[Slash9point5]

I am in the process of upgrading the stereo system to a Marine Sony DSX-MS60 Stereo on our 1995 Barchetta 182 and have a few questions:

1) I pulled out the previous stereo and am trying to understand the wiring. There is a purple wire from the boat that is connected to a red wire from the sony stereo (red is typically the wire from the stereo that is connected to the power supply that is energized in the accessory position of the ignition switch). Then there are two red wires from the boat that are connected to one yellow wire from the stereo (yellow is typically the wire from the stereo that is energized at all times). Basically, if someone knew for sure if the purple or the red wires are coming from the rocker accessory switch that would be a big help.

2) I am also installing an amplifier and a pair of Kicker wakeboard tower speakers. To not waste battery power when we are floating with the engine off, I am going to: wire the tower speakers to the amplifier and the in-boat speakers (4) directly to the stereo. Then, I will wire a switch inline with the amp remote in. I will then be able to switch on or off the tower speakers at will. If anyone can see any issues with this plan, please let me know.

3) The tower speakers also contain LED lights under them (I thought this was brilliant, but now I need to wire them). My plan here is to use one of the empty fuses/fuse holder stations under the dash and a new switch to control these. Therefore, I can get power off the fuse/fuse holder, then go to the switch, then to the lights in series, then to ground. The LEDs already contain resistors. Again, if anyone can see anything I am overlooking please let me know.

I am a Environmental/Civil Engineer so I have a base set of technical and design knowledge, but this is a little out of my area of expertise and as such, I greatly appreciate any insight this club may have.

Thank you for your time and have a great day,

Kris

[Oregondunes]

sounds to me like some splicing may have taken place in the past. get a test light out and check for power with the switch first.

running the tower speakers from the amp will almost nullify your head unit only sound. If your head unit has front/back - left right, why not wire them all through a 4 channel amp (front being your tower speakers and rear being the cabin speaks) and just fade thru the deck. that way you can balance volumes as needed and just turn off what ever you dont need, yet still have better sound all the time ?

if you run your cabin speaks in series, you wont overload the amp oHms.

[Slash9point5]

Thank you for your response Oregondunes.

I am a little concerned with connecting the battery with all the wires exposed to test the wires, are there no real issues with this practice.

As for the amp set-up, the stereo has a rear amp output...so I believe I can still balance the volumes as you described by hooking the in-boat speakers to the front connections on the head unit. Therefore, I could still switch off the amp and not waste battery power while we are floating by powering tower speakers. Furthermore, it is a very minimal amount of time on the lake when we are crusing and listening to the radio. Our time almost entirely consists of floating or wakeboarding.

I greatly appreciate the insight, but due to the use of our boat, I tend to think the concern of drowning out our in-boat speakers would not effect our enjoyment as much.

Of course (thinking outloud), there could be the concern that we would damage the head unit or in-boat speakers by trying to crank them up while we were wakeboarding...?

Thank you for your time,

Kris

[Slash9point5]

I addition to the wiring for the LED courtesy lights, I remembered I also need to wire the new navigation light that mounts on top of the tow point on the wakeboard tower.

If anyone has any recommendations as to the best method to splice into the existing stern drive navigation light wiring, please let me know.

Thank you for your time and have a great day,

Kris