Alright guys this sounds like a dumb question to ask. I have been installing Car radios all my life with no problems.

My partner with the boat went out and got a car radio instead of a marine radio... whatever, it will last for a year or so then go out I don't care. My problem that I am having though is that there is not constant power to the radio, there is a red wire coming from the boat harness as well as a yellow wire, but when the acc. switch is off it completing kills all power to the radio. I want to hard wire the red wire straight to the battery only because every time I turn on the radio it wont remember anything (Time, audio settings, Stations etc.) My fear with doing that is that I don't want it to drain my batteries over night.

Has anyone been thorugh this and if so what did you do in order to fix it?

Thanks for your help!!

Look for a spare toggle switch ( ACC ) un switched on the dash and run it through there, or run it straight from the battery through an isolator

or you can get something like what pictured below.....you can make it with parts from radio shack...just a cig lighter plug with a 9v battery clip on the end....plug that in before you turn the main batt switch off and it will keep the memory of the stereo for you....but if you forget and leave something else on then it will kill the 9v....but at least the main batts will always be fresh.

If I used the memory saver idea where would i ground the cigarette lighter at? can i just splice into the ground for the radio? Or do i need to find a new ground? I think this is a great idea

If I ran it straight from the battery what kind of draw are we talking about here? I dont wanna kill the batteries because of the memory for the radio

Just to run the radio is low ma draw, the user manual should tell you what it is

I run mine straight to the battery. Take a month or so before it drains the battery too much. You should have your batteries on a maintainer when you aren't using them for long periods anyway.

if you go with the memory saver route then just wire up the cig lighter plug just like normal...so you have a working plug when the boat is running just the same for any acc like charging a phone etc....the ground would go to any common ground....the positive wire from the cig plug would go to the 12+ constant wire when the battery switch is turned on....or if you want it dedicated to just the radio then wire it straight to the memory wire of the radio

I think the plan is to just run it directly off the battery... that seems to make the most sense thank you guys for all of your help!

The draw on the memory wire is nil, and after having the same problem I just ran that wire straight to the battery with no problems. I plan on re-running the power wire from through the key to just through the perko switch because every time I hit the starter it kills the stereo momentarily but also halts all of the apps be it Pandora, iTunes, etc. It gets real annoying to have to boot up the app every time I just want to move a few feet.