Stereo Help

No good news here–you have to power it from the battery, or at least from a source capable of delivering 50 amps (like a main fuse panel, etc). Breakers on ACC switches are usually 15 amps, which you’ll trip constantly using that amp, and could likely damage the switch, breaker, and switchpanel wiring.

The even worse news is if you want to use nice, fat, marine-grade tinned copper wire two 12-ish-foot strands are probablly gonna cost you close to as much as the amp did in the first place. Otherwise, you can get the 61 cent per foot stuff at Lowes.

Also, I don’t recommend just splicing into your main power wire that feeds the switchpanel, because it’s probably undersized to power the amp as well as rest of the electronics. Check to see what size it is, and compare to this table: If it’s 8 AWG you might be ok, depending on what else you’re running.

http://www.powerstream.com/Wire_Size.htm

How bad is it to fish a new wire? You could always snip out the existing power, tape the new, fatter wire to it, and use the old wire to pull thr new one thru the underbelly, then split off power (via buss bar, etc) from the new big wires into all the electronics including the switchpanel and amp.

Also, to be safe you probably want to put some kind of fuse on the amp wire, as close to the battery or perko switch as possible.

And remember, if you run a dedicated positive to the amp, run a dedicated ground as well. Otherwise you’ll overburden you ground wiring, which can cause a whole slew of problems.

PITA, right? Good luck, let me know if I can help out any…

Baker
Old, beat up 17’ McKee

I appreciate the advise (I really mean that…everyone has been extremely helpful). I have to give a big old kudos to Key West on this one. When they pulled wire for something from the console back to the battery they pulled TWO additional cords along with it. How freakin’ cool is that. It’s should be a cinch to pull and I’ll make sure I pull another cord to replace the one that I use. I’m going to use standard 8 AWG wire for the power. That’s what the amp recommends I didn’t buy the marine grade stuff but I really think it’ll be ok. I think it’ll be fine in the hull and the amp is going in the e-box so the connections will be out of the moisture.

You’re right about that marine grade wire though. It ain’t cheap. I absolutely spent more than the amp cost me at West Marine the other day buying speaker wire and other stuff.

Key West Sportsman 186
Yamaha 150 4 Stroke