2008 VLX Stereo Build

[Twitch02x]

Been on here asking enough questions, figured it was time to post up some of my progress.

Little back story,

Bought the boat(This is my 1st boat) in late May / early June of last year and it came with a decent / but mismatched and very aged setup as far as stereo goes. Had 6 - Wetsounds PRO80s on the tower (only 4 worked) and they were being powered by a Wetsounds SYN2 and a Wetsounds SYN4(Remember me saying mismatched), 5 of the 6 factory inboats had been replaced(passenger windshield kept them from changing that dash speaker) with some Rockford Fosgate 6.5s which were pretty beat up and those were powered by a Rockford Fosgate 400/4, and lastly a Rockford Fosgate 12" P3 powered by a 500/2, Had older Wetsounds EQ for volume control. The stereo still sounded pretty good and was very loud so i said lets rock it for the summer and ill mess with it over winter. Well as the summer went on i kept losing tower speakers, by the time we parked the boat for winter i only had 1 PRO80 fully working. I assume this was from the incorrect amp setup either giving too much or too little power etc. The EQ was pretty finicky and was giving more bass to the left channel inboats vs the right etc. The SYN4 took a bit of water and lost a channel. You get the idea!!!!

So here we are in March........

I have been trying to take plenty of pictures but need to get them uploaded to photobucket and will post them as I make progress.

Will start with the build list

 

8 - Wetsounds XS-650 RGB for inboats powered by a Wetsounds SYN 4

6 - Wetsounds REV 8's w/RGB rings on the tower powered by a Wetsounds SD-6

1 - REAUDIO XXX 15" under driver dash in a ported enclosure powered by 2 - Wetsounds SYN-1's They will be master/slave linked to make 2000 watts at 1 ohm

Wetsounds BT-EQ to control volume/tuning

Wetsounds BT-Rocker Switch mounted on the back to control volume, change songs, etc while parked

4 - Exide XMC-31 AGM batteries dedicated for stereo only, Minnkota Precision 440 hard wired in to keep them charged.

2 - Wetsounds single fuse holders

2 - Wetsounds big block distribution blocks

Wire is 100% Wet-Wire with the exception of the 3.5mm to RCA that will connect the Rocker Switch to the input on EQ, only because Wetsounds doesnt offer something long enough with having a couple connections along the way and I wanted 1 solid run from the back of boat up to EQ.

 

I started out by ripping out all the entire factory radio components and all old speakers/sub/amps/wiring/etc. Made a bezel to mount the EQ where the left MUX switch was and have moved the left MUX over to the right side and reprogrammed it to control everything i need. I put the 4 batteries under the passenger side seats, they slide up under there quite a ways and fit very snug with the 1" piece of wood covered in carpet under them.  Used 1/0 gauge wire to join all the batteries together and have a 1/0 gauge + & - run coming off each end of the battery bank going into observers compartment.

I put the other 2 regular wet cell batteries thatll be used for cranking the engine in the space between the rear seats and big rear lockers, they tucked away pretty nice under there. I went ahead and grounded the starting battteries straight to the engine block and kept both factory ground wires in the loop and made a common ground post up front inside the observers compartment that i also tied in a 1/0 gauge run over to the stereo battery bank.

 

For the amp rack I i just used 1/2 plywood covered with carpet which will mount inside observers compartment along the hull, Ill reuse the glued on mounting boards the previous owner had installed. Im doing as much of the wiring on the amp rack outside the boat as possible beings Im not the smallest guy and there is no way i could do any of the wiring to back of rack while inside the observers compartment.

Will keep this updated with pics and progress

 

 

[Twitch02x]

Dont mind the dash, had the pins come out while driving and tower fell and hit the dash. Will have that fixed soon

Edited March 29, 2017 by Twitch02x
...

[Twitch02x]

Couple pics of the amp rack 

Heres one of the back but still have a little bit more to do. The relay is for the remote wire, terminal strip helping to organize the relay wires and all of the led wires.

Heres couple just mocking up in the observers compartment

Doing some wiring on the Perko switch

 

 

[Twitch02x]

Heres a couple of the battery bank along pass side under seats

 

Hard to see but here is 1 showing how 1 of the cranking batteries are tucked away under rear seats

Edited March 29, 2017 by Twitch02x

[Twitch02x]

HAHA heres one of us checking out how ridiculous this sub is when it showed up

[MadMan]

Excellent attention to detail.

 

[Twitch02x]

5 minutes ago, MadMan said:

Excellent attention to detail.

 

Thank you 

Thats what im going for because i def dont want to have issues out on the water!!!

[csparks13]

Awesome build thus far.

[boardjnky4]

OMG that sub

[Fffrank]

Nice build so far.  That sub is just silly!!

[90oldskool]

Had to google that sub, something of a beauty!! Great job here man!

[Twitch02x]

17 minutes ago, 90oldskool said:

Had to google that sub, something of a beauty!! Great job here man!

Appreciate it!

[David]

That subwoofer was originally designed and built specifically for dance clubs.

 

[Twitch02x]

Finally got amp rack in place last night and got the main power and ground wires hooked up..... only to run into trouble.

I didnt think i had anything wired wrong but when i put the perko switch on 2 it popped the reset back by the motor, i tried removing the ground wire i have that ties the stereo bank into the main ground loop on the boat(basically ran a wire from negative on the stereo battery bank to the 2 factory grounds that are in the observers compartment, which all three are joined via a nut and bolt thru the fiberglass) and that allowed me to put the switch on position 2 but when i give power to the remote wire engaging the relay that turns on all the amps i get a weird smell and a slight noise coming from the stereo bank that sounds like arcing. and the led on my sd6 amp is not staying on constantly. Its like I have a dead short somewhere but havent been able to find it.

Also something i noticed, the wire i have coming from the ground post to the stereo bank seems to have 24 volts on it instead on 12. Im lost at the moment.

I made a quick sketch of my setup, take a look and if anything doesnt look right let me know.

 

 

[nlouthan]

Start with the 24v issue.  If you really have 24v, that's really bad (done that before when I was a kid).  I don't see anything in your diagram that shows a battery connection in series.

[MLA]

 

32 minutes ago, Twitch02x said:

Also something i noticed, the wire i have coming from the ground post to the stereo bank seems to have 24 volts on it instead on 12. Im lost at the moment.

It takes both meter leads connected, in order to measure voltage. So if one lead is on the ground, where is the other meter lead? Thats the circuit thats measuring 24V, not just the ground.

Remove the main leads off the switch and start fresh. Find out of bank 1 or bank 2 is the 24V bank or if its becoming 24V with the introduction of the switch. 

The other reason for removing the cables form the switch and starting fresh, there is a better way to wire that switch. 

[Twitch02x]

12 minutes ago, MLA said:

 

It takes both meter leads connected, in order to measure voltage. So if one lead is on the ground, where is the other meter lead? Thats the circuit thats measuring 24V, not just the ground.

Remove the main leads off the switch and start fresh. Find out of bank 1 or bank 2 is the 24V bank or if its becoming 24V with the introduction of the switch. 

The other reason for removing the cables form the switch and starting fresh, there is a better way to wire that switch. 

Any advice accepted

[minnmarker]

You might have one of your batteries "turned around" and have a pos cable on a negative post and vice versa.  Take a good flashlight and a pair of magnifying glasses to make sure you've got red on all the pos posts and black on all the neg posts.  Start with the two cranking batteries.  Are you trying to build a Tesla on the cheap???

[Twitch02x]

33 minutes ago, minnmarker said:

You might have one of your batteries "turned around" and have a pos cable on a negative post and vice versa.  Take a good flashlight and a pair of magnifying glasses to make sure you've got red on all the pos posts and black on all the neg posts.  Start with the two cranking batteries.  Are you trying to build a Tesla on the cheap???

Not building any Teslas lol

Just plan on NOT being THAT GUY who ruins the jams for everyone cuz HIS batteries died.

[Fffrank]

Are any of those batts 6v?

 

No on board charger or ACR... but you're spending close to 5 figures on batteries?  I'm confused!

[Twitch02x]

5 minutes ago, Fffrank said:

Are any of those batts 6v?

 

No on board charger or ACR... but you're spending close to 5 figures on batteries?  I'm confused!

No only 12v batteries

 

Wow who said 5k on batteries?? Now im confused

[Twitch02x]

2 hours ago, Fffrank said:

Are any of those batts 6v?

 

No on board charger or ACR... but you're spending close to 5 figures on batteries?  I'm confused!

Actually do have a Minnkota 4 bank onboard charger just ran outta paper to sketch it in

[Fffrank]

 

Turn your switch to off and ground your multimeter to any of the negatives.  Start putting the red multimeter lead on all of the positive connections.  You should be seeing 12v on everything before the switch and 0v on everything after the switch.  You'll figure out your problem pretty quickly I would guess.

[Twitch02x]

Ok found the problem

 

All 4 of the brand new AGM batteries are junk. I get 12.8 volts when checking with meter but as soon as I try and turn on the amps with them in the equation I get the stink and can hear them arcing inside. I even tried separating everything and connecting one battery at a time with nothing else in the mix just 1 positive and 1 negative and still wouldn't work.

 

finally removed all wiring from them and used the cranking batteries only and all amps fire right up and no stink. Everything works fine now.

 

 

after I installed the agm batt I used a sawzall and cut off the extra unused terminal from each battery, I'm not sure if that caused an issue or not but I think it may prevent me from exchanging them.

4 $250 boat anchors

[MLA]

Im not following because bad 12 volt batteries dont jump to 24V, but 2 12V batteries wired in series, will.

You may very well have a battery quality issue, but that wont cause 24V on your system. They are either wired wrong or the volt meter was used incorrectly. I seriously doubt you have 4 bad brand new batteries, just my opinion.