Pulling Power from Battery

[BPRES]

Hey audio gurus, I've searched and haven't found the right answer so I'm posting. I've got a 2008 20V that lacks a factory stereo. I've got two batteries on the boat - one port and one starboard. The starboard battery is the easiest to access and already has some power ran from it.

I assume this is the best battery to pull power from for my amps...correct? Also - are there any special precautions I need to take using this battery? I'll be running two 400w amps and would hate to drain the battery on the water.

Thanks!

[chpthril]

Sounds like you boat was ordered with the EIDB dual battery setup. If so, then it has an isolator that will prevent the stereo from draining the main starting battery, but yes, you can drain the battery that the stereo will be hooked to.

The battery on the starboard side of the 20V, located under the seat, should be the deep-cycle, which will be the one you wants to connect to. There are no special precautions for using the battery, other then using proper circuit protection for the amps. My preference is a marine rated circuit breaker instead of fuses. The circuit protection needs to be located within 18" of the battery. A pair 400 watt amps sound like about a potential draw of 60-80 amps, but if you add the amps' fuse up, that's how much circuit protection you need. You will also need cable of proper gauge (size) to run from the battery to the amps. The clean way is to use a single power and ground, then split them off with distribution blocks and then a few feet of smaller cable from the blocks to the each amp. You can also run an individule power and ground for each amp, but this requires x2 the cable and a circuit protection for each POS run.

[BPRES]

Sounds like you boat was ordered with the EIDB dual battery setup. If so, then it has an isolator that will prevent the stereo from draining the main starting battery, but yes, you can drain the battery that the stereo will be hooked to.

The battery on the starboard side of the 20V, located under the seat, should be the deep-cycle, which will be the one you wants to connect to. There are no special precautions for using the battery, other then using proper circuit protection for the amps. My preference is a marine rated circuit breaker instead of fuses. The circuit protection needs to be located within 18" of the battery. A pair 400 watt amps sound like about a potential draw of 60-80 amps, but if you add the amps' fuse up, that's how much circuit protection you need. You will also need cable of proper gauge (size) to run from the battery to the amps. The clean way is to use a single power and ground, then split them off with distribution blocks and then a few feet of smaller cable from the blocks to the each amp. You can also run an individule power and ground for each amp, but this requires x2 the cable and a circuit protection for each POS run.

Thanks for the answer! I've done a few car audio setups so I've got an idea of what I'm doing...I'm running 4ga pwr/grd off the battery and using distro blocks and 8ga from that to the amps. I'll check into the circuit breaker because until now I was planning on fused protection.