled....

Check for a bare wire that may be touching the case of the stereo when it sits in the console. You said it worked fine the first time out so I'm thinking that a wire was laying against the case and the vibration during the first time out caused a wear spot. That's the only thing I can think of.

Re: stereo issues. im mind boggled....

The problem is probably in the deck itself. When out of the console and connected to a battery, run it and shake it around a bit. Tilt it in all directions as well. BTW, do not connect it directly to your battery in your boat without connecting to a fuse first.

Re: stereo issues. im mind boggled....

I'd return the stereo and start again. Does your boat have an accessories switch that will allow you to run your stereo through that?

I absolutely hate being the the grammer police, but I found your post really hard to follow. Old guys like me try to keep up with the proof reading before we post.

But hey, welcome to iboats, lots of great people here.

Re: stereo issues. im mind boggled....

The stereo probably has 2 power wires, 1 for memory that lights up the display and a second that actually powers the amplifiers even though it is a one piece unit.
Sounds like the the second wire may have an issue with it.
Also, having it wired into the ignition switch for the engine might not be a very good idea depending on the switch.
If the switch has 4 positions, off, acc, ON & start, wire to the acc. position.
If it is a 3 position, having the key in the ON position leaves the engine ignition on and will eventually damage something in addition to draining the battery.
In whatever car you drive, the radio is on the acc position, not the ON so you can listen but not run the car.
Hard wire it to a second battery so you can listen all day and then crank and get home at night without any issues.
If you have an outboard, remember that the alternator is not very strong, a 2011 Yamaha 90 4stroke is only 25 amps at full throttle, maybe 10 or less at idle, so get a charger that plugs is so you do not need to replace it.
Good luck,
shadetreetx

Re: stereo issues. im mind boggled....

What is an audiometer? Are you refering to a graphic equalizer? Check the power wiring first...run a fused 12v + from the batt or from your fuse panel, then hook the ignition or switch wire to an accessory switch output and you will be safe and not have a fire. It it does sound like your deck may be your issue though. Another quick check is to make sure you have resistor sparkplugs in your engine.

Re: stereo issues. im mind boggled....

First and foremost make sure your battery is fully charged. You may also need an amp.

Re: stereo issues. im mind boggled....

I'd say a grounding issue... I would run a temporary wire to the battery for troubleshooting purposes.

Re: stereo issues. im mind boggled....

winterfunguy said:

What is an audiometer? Are you refering to a graphic equalizer?

Click to expand...

I was thinking the same thing.

Re: stereo issues. im mind boggled....

thanks for all the response, I actualy figured it out, there was no wiring issue, or ground issue, there was nothing wrong with the stereo.

When the boat was running it was creating a sub harmonic frequency inside the console that was interfearing with the antenna of the radio.

I used to be a Broadcast Enginneer for 10 years, and I have never seen that happen in a boat. I was able to solve this issue two ways, 1) I rerouted the antenna wire a new direction. and 2) I use a single wire for the antenna, and looped it through a RF suppressor,

Both fixes worked perfect. it just took alot of time figuring it out.

thanks for all of the thoughts

Re: stereo issues. im mind boggled....

just so all of you know how I was able to figure this out.

1)we disconnected the stereo from the boat battery and hooked it directly to a seperate battery that was not connected to anything. and when the boat was running it still did it. so it was nothing to do with the boat battery.

2)then we puuled the stereo out of the housing and set it on the boat deck with the antenna out of the console and it worked fine, on both batteries.

after those atempts we started moving the stereo back to the console and left the antenna out it worked fine with the antenna out of the console but as soon as we started moving the antenna in to the console it would cut out.

so with a quick run to radio shack for an RF suppressor, we were in business

Re: stereo issues. im mind boggled....

Now thats just plain ol' interesting resolution.....