Stereo nightmare

[DFD24]

I have a 1996 rinker captiva. I recently installed a kenwood kmr-700u,jl audio 500 w amp for the 8", a 250 w amp ran in series bridged for the 12", two punch 12" subs, two jl audio 8" with tweets. I have ran a 550 cc battery just for the stereo. The last thing I installed was a isolator/combiner that transfers power from the starting battery over to the secondary battery. I get out on the lake and the stereo plays for about an hour then my kenwwood receiver starts shutting off and on repeatedly. I disconnected the rca's from both amps and still the same results. Any help is much appreciated.

 

[mnmike3]

Re: Stereo nightmare

whats the battery voltage at? that radio will shut itself off at anything less than 10 volts. sounds like allot of stuff to be running off that small of a battery, if your amps do a true 500 and 250 watts (most are overrated) your looking at up to 75 amps just to run your amplifiers when turned up loud and probably another 10 amps for the deck.

So if your listening to the stereo and not charging the battery up after an hour it wouldn't surprise me if your battery was dead. also what do you have for a motor on the boat? An outboard motor probably wouldn't be able to keep up with that big of a stereo on top of any other electronics on the boat

 

[chrclo]

Re: Stereo nightmare

Yeah sounds like the battery is way too small. What is the AH(amp hour) rating for your battery. Cranking amps is a rating for starting only. You need a good deep cycle. I went with a series 27 Costco brand 105 AH if I remember correctly. I have always had good experiences with there batteries but that's just personal preference.

 

[75TowerOfPower]

Re: Stereo nightmare

Where is your stereo at? In the dash or where? If it gets too hot it will turn off and on. Also, make sure youre amps have enough airflow across them as well.

 

[DFD24]

Re: Stereo nightmare

I will have to check the voltage tomorrow. The engine is a 6 cylinder. The kenwood deck is mounted next to the steering wheel. One amp located under each dash. I installed the isolator/combiner hoping to avoid a low voltage problem. Oh and the alternator says it's a 90 amp.

 

[roscoe]

Re: Stereo nightmare

Sure, 90 amp, when the engine is running and you are cruising around.
But you are gonna need more reserve power to run the stereo for any length of time if the engine is off.

Might even have to run 2 31 series deep cycles with 125 amp reserve each.

 

[mnmike3]

Re: Stereo nightmare

I will have to check the voltage tomorrow. The engine is a 6 cylinder. The kenwood deck is mounted next to the steering wheel. One amp located under each dash. I installed the isolator/combiner hoping to avoid a low voltage problem. Oh and the alternator says it's a 90 amp.

ok so the fact that its got an alternator is a good thing. 90 amps should do ok (a little small but will do). were you running the motor when the problem started? if so I would do some testing on the alternator, at 90 amps it should at least provide enough power/current to keep things from shutting off in the worst conditions if it was functioning properly (this same stereo in a car with a 90 amp alt would for sure have dimming headlight syndrome) If the alternator tests as no good or weak i would suggest trying to find a place that rewinds starters alternators etc, see if they can beef it up a bit. the last one I had done they were able to get a little over 140 amps out of it for less than $200 (was much better than any off the shelf alt with all new internals and smaller pulley for more output at idle) just tell them what you have and what you want to do with it (MORE POWER )

If your alternator is good or this problem happened without the motor running you've got issues somewhere else (might just be small battery) there are a number of possibilities as to where the problem is. if this is the case my first thing would be to look over ALL stereo wiring an then look into a battery with more reserve power. Don't bother with another battery till you are 100% sure you've looked into possible problems with all the wiring and components, it would be frustrating to buy another battery (not cheap) and still have problems. The one you have now should be fine for now but if your going to be doing allot of idling or sitting with the motor off and stereo on you will probably want more reserve at some point.

one other thing, might want to check your Isolator/combiner to make sure its hooked up right and or functioning right. Even I tend to get some things a little backwards from time to time and stereos are my job, it happens, not allot but we all have bad days

let me know how it goes and I'll try to help out as much as I can

 

[DFD24]

Re: Stereo nightmare

I will recheck the wires today. One other thing I was questioning about my wiring was to save a little money I ran the power and ground to my receiver from the lugs on the amp. So I have 8g wire from the battery (pos & neg) going to each amp and then 16g from the jl audio amp to the receiver which is within 2 feet of the receiver. This seemed ok when I installed it but now I'm not so sure.

 

[mnmike3]

Re: Stereo nightmare

I will recheck the wires today. One other thing I was questioning about my wiring was to save a little money I ran the power and ground to my receiver from the lugs on the amp. So I have 8g wire from the battery (pos & neg) going to each amp and then 16g from the jl audio amp to the receiver which is within 2 feet of the receiver. This seemed ok when I installed it but now I'm not so sure.

The deck should be hooked up at the battery or a fuse panel, the way you have it will "work" but the Right way to do it is at the battery or fuse panel. if everything else checks out good I would run some wires to the battery and see if it takes care of the problem, I don't think it will but yet again it might.

 

[DFD24]

Re: Stereo nightmare

So what I thought was a deep cycle battery turns out to be a starting battery. So my question is can I connect my 110 Ah battery that I just purchased along with the starting battery to increase capacity. I also bought 4g pos and neg cables to connect both. What I'm not sure about is would I connect them in series or parallel.

 

[mnmike3]

Re: Stereo nightmare

So what I thought was a deep cycle battery turns out to be a starting battery. So my question is can I connect my 110 Ah battery that I just purchased along with the starting battery to increase capacity. I also bought 4g pos and neg cables to connect both. What I'm not sure about is would I connect them in series or parallel.

So you have two starting batteries and no deep cells? if they are the same type yes you can hook them together. You would wire them in parallel to keep it at 12 volts (series would give you 24 volts). If your going to hook them together without an isolator and draw power form them with your stereo you will have to watch the voltage so you can start your motor again.

 

[DFD24]

Re: Stereo nightmare

I would have three batteries. One starting battery and a starting and deep cycle for the stereo. I didn't mention that the battery I just bought was a deep cycle. I bought this today after i realized the battery i was trying to use was a starting battery. So is it worth putting a starting battery and deep cycle together for the stereo only.

 

[mnmike3]

Re: Stereo nightmare

I would think it would be ok to do that, back when I was 16 or 17 I put a deep cycle battery in the back of my blazer for my stereo and had it wired in parallel with my front starting battery, didn't have any problems but it was only that way for a short time. Somebody else might chime in and say otherwise though

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Stereo nightmare

I wouldn't put those in parallel. Eventually, as you start discharging those batteries, the start battery is going to fail and bring down the voltage of the deep discharge with it.

 

[korygrandy]

Re: Stereo nightmare

Check your ground wire and ground the head unit directly to your fuse panel block under the steering wheel. If you see a bunch of black wires on there own thats where you will want to ground it too. I had the SAME exact problem as you. Initially I had run my ground from the head unit to a bolt that my depth finder was grounded too. This caused the head unit (and amp since it is connected via remot wire) to shut off and come back on.

Once I relocated the ground it worked great. Until I overpowered one of my front Polk 6.5's with my Clarion Amp.

 

[jballgamer]

Re: Stereo nightmare

Hi there,

Wow am I confused. I have installed a sound system in my Searay 220 Sundeck. I have one JL audio 6 channel amp and another JL Audio 2 channel amp. One 12 inch sub, and 6 RF component speakers and 2 8 inch Bazooka tubes. I think you get the point!

I installed 1 Everstart Maxx-29 2 months ago. I drained it down a few times and now it won't even take a charge? It is a marine deep cycle/starting 875 ca/125 am hours, 205 reserve.

I charged it with a Ship N Shore SSC-1500A at the 15amp level. It is supposed to stop charging on its own once fully charged. The battery reads at 10%, no matter how long it is charged?

Any suggestions would be great!!!!!!!!!!

Thank in advance,
- Jon

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Stereo nightmare

I drained it down a few times and now it won't even take a charge? It is a marine deep cycle/starting 875 ca/125 am hours, 205 reserve.

I charged it with a Ship N Shore SSC-1500A at the 15amp level. It is supposed to stop charging on its own once fully charged. The battery reads at 10%, no matter how long it is charged?

If you drain these all the way down many times, that's what causes them to fail. Not sure if this is a true deep discharge battery or not either.

 

[RickJ6956]

Re: Stereo nightmare

Check the battery's fluid level. If the fluid boiled away during the charging process it won't hold a charge. The damage may have already been done, though.