Boat Stereo Question????
 

I have (2) amps to power my Clarion Head unit. (1) Clarion APX480 to drive (2) 6.5" Speakers and (2) 6x9" Speakers. I have (1) Clarion APX280 that drives a 10" sub. I have a #8 wire direct from the battery supplying the power to both amps and the dash power. At high volume levels the amps cut out so I am installing a dedicated #8 wire just for the amps. Question: Is (1) 40 amp dedicated #8 ckt. enough for both amps? Thanks, Dave

Re: Boat Stereo Question????
 

How long is the power wire? Also what size fuses in the amps?

Re: Boat Stereo Question????
 

Had the same problem in my Father In Laws boat. Go to Best Buy and or you local Car Audio store and buy a Capacitor.

This should fix everything.

Re: Boat Stereo Question????
 

Thats more of a band-aid for that type of problem... Needs larger wire....

Re: Boat Stereo Question????
 

Bigger wire and Ground to the battery, :drink:

Re: Boat Stereo Question????
 

Yep, Ran a #8 dedicated ckt. straight to the batery switch and it's fixed !!! Are most of the stereo guru's running a #8 ckt. to each amp or are they sharing the ckt. with multi amps? Thanks, Dave

Re: Boat Stereo Question????
 

Actually....depending on the length of the run...i'd probably run a 4ga wire from the batt to a distribution block then the 8ga to the amps....

Re: Boat Stereo Question????
 

Like wally said it depends on the run. Most my my installs were with 4ga wire. In my own boat it is going to be 0ga wire. You get a LOT of voltage drop on boats over the long runs. Plus unlike in cars ussually you are only giving the amp 12 volts instead of 14 to work with. That is why IMO regulated power supply amps are ussually better then non in Marine aplications.

Jon

Re: Boat Stereo Question????
 

thats what i did , ran 4ga to the block then 8 ga to the amps no probs, than ran independent grounds from each.

Re: Boat Stereo Question????
 

4 gauge from batteries to distribution blocks fuse at battery within 10-12" from battery post use a fused dstribution block for the positive side of cables to amps 8 gauge out from the blocks to amps. it sounds like the amps were clipping at the higer volume from loss of voltage(short terms) also check the batteries for enough juice to power everything up.

Re: Boat Stereo Question????
 

Not sure how big those Clarion amps are or how far they are from the batt's, but I think even a separate 8 ga for each amp might not be optimal. I use a separate 0 ga from the battery banks to each amp, both pos and neg. Lots of money for wire and added some weight to the boat, but works great. Everyone asks how I get that much power out of the size amps I'm running. I think the lack of current loss really helps. Just my .02.

Re: Boat Stereo Question????
 

I would run two 4 gauge power and ground with marine battery cable. Another important suggestion is to have an on board battery charger and keep boat plugged in when not in use.

What I often see is that people leave the dock with a 50% charged battery since they dont use the boat every day. They run only 15 minutes and from there it does not take much to run the batteries down. Bear in mind the lower the voltage the more the amps will pull so they run the battery down even faster.

If you let your batteries go dead a few times, they will never recover fully. It is important to always keep the batteries stored fully charged.