Installing AM/FM radio and speakers

[setty7]

My dad and I just bought a head unit and speakers to put on the boat. We are thinking about mounting the speakers on the side of the center console. Any tips in doing this? What are yall using to cut the holes for the speakers and how to wire up the head unit? Thanks for yalls help! And should we power the head unit on the front batter or the motor battery?

Thanks,
Setty

[slayer]

Motor battery...make sure to run thru an on/off toggle switch, and also make sure that the hot wire (red) for the radio has an inline fuse

[setty7]

Motor battery...make sure to run thru an on/off toggle switch, and also make sure that the hot wire (red) for the radio has an inline fuse

thanks man, why not run it off front battery? if that one dies we are ok. If motor batter dies were not ok. And how do you run and on/off toggle switch and what is that used for? I believe it has a fuse

[Hit-n-Miss]

Make sure you mount the top of the speakers lower than gunnel height of your boat. This allows the sound to reflect off of the sides of the boat fore and aft(keeping the sound in the boat). If higher than the gunnels the sound will just go out of the boat for someone else to hear. As far as cutting I use and air reciprocating saw. A rotozip will work but is too hard to control. A jig saw....well you dont want to go there. Also if a fiberglass boat you dont have to have an exposed antenna. You can tie it up under the console and it will pick up fine.

[Hit-n-Miss]

Motor battery...make sure to run thru an on/off toggle switch, and also make sure that the hot wire (red) for the radio has an inline fuse

thanks man, why not run it off front battery? if that one dies we are ok. If motor batter dies were not ok. And how do you run and on/off toggle switch and what is that used for? I believe it has a fuse

Just a radio(no amp) will run all day on a good battery and still start. On the trolling batts every time you hit the moter the sound will prob cut off for a second.

[setty7]

Make sure you mount the top of the speakers lower than gunnel height of your boat. This allows the sound to reflect off of the sides of the boat fore and aft(keeping the sound in the boat). If higher than the gunnels the sound will just go out of the boat for someone else to hear. As far as cutting I use and air reciprocating saw. A rotozip will work but is too hard to control. A jig saw....well you dont want to go there. Also if a fiberglass boat you dont have to have an exposed antenna. You can tie it up under the console and it will pick up fine.

thanks for the advice man! I believe its a fiberglass... 17 ft key west (1993)

[setty7]

Motor battery...make sure to run thru an on/off toggle switch, and also make sure that the hot wire (red) for the radio has an inline fuse

thanks man, why not run it off front battery? if that one dies we are ok. If motor batter dies were not ok. And how do you run and on/off toggle switch and what is that used for? I believe it has a fuse

Just a radio(no amp) will run all day on a good battery and still start. On the trolling batts every time you hit the moter the sound will prob cut off for a second.

so run it off the motor battery. What does the toggle switch do?

[Hit-n-Miss]

Motor battery...make sure to run thru an on/off toggle switch, and also make sure that the hot wire (red) for the radio has an inline fuse

thanks man, why not run it off front battery? if that one dies we are ok. If motor batter dies were not ok. And how do you run and on/off toggle switch and what is that used for? I believe it has a fuse

Just a radio(no amp) will run all day on a good battery and still start. On the trolling batts every time you hit the moter the sound will prob cut off for a second.

so run it off the motor battery. What does the toggle switch do?

Two things: 1 you can turn it off without opening the cover(put switch on red wire not yellow or you will lose memory) and 2 some radios draw current throught the red wire even when off(pioneer for one). Hook it up from your fuse block that cuts off with your batt switch. You will have to set stations every trip but will keep till you turn off batt switch.

[slayer]

you can probably wire it into either an "extra" switch on the console, or just spice it into on of the "ACC." toggle switches....mine is set up to where when either of my 2 ACC.switches are on, all of my electronics (depth finder/VHF/Stereo) will have power. but when both ACC switches are in the "off" position, all power is removed from ALL electronics.....I can/do run 2 GPS/Fishfinders, VHF & stereo all day long without issue, engine keeps batteries topped off, plus with my PERKO switch, I am able to select a secondary "engine" battery as a back-up power source if my #1 battery ever fails

[dombern34]

i installed mine not too long ago, mines ran through one of the AUX switches, you don't wanna hook up the memory wire (yellow i believe) cause it will drain your battery over time. i would tie it into the power switch or an aux switch so when you flip it everything goes off. my head unit has an amp so when there was a little more extra wiring. there should be a wiring harness that came with it along with a dry storage thing. connect same color to color wires together with red being the power black being ground. etc. your speakers will have two wires one pos. one neg. on the wires coming out of the back of the radio, few of the wires should say something like (right + speaker) and the other will be like (left -speaker) just connect those and IFF you didn't make any errors in doing all this everything should play fine. i would suggest using sometype of heat srink like i did to keep that salt out of there. its a headache trying to find which connector isn't getting a good connection. and like mentioned above if possible i would mount below the sides so that you get more of music than music plus wind.

[setty7]

we got it in with ease! We bought a switch to hook the radio up on and it works fine! We were wanting to hook it up to the ACC switch on our switch pannel but we are unsure of what is hooked up to that switch? We cannot think of anything that is hooked up to it. Another question is....is there a way to where if the front battery dies that back one can pick up and charge the front one? May be a stupid question but worth a shot.

Thanks!

[setty7]

anyone?

[Jumptrout51]

http://www.perko.com/catalog/category/b ... oduct/148/

[setty7]

http://www.perko.com/catalog/category/b ... oduct/148/

thanks man, is it worth the hassle of the install? does the motor battery have any effects when its charging the front one?

[Jumptrout51]

It all depends on how you wire the switch.
To charge either battery, the motor has to be running.
If the switch is set for BOTH and the motor is running BOTH batteries receive charge.
You can wire the switch so that either battery will crank and run the motor(RECOMMENDED)
You can then use the 1---2---or---BOTH---positions to maintain batteries.