'05 22V Stereo/Amp Power?

[shiskowd]

Presently, the deck and amps (factory Clarion system) in our 2005 22V are only powered with the ignition switch on 'acc' or 'run'. I'd like to wire them so they are powered whenever the battery switch has selected either battery. I'm assuming that there is a relay somewhere that switches power to the sound system when the 'acc' becomes hot (rather than running all the sound system power through the ignition switch).

Any ideas where I can find this relay (if it exists)?

[philwsailz]

Presently, the deck and amps (factory Clarion system) in our 2005 22V are only powered with the ignition switch on 'acc' or 'run'. I'd like to wire them so they are powered whenever the battery switch has selected either battery. I'm assuming that there is a relay somewhere that switches power to the sound system when the 'acc' becomes hot (rather than running all the sound system power through the ignition switch).

Any ideas where I can find this relay (if it exists)?

There is no relay really, not outside of the radio anyway.

Here is a (hopefully) brief description.
Your radio has two positive power wires, one is connected straight to the battery or batt switch. That wire is yellow in color and it provides juice to the radio so that your clock, your station presets, your tone and all other settings stay in place. Then there is another power wire for the radio. This wire is red, and it is run through the boat's key switch.

There is a blue wire that comes off of the radio and goes to the amplifier(s). That wire is a turn-on lead; when you turn on the radio, the blue wire gets energized, and tells the amplifiers to turn on. The "relay" you are looking for is inside the radio, and provides power from the red wire to the blue wire when you turn the radio on.

If you want to always have the radio on, all you have to do is take the radio's red wire and move it from the switched accessory lug on the key switch to another location that has constant power. This will ABSOLUTELY force you to religiously use your battery switch when you leave the boat though, to prevent the radio from runningn your batteries down. The radio is not typically designed to be wired this way, and even when off, lots of radio's will still have their face-plates lit up, or something else will be going on that will cause a current draw.

A better alternative for you is to see if you have a spare unused dash switch, or install another switch somewhere. Connect the radio's red power wire through that switch to onstant power. that way you can turn the radio off, without having to turn the batt switch to off.

Make sense?

I do have a question: What about switching to accessory position do you not like?


Phil
Kicker

[shiskowd]

Thanks Phil,

Your post makes sense - I'll check to see if indeed a yellow wire that keeps the radio's memory alive. I know I have the blue amp turn on wire. I have a Perko(?) battery selector that pretty much kills the power to everything with the exception of the bilge pump. So, unless this yellow wire is wired to the hot side of one of the batteries I'm out of luck. The radio NEVER keeps the presets so I suspect it's not wired that way. I typically switch the batteries off at the end of each day when moored or certianly when the boat's on the trailer.

I don't like the accessory position as the radio needs a number of seconds to come back alive whenever power is cut to it.

Thanks for the explanation!

[dingleberry]

Running the stereo power to an unused dash switch is going to be a winter project for me. I really hate waiting for it to reacquire satellite signal every time I start/stop the engine.

[chpthril]

Thanks Phil,

Your post makes sense - I'll check to see if indeed a yellow wire that keeps the radio's memory alive. I know I have the blue amp turn on wire. I have a Perko(?) battery selector that pretty much kills the power to everything with the exception of the bilge pump. So, unless this yellow wire is wired to the hot side of one of the batteries I'm out of luck. The radio NEVER keeps the presets so I suspect it's not wired that way. I typically switch the batteries off at the end of each day when moored or certianly when the boat's on the trailer.

I don't like the accessory position as the radio needs a number of seconds to come back alive whenever power is cut to it.

Thanks for the explanation!

Sounds like the radio's yellow "Memory" wire is coming off the Perko's B1 or B2 instead of the C or directly to the battery. Here is what's going to be the easiest solution for that yellow wire. If you have a self-powered 12V test light (a couple $ at the auto parts store) double check that the amps are wired directly to the battery, they should be. If the amps have constant power, then clip the yellow where it splices into the boat's factory harness, splice in a length of 12ga wire, and run it over to one of the amp's B+ lugs. This will give the radio the constant 12V supply for the memory. Oh, disconnect the batter(s) first!

Now, as Phil described above, relocate the the small red wire in the ACC position on the back of the key switch to an unused rocker switch or constant. Typically, the stereo's turn-on wire is the only one in the ACC position and will be the only one "hot" when the key is turned back to ACC, use the test light again to find this one.

Skiers Choice (Moomba/Supra) uses a switch cover with music notes on it that will snap onto almost any Carling rocker switch. They are only a few bucks from the dealers and will snap right on the spare switch that is now your radio turn-on.

[shiskowd]

chpthril - you are the master! I installed your dual battery/isolator mod last summer - works great! I was wondering what I could connect to those 2 unused accessory switches - radio power switch is an excellent idea.

I'm inclined to run the yellow memory wire to one of the batteries directly. There shouldn't be too much draw on the battery to run it down if I don't use the boat for a week or two??

Thanks again!

[philwsailz]

You will have no issues runinng the batteries down over a week or two.

BUT!!!

Ideally, you want the amp power wires, the red radio power wire and the yellow radio power wire all going to the SAME battery. Splitting them up will cause you to have noise in most instances...

Take your amp power straight to your bigger better deeper cycle battery. Then wire the head uit power wires to the power terminals on the amp. Use the switch on the red wire as CHP suggests.

This will give you the quietest stereo system. AND, since you have the dual battery isolator in place, you should still get a charge to the stereo battery when the motor is running.

Have a safe weekend!
Phil