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need input for stereo


macdaddy

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Problem 1 - When just the radio is on is is fine...no hum or underlying noise. Whe you start the motor it has noise running through the speakers. Is this grounding issue? Should I ground the radio to the motor? I already have a filter placed between radio and amps...no change. Any help would be appreciated....

#2 - I had a dry cell battery to run my steweo in my past boats...malibu vlx's besides the main boat battery. Currently I have a cranking battery and a home battery. Can I conntect a dry cell battery to the home battery and have the stereo run mainly off the dry cell?? Would there be in vcharging issues. Seems in this boat I have to charge the home battery a lot more after I use the boay...especially hen we do a lot of floating and swimming. Again any help....

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1) sounds like the head-units yellow B+ wire is on one battery and the amps are wired to the second. The entire stereo needs to share the same power source. What style of battery switch do you have? Are you using an auto combiner relay in the system? Depending on how the system is setup, you may only need to relocate the head-unit's B+, or it may be best to rewire the entire battery switch and amp connections.

2) If you connect 2 batteries, then become one. So any load drawing off the house battery will draw of both batteries that are connected. I would not suggest mixing battery types. Not even a good idea to wire a new and old battery together. They will equalize, thus bringing down the new one.

I would solve the noise issue first, then revisit adding to the house bank.

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mac,

In-line noise filters typically do little to nothing with the noise stituation you described since noise doesn't enter into the electronics in a conventional manner. Remove the filter. The noise is typically created when you have a voltage potential inequity between the source electronics, other processors, and the amplifier(s). The actual source of power and ground terminations is often secondary to the fact that ALL audio electonics power and grounds need to respectively connect to the identical points. And that is usually closest to the battery source. However, connecting the source electronics closest to the amplifier(s) is priority in most cases.

Then the amplifers' power supply go direct to the common output post of the dual battery switch. If you avoid a battery-direct hook up then you automatically have avoided any possible conflict in voltage potential from having the amplifiers to one bank while the source electronics access another bank.

All system/boat grounds are common to the battery negative posts.

Leaving the amplifier input gains wide open can be another contributor to noise. An amplifier input gain is not a volume control and reducing the gains to the correct level should not impede your maximum output.

In a perfect world you would never parallel two different batteries or two batteries with different charge levels. But that is just an inherent flaw in any dual bank system. BUT...never combine two different batteries (in size, chemistry or age) within the same bank, as the weaker battery will lead to the premature degradation of the stronger battery.

David

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MLA-I have one of those relays and it is right next to the perko switch.

David, Thank you for all the insight. I do know that orginally the the radio was wired into the ignition. I rewired it and ran it to an individual switch on the dash and then ran the radio ground wire to the grounding post underneath the driver side dash..;either way it still had noise when the motor was on. Should I run a ground wire from the radio to the battery itself?? Detailing boats I love...wiring stereo is not my strong suit....sorry

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mac,

Okay, if you have a voltage sensing relay, that may totally change the positive side access wiring scheme as the two manufacturers that commonly combine manual switches with ACR/VSRs have very different wiring schemes. Unfortunately that means that you won't get accurate advice until it's known what exact parts you have and how it is wired presently. Perko doesn't package an ACR/VSR with their switch that I am aware of so this appears to be something different from an OEM offerring. So any wiring scheme is possible.

A dual circuit switch interfaces nicely with an ACR/VCR. A conventional dual battery switch or single battery switch (either being very different from a 'dual circuit' switch) & ACR/VSR is always an odd pairing.

For now, do the following. Keep the + & - supply as short as possible. So if you want to use the switch, then the switch can trigger an interrupt relay that is located just behind the source unit. The main power that supplies the source unit, and is interrupted by the relay, along with the direct ground can be accessed off or closest to the largest amplifier's primary + & - terminals. Use nothing less than a 14 ga. and nothing more than a 12 ga. supply and ground. Fuse all positive supplies AT the supply source end.

I know it's not as straight forward as you would like but once you get through this phase the noise will be gone and you will go forward with confidence knowing that the entire system is correct.

David

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David, The boat is out at a friends house being stored. I will get out there tomorrow and check out a couple of things and get back to you. I thank you for your input...but this was put in by a previous owner and I am not sure exactly what is connected to what?? i never had feedback noise like this, but in previous boats I had a dry cell battery and not a set up like the current boat. I will get back to you. Thanks.

Mac

Edited by macdaddy
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MLA-I have one of those relays and it is right next to the perko switch.

David, Thank you for all the insight. I do know that orginally the the radio was wired into the ignition. I rewired it and ran it to an individual switch on the dash and then ran the radio ground wire to the grounding post underneath the driver side dash..;either way it still had noise when the motor was on. Should I run a ground wire from the radio to the battery itself?? Detailing boats I love...wiring stereo is not my strong suit....sorry

The head-unit wire that was on the ignition, is only a turn-on signal to the head-unit. It functions much the same way as the remote turn-on signal to the amp. With your amps wired directly to the house battery and the switch/ACR setup, im willing to bet that the head-unit's yellow B+ is still connected to the boats factory harness and is drawing its power from the main cranking battery. This yellow wire needs to go to the same spot as the amps. In most cases, you can come right off one of the amp's B+ lugs with a fused wire to the head-unit.

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Ditto everything David said - spot on.

Adding a bit more info to that, you may find that a nice way to wire all the (+) to a common point (ideally near the supplying battery) and all the (-) to a common point is to do the following.

1. Run a bus block from the Comm (common) post of the battery switch for all the (+) leads, use heavy gauge wire between the comm post and the bus block as this will be supply all of the power for the whole stereo system. Powering everything off the comm post allows you to select which battery (or both, or none) to power the stereo from by selecting it via the battery switch.

2. Run a bus block from the main grounding point for all of the (-) leads (does not need to be a fused bus block).

The above goes a long way to eliminating voltage potential across varying power sources, thus eliminating the main source of the hiss/pop that you're hearing.

The above has worked well for me in various boats over the years. Just my $.02.

Edited by CliffB
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CliffB,

The positive large buss or distribution block off the Perko common output is perfect until you interject the ACR/VSR. Typically, with an ACR/VSR the audio components are battery-direct, unlike a manual dual battery switch scheme. We'll have to wait to find out what was done previously with this odd pairing.

David

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David, What do you think?? I have a distribution block for the positves and for the negatives. Then from the blocks I have a a positive and negative that connects to the home battery.

Mac

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Edited by macdaddy
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What you have is the Blue Sea Add-A-Battery package that consist of the 7610 ACR and 5511 Dual Circuit plus switch. if wired correctly, its an excellent setup. next hing I would do is determine where the head-units yellow B+ wire is drawing its power from. After that, I would recheck the amp gains as David noted. Its hard to tell exactly from the pics if the switch and batteries are configured correctly, so you may need to download the Blue Sea schematic and trace some cables.

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Mac, I'm out of PM room but feel free to give me a call. The blue sea as I recall was used to try to recreate at the time Malibu's OEM top of the line charging system. I actually think the VSR is still factory available and we were trying to do it "right". Maybe not needed?

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Mac,

With a Blue Sea dual circuit switch rather a conventional Perko switch you have the right matching components. The distribution blocks that feed the audio amplifiers will be on one of the two circuits. It is critical that the audio source electronics tie into the same side or circuit via the distribution blocks that supply the amplifiers. So confirm this. And you still may have to remove all source unit supplies and grounds from the factory harness and take them direct to the distribution blocks with heavy (14 to 12 ga.) wire per the above posts.

David

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