DIY Exile build in my new LSV... (first time)

[shawndoggy]

I absolutely love this idea. I wish I knew about it 48 hours ago. I really don't want to take down the amp board now... do you have any idea how hard it was get it in the boat and mounted there by myself (last night at 2am)?

Oh yeah... you do know. LOL

I was going to try to suggest it at the beginning but you wouldn't have even understood what I was talking about. Some problems must be faced before they are understood.

[Cory]

I think you should move the power wire of the ZLD 1" to the fused side of the power distribution block. I'd couple with the tower amp, since will probably have a smaller MANL fuse. Yes, it is fused by the 250 amp fuse but that fuse is huge. It's not a big deal though.

I'm learning lots of ideas for me next year.

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Edited May 17, 2014 by Cory

[shawndoggy]

Cory the issue MLA is concerned about is that the 12 awg or less wire that IXFE is sending to the zld from the distro block will become a red hot boat ignitor long before the 80a fuse that the wire is stuffed in with pops. You need a fuse that's commensurate with the current that the wire can handle. If the wire is overfused, it'll catch fire before the fuse pops.

[Bawshogg]

Again, this is a good idea in theory, which most of this is borrowed from the automotive realm. If the wire is ran off the distro block say attached to a 60 amp fuse for the tower amp and then fused again at the ZLD with a small 5 amp fuse, if the ZLD somehow shorts internally to ground, it will pop the fuse closest to the load, the 5 amp fuse. If the short occurs in the wire run it will then be the 60 amp fuses responsibility.

Again, in a boat ( not a car) , without a common ground plane, shorts to ground are tough to find. Where along the glass is this wire going to find ground accept very near to the battery? Your next closet ground source would be your buss bar under the helm and the wires coming off of it. It would be a stretch to short to these. If your really that worried about it, throw one of these in right after your connection at the distro block positive connection.

http://www.zeeman.com.tw/index.php?_Page=product&mode=show&cid=9&pid=393&_lang=E

Edited May 17, 2014 by Bobby Bright

[Cory]

As your future buyer, I'm totally down with you keeping it for the 2015 season (and eating the associated depreciation) too. You can correct your 2014 stereo mistakes next winter.

Now I understand why Shawn is giving so much advise about how he would do it. He just doesn't want to have to change it when he buys your boat.

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[Cory]

Cory the issue MLA is concerned about is that the 12 awg or less wire that IXFE is sending to the zld from the distro block will become a red hot boat ignitor long before the 80a fuse that the wire is stuffed in with pops. You need a fuse that's commensurate with the current that the wire can handle. If the wire is overfused, it'll catch fire before the fuse pops.

Yes, of course I wasn't thinking straight.

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[shawndoggy]

Again, this is a good idea in theory, which most of this is borrowed from the automotive realm. If the wire is ran off the distro block say attached to a 60 amp fuse for the tower amp and then fused again at the ZLD with a small 5 amp fuse, if the ZLD somehow shorts internally to ground, it will pop the fuse closest to the load, the 5 amp fuse. If the short occurs in the wire run it will then be the 60 amp fuses responsibility.

Again, in a boat ( not a car) , without a common ground plane, shorts to ground are tough to find. Where along the glass is this wire going to find ground accept very near to the battery? Your next closet ground source would be your buss bar under the helm and the wires coming off of it. It would be a stretch to short to these. If your really that worried about it, throw one of these in right after your connection at the distro block positive connection.

http://www.zeeman.com.tw/index.php?_Page=product&mode=show&cid=9&pid=393&_lang=E

I'd never actually thought about it like this and 999 times out of 1000 you are probably right. Murphy's law, karma, my white collar sissy keyboard hands, and the force of the universe will still require me to hedge.

Edited May 17, 2014 by shawndoggy

[Cory]

Again, this is a good idea in theory, which most of this is borrowed from the automotive realm. If the wire is ran off the distro block say attached to a 60 amp fuse for the tower amp and then fused again at the ZLD with a small 5 amp fuse, if the ZLD somehow shorts internally to ground, it will pop the fuse closest to the load, the 5 amp fuse. If the short occurs in the wire run it will then be the 60 amp fuses responsibility.

Again, in a boat ( not a car) , without a common ground plane, shorts to ground are tough to find. Where along the glass is this wire going to find ground accept very near to the battery? Your next closet ground source would be your buss bar under the helm and the wires coming off of it. It would be a stretch to short to these. If your really that worried about it, throw one of these in right after your connection at the distro block positive connection.

http://www.zeeman.com.tw/index.php?_Page=product&mode=show&cid=9&pid=393&_lang=E

If someone pinched the twisted wires with a metallic thingy, the pwr and gnd wires could short together along the run. I agree it is not likely.

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Edited May 17, 2014 by Cory

[IXFE]

Back from Home Cheapo. That 2" screw only cost me $81 (it came with a Dremel 8100). I hate that pace.

I also unpacked 8 new RF speakers that arrived on my doorstep today from "lerch." Thank you, sir. I was impressed with your packaging!

Now back in the boat wondering what to do next. I'm hesitating to put that new screw in the amp board if I'm going to be rewiring the ZLD power. Or is that settled? Sounds like Bobby says I'm good.

I should probably crawl around and figure out which speaker wire is which in the factory ball of wires at the top of the pic. Figure I should unwind that mess, figure out the color scheme, and label them so I can get them routed to the proper amp.

I could start mounting the RF's, but I'm thinking I'll wait until the amps are in place with all connections sorted out. If I suddenly can't figure out which speaker wire is which, I might wish those gaping speaker holes were still there for easy visibility.

This reminds me, what's the proper way to plug speaker wire into an amp? Any special connectors to add? Or just strip it, twist it, and put it in?

[Bawshogg]

You can go ahead an get an inline fuse for the ZLD B+ lead if you are paranoid about a short to ground on that wire making it a hot knife, I feel ok without one, but that's totally your call . 5 amp is plenty for fuse size. Any automotive store will have it in stock.

I nice touch for the wires at the amp isto just twist them tight and "tin" them with solder. If you don't have that capability , yes you can just insert them into the holes in the amp and tighten down the set screws.

You can get connectors that are made to smash down in the holes that crimp on the ends, but good luck finding them local.

http://www.ael-electrical.co.uk/ProductDetails.aspx?pid=KIBL1.5%2D10

Edited May 17, 2014 by Bobby Bright

[Cory]

JL Audio has a free app for testing speaker polarity. You download a popping noise track and then hold your phone up to each speaker and it tells you whether or not the speaker polarities are hooked up correctly. Maybe the others have a better idea for testing speaker polarity.

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[IXFE]

JL Audio has a free app for testing speaker polarity. You download a popping noise track and then hold your phone up to each speaker and it tells you whether or not the speaker polarities are hooked up correctly. Maybe the others have a better idea for testing speaker polarity.


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Can't you do this with a 9v battery?

Edited May 17, 2014 by IXFE

[IXFE]

After another late night in the garage, I'm up again with a few key questions, but before I ask the I have a few things I learned that are worth following up from last night.

1. The ZLD is fine wired to the non-fused end of the distribution block. You guys are right that the little ZLD wire would never trip 250 amp fuse near the battery. It wouldn't trip the fuses in the distribution either (assuming I'd wired it the fused side of the block). So where does that leave us...? Well, I talked to Brian this morning and the ZLD has it's own in-line 1.5 amp fuse that the 18 gauge power cable hooks up to (it's a little dongle hanging out the back of the ZLD). With that "right sized" fuse in place, it really doesn't matter where I terminate the red 18 gauge ZLD power wire. It would be no different if "home runned" it all the way to the battery terminal. So in summary, I'm not changing it. :-)
2. Brian also explained to me why a 250 amp fuse was superior to a breaker, but I'm botch his explanation. So maybe if he's following along he can explain to all of us. He'll be the first to admit that there are many ways to do this stuff. But it would be good for you all to hear his reasoning.

Anyway I hope this helps close out the discussion from last night (which was super helpful, btw. All this had done is help me understand more what's going on in the system).

Edited May 17, 2014 by IXFE

[IXFE]

Okay, now my question...

I spent forever last night just trying to follow the wires I see in the speaker pods back to the wires I see Malibu has all tied up above my new amp rack. To review from another picture, I'm talking about the mess of wires you see tied up at the top of this pic.

So I snipped the cable ties holding all that up expecting to 8 individual speaker wires up there color coordinated to the colors I see at each speaker opening. I found no such thing. But I did find what appears to be speaker wire terminating in a series of molex connectors. That makes sense because the default for Malibu is no factory amp with all the speakers powered off the anemic RF black box, which likely takes this molex connector. So I should just cut it off, right? Not so fast. There are two molex connectors running in a series (red is #1 followed by white #2), then another series of wires coming of the 2nd molex. What is all this?? Before I start cutting wire, I want to know what I'm doing. If I cut everything off at the red connector, won't I lose whatever wires/functionality are ties to the white connector as well as the few wires coming off the white (held by my thumb)?

[IXFE]

One more question, then I'm off to AWS Demo Days where I'll ride a bunch of new gear behind other people's boats!

I'm getting close to needing to connect my 0 gauge cables to the battery. How can I tell which is the "starter" and which is the "house" (aka battery #2)? Malibu uses the same battery for each (i.e. both starter batteries, no deep cycle for the house). They look identical to me. I'm assuming battery #2 is on the left. But not sure.

[TheKiwi]

I'd be interested to see why Brian thinks the fuse is superior.

i think your speakers are wired in series and that's why you don't have the whole lot. Does malibu provide a wiring diagram or can you get one from your dealer for the black box connections?

And follow the positive from each battery and see where it goes, one should head straight towards your starter motor, that's the starting battery.

[Cory]

When I did mine last year, I ended up cutting all the speaker wires out of the molex connector and splicing longer speaker wire leads onto the factory speaker wire. You might what to preserve the molex connector that runs the pwr, gnd, ignition wire in case you add a head unit. Mine had the double molex, but I can't remember why. I think it was a quick way for the factory to split some of the lines.

To figure out which wire was what, I used a mini stereo I have in the garage and just went one by one touches the wires to my stereo terminals and heard which speakers light up, then labelled them.

[Cory]

Yes, the two rear, left speakers are coupled in parallel and vise versa for the rear right speakers. Who need to check their polarities cause the factory cross connected some of mine in parallel and it could not just be fixed at the amp, since swapping the wire at the amp affects both speakers coupled in parallel.

Edited May 17, 2014 by Cory

[Brianinpdx]

A few words about fusing:

The short answer is- I don't trust valet circuit breakers. I haven't for years. Going back about 15 years ago (while at a previous stereo company), I had a customer mail back his mono block amplifier that was smoked (and I mean smoked). Attached to the power terminal was a piece of 4 ga power cable. Attached to the end of the power cable was a VB200 circuit breaker. The ugly part of this story is that the valet circuit breaker never tripped. It melted. I was shocked when I saw this. So I arranged a meeting with our engineering group and the Bussman regional manager to discuss it. The outcome was fairly simple... Nobody could conclusively prove what happened. The best guess was that so much instant transfer of current literally melted the block and it did so in a manner that prevented the circuit from popping (physically so).

Fast forward to present day, I've seen similar issues with VB style breakers at least 2 dozen times. It's always the same story - catastrophic failure (short to ground). I realize that this is a rare thing. And an even more rare thing in a boat. But I like a tried and true method like a wafer style fuse.

The truth of the matter is - your probably just fine with a VB. I just like to play it safe.

Thats my 2 cents on the subject.

-Brian

PS: another thing; make sure whatever fuse style you choose that you mount it close to the battery bank. I was in a Tige awhile back and they had the battery in the rear locker and a big ole VBreaker up in the cubby. I looked at the guy and said... sure would suck to see your boat burn down all the way along the 18ft of cable path.

[MLA]

Brian,

So what are your thoughts about non ignition protected fuses in the bilge area of a boat, such as a Tige with the batteries in the back? This is where an ignition-protected breaker has the advantage.

[MLA]

Well, I talked to Brian this morning and the ZLD has it's own in-line 1.5 amp fuse that the 18 gauge power cable hooks up to (it's a little dongle hanging out the back of the ZLD). With that "right sized" fuse in place, it really doesn't matter where I terminate the red 18 gauge ZLD power wire. It would be no different if "home runned" it all the way to the battery terminal. So in summary, I'm not changing it. :-)

As explained yesterday, a fuse at the source of the EQ's B+ is not for the protection of the EQ, its to interrupt B+ if that long run ever shorted to ground. That short to ground could easily be the EQ's ground that is running right along with it. Your boat, your project, so you are free to take or leave what ever advice you want, just wanted to clarify.

[Brianinpdx]

Yup MLA. In the bilge area of the boat they are a great idea in the rare case that there was a catastrophic failure at the exact time there was an abundance of fuel vapor not cleared out. We are splitting 13 hairs at this point. Sure great idea. In my opinion.. Any fuse is better than none. Ing protected or not. In the case you pointed out.. yes agree with ya.

re: Fusing the ZLD. Splitting 13 hairs also. I'm ok with it not being used. Or by fusing with with the supplied 1.5A inline. The burn your boat down conversation occurs more with electronics that are consuming large amounts of current between two points. Read clearly AMPLIFIER<------> BATTERY connections. In the rare case a big mean amplifier shorted out internally we want to be able to stop mega current transfer potential. A ZLD on the other hand is like worrying about something like an electronic dash gauge internally short out. Even if it did, its not pulling mega current at anytime... the fuse would smack. Case closed.

As for Ixfe's project- I'm very comfortable with saying, he has ample fusing. 80-100A at the power distro blocks for amplifiers and main 250A for the entire system. He's golden. All of this is supplied in the Exile accessory kits he purchased.

@ Ixfe: Since we are on all this power transfer topics---> It goes without saying to make sure your perk is in the OFF position while your working on the cables. Just sayin also worth getting a good ole harbor freight DVM for 5 bucks so you can check voltages and make sure things are 0 volts. Never to safe on that stuff.

[IXFE]

When I did mine last year, I ended up cutting all the speaker wires out of the molex connector and splicing longer speaker wire leads onto the factory speaker wire. You might what to preserve the molex connector that runs the pwr, gnd, ignition wire in case you add a head unit. Mine had the double molex, but I can't remember why. I think it was a quick way for the factory to split some of the lines.

To figure out which wire was what, I used a mini stereo I have in the garage and just went one by one touches the wires to my stereo terminals and heard which speakers light up, then labelled them.

So cutting off that molex you lost the wires that split off it, correct? And no issues?

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[Cory]

I had to keep one molex to get power, gnd, and pwr antenna, in/out of the head unit. I removed the other molex and cleaned up the connections with my own bullet connectors or crimp connectors. For your setup without a HU, I'm not sure why you would keep either of them. The RF HU uses that molex connector for the pwr and speaker wire connections.

The sense I got when looking at the factory wiring is they used that extra molex as a lazy/easy way to splice some wires. I didn't want to use their tiny wire connections anyway.

Ultimate it's your call.

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[Cory]

Actually, you don't have to keep any of the molex connectors since you can do your own connections directly. We are talking power, ground and pwr ant--that's it. You aren't gonna use the speaker wires out of the head unit ever. Using bullet connectors allows you to easily remove the amp board if need be (if you decide to add a HU).

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Edited May 18, 2014 by Cory