How do I connect my marine stereo to my boat's battery? Keep it simple.This is my first time.?

Question

I purchased a stereo for my sailboat and have mounted it in the cabin. Now,I need to hook it up to one of the boat's batteries. I need step by step instructions of how to do it because the instruction manual with the stereo doesn't tell me anything.

Answer 1

Instillation should be straight forward. We need a little information about your sailboat. If this is a larger boat with a head and galley and inboard diesel engine, then you should have two battery banks and a switch that switches from one, two, off, and all.

Bank one should be your deep cycle house batteries used for instruments, lights and navigation equipment. Bank two should be a dedicated starting battery. There should be an electrical panel with fuses or circuit breakers on the house side to provide point by point termination for things like lights, stereo, and bilge pumps. You should wire the stereo to a dedicated fuse or breaker so that you have a switched on and off.

You will lose radio station presets when the power is off.

When you leave the boat, leave the bank selector to the house batteries and leave the bilge pump on. There should also be a float switch for this pump. This will get rid of water that accumulates in the bottom of your boat due to leaks, spills and even water condensing on the inside of the hull and running down into the bilge.

Turn the switch to both when you start the engine and leave it on both until the engine is stopped. This will allow your alternator to charge both banks.

If this is a smaller boat, day sailor...I'd recommend a small deep cycle battery and a small solar panel to keep it charged up when you arent there. Your radio will draw current even if the radio isnt on. This is called a phantom load. Its the current your radio uses for keeping the radio station memories. It will drain your battery in a month or so. It'll piss you off when you try to use lights and you have a dead battery, so these are good precautions.

Good luck!

Answer 2

If you look at the back of the stereo, there is wires for power-probably a red and a black. The red is positive(+) and the black is negative(-). The red probably has an inline fuse attached to it. Run the red to the (+) terminal on the battery and the black to the (-) terminal. It may also have a green wire. Attach that to a metal part on the boat that is grounded. The speaker wires go to the speakers. You would have a right and left channel for your speakers. The directions probably tells you how those are hooked up.

Answer 3

Run the Hot wire (red) to the battery positive terminal (use an in-line fuse). Run the black wire to the negative battery terminal. If you are using two speakers, you will find coming out of the stereo a set of colored wires (ex: grey and another grey with a white stripe on it. ) run these two wires to hook up to one speaker. There should also be another set of matching wires (different colors though) run these to the other speaker. Remember, after each time you use your stereo to turn it off or it will drain your battery. You should find that there are wires that you will not use, these are for setting your stereo up on a key switch, amplifier, or other pieces of equipment that you are not using. also keep in mind the length of your antennea wire when mounting your stereo and antennea, you may need to purchase a longer wire to accomodate installation on a boat. Good Luck!

Answer 4

Marine Stereo

Answer 5

1) Run red wire to a hot whire ( a whire that has power in it)

2) Run black whire to and thing that is grounded to the body of your boat this is called your groung, but most boats already have some black ground whires that you can just tie together.

3) your yellow whire is a memery whire. this keeps every thing set like your clock and more. Put this one on tour battery.

4) speakers
A) if your boat has speakers-locate the speaker whires and flower the pictuer on your new stereo.
B) if your boat does not have speakers, then go get some and place them where ever you want to and flow the picture on your new stereo


and that is it. that is your step by step

Answer 6

First answer is good as it take into consideration the memory. I just run a Red wire for positive and a Black wire for negative. Use the appropriate fuse in-line of the red. Connect the Radio Black to black and the Red to red along with the memory wire. This is Always hot and use the off button on the radio.

Answer 7

first, you will need to find a wire comming from your key switch that lights up your test light only when key switcxh is in the on position. when you find this wire connect it to the red wire comming from your radio. then you can hook your memory wire (should be labbled on wire) to your battery itself, but be sure you put a fuse inbetween battery and memory wire. Next fing your ground(should be the black wire)and run it to the negative side of the battery. The symbol for negative on the battery is - . then you will have to find which of the wires are for your speakers. usually one wire is always a solid color and the other has a stripe all the way down the whole wire. hope this helps you.

Answer 8

All these answers are good. The only thing I have to ad is to make sure you solder, or use crimp commector and heat shrink tubing on any wire to wire connections you make and the appropriate crimp connector for ant wire to terminal connection you make. Do not use wire nuts or bare wire connections aboard a boat, eventually the wire will corrode (wire nuts will also trap and hold any water) and fail.

Answer 9

power wires to the positive, ground to the negitive. If you have two power wire, and you probably do, the memory wire will go to a always hot source, the red will go to a switched source.

Answer 10

My Marine