my new boat

[Nismo720]

Well this is my first wakeboard boat. So far I’m very pleased. Now it’s time to do a stereo!
So the boat has 6 6.5” Polk in cabin speakers and a 12” Polk sub. I just replaced the head unit with a Sony iPod deck and a remote by the throttle. Now I want to do tower and redo the in cabin speakers. I found the Exile guys (from this site) and did some research only to find out they are old P.G. guys that I used to use back in the day, so I'm happy to work with Brian.
Here is my thoughts do the exile tower package with 2 pair xm9s and the harpoon amp, the Exile in cabin package with 6 to 8 in cabins and power the sub with an Alpine mrp-m850 amp I have laying around. Then for the battery(s) I thought id add a Kinetic 3800. I figured one battery that big would be ok.
So questions I have are;
Can I run 0 gauge wire to a distribution block? The wire would be about 22’ long to put the distribution block where I want to see it.
Is the kinetic 3800 ok to use in the boat and should I use more than one.
What size fuses should I use at the battery and in distribution block?
Would you go 6 or 8 in cabin speakers?
Do amp hrs = how long I can run the stereo at loud levels at the beach. So 10ah is 10hrs with no charge?
Thanks for advice and good job to everyone that has made this site what it is. So far it’s been very helpful.

[majestic]

Great looking boat I ran 0 gauge to my distro block then went 4 gauge to the Amps. I got the distro block and the fuses all from Exile. I only have the 4 factory in-boats and I'm getting ready to swap for all Exile and add another pair to make 6, I can't even imagine where to put 8.

Good luck and post lots of pictures.

[Nismo720]

Great looking boat I ran 0 gauge to my distro block then went 4 gauge to the Amps. I got the distro block and the fuses all from Exile. I only have the 4 factory in-boats and I'm getting ready to swap for all Exile and add another pair to make 6, I can't even imagine where to put 8.

Good luck and post lots of pictures.

Thanks!
Do you remember how long you ran the 0 gauge? I have a roll of stinger pro in the garage so I've got 50' to play with but I know their are limits to length.

[majestic]

Thanks!
Do you remember how long you ran the 0 gauge? I have a roll of stinger pro in the garage so I've got 50' to play with but I know their are limits to length.

18 ft of + and - is what I bought. I had a couple extra feet if I remember.

[hyphen79]

18 ft of + and - is what I bought. I had a couple extra feet if I remember.

I bought 37 feet of 0 guage for both my + and - wire. I used the wire JL audio power wire. it's a true 0 gauge, and it's REALLLLY flexible, and was easy to work with when installing.

[hyphen79]

Like the colors of your boat.

[Nismo720]

Like the colors of your boat.

Thanks! Wish I had a pic of I now it's clean and super shiny. I pulled the whole thing apart to clean out the old owner. I'm a little O.C.D. Soon the red sides of the tower will be black and the windows will get tinted to match the wind dam. Tower speakers will be black as well. I have hot roder blood in my veins.

[hyphen79]

I am a little OCD about my boat as well, and I believe most of us that are on here are the same. If you are looking for ideas on your stereo give Majestic's thread a once over. I pulled most of my ideas off if his install, and CHP multiple threads as well.

[Nismo720]

majestic is who got me set on Exile havent found CHP's threads yet

just learned more stuff form CHP so whats a pro sport 12 charger? does it plug into the wall or come from the alternator?

[Brianinpdx]

Nismo720 -

Great looking boat. And XM9's on that tower will look sweet. To answer your questions about batteries and chargers... there is no magic answer as there are so many variables. The Prosport12 is a dual zone 12A charger that will allow you to plug in your boat at night to recharge drained batteries, trickle charge and top off batteries sitting for periods of time. It's a good upgrade. The big brother sport20+ is a 20A 3 zone charger.

I like the Kinetic batteries and know a lot of the crew at that company Very good support. Good solid product.

re: How many cabins. I'd probably start with however many holes you have and fill them. Take a look at your alpine amp and review the specs to make sure it can run a 2 ohm load ok. going up to 4 speakers would put a 2 ohm load on both front and rear channels.

re: fusing. If I remember Magestic's install correctly, he used a main wafer fuse back at the battery and then ran 0 ga up to the amp compartment. I'd use a 200A or 250A for the main fuse.

-Brian
Exile Audio

[majestic]

Nismo720 -

Great looking boat. And XM9's on that tower will look sweet. To answer your questions about batteries and chargers... there is no magic answer as there are so many variables. The Prosport12 is a dual zone 12A charger that will allow you to plug in your boat at night to recharge drained batteries, trickle charge and top off batteries sitting for periods of time. It's a good upgrade. The big brother sport20+ is a 20A 3 zone charger.

I like the Kinetic batteries and know a lot of the crew at that company Very good support. Good solid product.

re: How many cabins. I'd probably start with however many holes you have and fill them. Take a look at your alpine amp and review the specs to make sure it can run a 2 ohm load ok. going up to 4 speakers would put a 2 ohm load on both front and rear channels.

re: fusing. If I remember Magestic's install correctly, he used a main wafer fuse back at the battery and then ran 0 ga up to the amp compartment. I'd use a 200A or 250A for the main fuse.

-Brian
Exile Audio

I used a 250A fuse off of the battery. I also ran my 3300 watt system off of a interstate group 24 deep cycle all last summer, I thought it was a group 27 I would plug it in to a prosport 12 at the end of the day and it would only need a hour or two to recharge. My batteries are due for a change this year so I'm going with group 29's or 6v golf cart batteries.

[Timmy!]

Man, I love the black/red Ve boats! Those colors really pop on them for some reason. Great looking boat! Congrats!

[Nismo720]

Thanks Timmy!

re: How many cabins. I'd probably start with however many holes you have and fill them. Take a look at your alpine amp and review the specs to make sure it can run a 2 ohm load ok. going up to 4 speakers would put a 2 ohm load on both front and rear channels.

Brian, on the cabins I'll be using your amp. So whatever comes in the package 6 or 8 cabins. I'm thinking of going 8. Then I can add one by the sub to clen up the look and on behind the driver seat again tot clean up the look. I'm big on balance and esthetics.

I'm running two kinetic 1800's I'm my mini truck for stereo and compressors. They are connected to an isolator to charge off a small 60 amp alternator and never had issues. I have a battery tender form them, so it sounds like the pro spot 12 is the same thing, just stays in the boat.

[Nismo720]

Ok so I'm trying to figure out what ah means on a battery. So the interweb tells me it's amp hours. So that makes sense. But to convert watts to amps is confusing. So when I end up with a 4300 watt system how many amps do it draw and then what would be the amp hours. The battery I'm looking at has 143 ah. Do I need to for the beach when it's blasting for hours and if had to many........well you get my point. Thanks for the help.

[chpthril]

Ok so I'm trying to figure out what ah means on a battery. So the interweb tells me it's amp hours. So that makes sense. But to convert watts to amps is confusing. So when I end up with a 4300 watt system how many amps do it draw and then what would be the amp hours. The battery I'm looking at has 143 ah. Do I need to for the beach when it's blasting for hours and if had to many........well you get my point. Thanks for the help.

The Ah rating on a battery is how long a battery will carry a fixed amp draw from full charge to a low voltage threshold.

You can ball-park a systems current draw, but there are too may variables such as volume level, music type, tuning, amp efficiency, etc, to come up with an exact, or even real close current draw.

Is your 4300 watt system calculated using peak wattage or RMS (root mean Sq aka continuous) wattage. Huge difference.

If you want to get the most out of your house battery bank, then I would suggest looking at amps that are more efficiant then Class-A/B amps, especially ones with ratings that are not determined using CEA-2006 standards. Some have been known to deliver 40% less watts RMS then advertised. Class-AB amps are only about 60% efficiant. That means a lot of the amperage consumed is lost to heat, etc, rather then being converted to wattage output to the divers.

Full-range Class-D and Class G/H amps can be up t 85% efficiant. That equals less heat, less wasted Ah's for the same output. This means longer play time on the water with the same battery bank.

Knowing the amps' potential current draw are important in determining the cabling gauge and circuit protection needed to power the setup. Circuit protection for the trunk line just off the source (battery) is a must. In most cases, extra fuses, such as a fused distribution block, is redundant on not always nesessary.

For your boat, you will need 22ft to 25ft of POS and GND wire to reach from the battery (in the stock location) to the amp install area. The exact amount will depend on how the wire is routed and where the amps are mounted.

For circuit protection on Tige boats, I prefer to use a marine rate manual-reset circuit breaker over a traditional automotive amp install fuse holder. The breakers are ignition protected. This is a good thing considering the batteries are located in the engine/bilge area where open sparks can be bad.