Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

When I purchased my party barge it came with an Audiotronics Radio/CD player with four speakers. I bought a replacement radio/CD player with an auxiliary input (Kenwood) on the face for my mp3 player. All of the wires from the old radio were the same color as the new one so hooking it up seemed a breeze. You have to turn on a switch on the dash in order to get power to the radio. The problem is that the radio intermittently loses power. Sometimes it will flash and come right back on and other times it flashes and stays off for a few seconds and loses the radio pre-sets. I went back and checked every connection I could think of and everything seems OK. I put a 12-volt light tester on everything that should have power and it seems to be constant. That means I'm losing power somewhere between the power switch and the radio. That's only one wire. Am I dealing with a bad switch? I tightened the connections to and from the switch (blade type connectors) and that seemed to help some. However, whenever I turn the radio up beyond a certain volume it again starts to go in and out. Bad switch or bad radio? Or bad installer? Thanks!

Could you be needing heavier wires for a more powerful head unit. A friend has the same issue and his would over heat when it cooled it came back on.

I agree, it sounds like the deck is not getting enough juice. I've seen the problem a lot when someone installs an amp with too small of a wire

The Kenwood is a 4 x 50 watt output. I suppose the older unit could have been a 4 x 30 watt (I'll have to find it and look). Is the wire(s) you refer to the positive and negative coming off the battery? There is only one red wire and two black wires running from my battery (aside from the ignition cables). These wires run to a fuse panel near the radio. Do I need a heavier gauge for all of those wires or are you referring to the speaker wires? If I upgrade the wires do I need to upgrade the fuses as well? Sorry for the dumb questions. I don't go near 110 v electricity, I know little about 12 v systems, and don't even get me started on ohms and other things associated with the installation of stereo systems Thanks for the input

I have EXACTLY the same problem, I will be watching the fallowing posts with interest

It would be your main power wires from fuse panel. Don't sound like that would do it though. When I replaced mine with about the same power upgrade it didn't over heat.

moregooder wrote:I have EXACTLY the same problem, I will be watching the fallowing posts with interest

Me too. I have an old blaupunkt that was in the boat when I bought it. It will go to barely audible if I turn the volume close to max. I'm almost sure it's the power supply in the unit. I'm just going to find some kind of deal on craigslist. I only use it for Sirius (love having it on the toon for toon's)

yellowk9 wrote: and don't even get me started on ohms and other things associated with the installation of stereo systems Thanks for the input

ditto on trying bigger wiring. i run #10 to my helm with no prob.


OHM... OHM....

I checked the user's manual from the old unit and it was a 4 x 30 watt output vs. 4 x 50 on the new one (not sure that makes any difference). Where would I take it if I have to go to a professional? Audio store or marine store? I hope it doesn't come to that

Just so I have this straight: If I go to larger wires from the battery to the helm I will still have the smaller gauge wire that runs from the radio harness to the fuse panel. This would seem like a "bottleneck" of smaller wire just before the radio. I'm probably showing my ignorance here, but given that the exiting wiring is the same gauge or larger than the radio wiring harness wires what am I accomplishing by enlarging the wires to the battery?

DISCLAIMER: I am not an electrician, all of the advice I am suggesting is speculative, and if you are concerned about ruining the stereo, burning up the pontoon, people dying, etc.... you should see a professional so you can sue him if things turn out badly
Also, I have been drinking and my thoughts are a bit scattered at this point
That being said.....
Most of the decks I have dealt with have 3 wires related to power and they are usually colored red, yellow, and black. They are for constant power, power to turn the deck on, and a ground.
The first thing I would do is to figure out if the switch on the dash is the problem. To do that, I would bypass the switch by connecting the power wire directly to the fuse panel. Then play it and try to recreate the problem. If it still cuts out/goes off you know it's not the switch.
Then I would pull the battery (or get a different one) and set it by the deck. Run the power and ground wires directly from the battery to the deck. It is a good idea to make sure the power wire has a fuse. Again, try to recreate your problem.
If I had to bet, I think the problem is you have to small of wires ran from the battery to the fuse panels. Your idea of bottlenecking isn't quite accurate because the length of the wire comes into play. I would upgrade the red and the black wires to 8-10 gauge wires.

Ultimately, some pics of the wiring would be helpful, but it really sound like your deck is getting hot and shutting off due to a lack of power caused by too small of wires.

First and foremost before tearing into things. It's January and most of our boats have now been sitting for months now, is the battery fully charged yet.....A weak or bad battery should be checked for first.

Check for "a good ground" connection.

Yellow wire is "hot memory wire"
Red wire is switched "hot primary power wire" and the yellow and red can be spliced together to provide power through switch though radio will retain no memory every time the switch is turned off.

Black wire is the ground wire make sure it is soundly connected to the ground buss.

If the above is good especially the battery, do as Hellbilly suggested and move battery close to unit hook it up and try again direct to battery. It could be a bad unit right out of the box who knows, after all it does happen...

Bamby wrote:First and foremost before tearing into things. It's January and most of our boats have now been sitting for months now, is the battery fully charged yet.....A weak or bad battery should be checked for first.

Check for "a good ground" connection.

Yellow wire is "hot memory wire"
Red wire is switched "hot primary power wire" and the yellow and red can be spliced together to provide power through switch though radio will retain no memory every time the switch is turned off.

Black wire is the ground wire make sure it is soundly connected to the ground buss.

If the above is good especially the battery, do as Hellbilly suggested and move battery close to unit hook it up and try again direct to battery. It could be a bad unit right out of the box who knows, after all it does happen...

I'm just going to jump in here with a comment. It's too bad they still don't make the old fashion radio with two knobs. The left one turns the radio on and volume up and the left one dials the station and there is an AM FM selector switch. The new sophisticated radios have to have all the presets and all the other bands and bull crap. On a boat unless you have constant power which is a battery drainer you lose your station every time you turn your radio off. Just my two cents.

Thanks a lot for the suggestions. I'll try everything suggested. I'm pretty sure the battery is not the problem since I just ran the boat on the muffs and it fired right up with no hesitation. I think bypassing the switch and then bypassing the wire from the battery to the helm (connecting direct to the battery should tell me if I have too small wiring or just a bad deck. I'll try to check back in after I get time to mess with it.

I thought I'd give an update. It's always been said that the simplest solution is usually the right one. This was true in this case I started messing with my fuse panel so I could bypass the power switch and noticed that my main positive wire coming into the fuse panel was loose! Very loose! Apparently when I was turning the radio up it either wasn't getting enough juice or the extra vibration from the speakers was causing an intermittent connection. I cleaned the connection and tightened the hell out of it. I can crank the radio as high as I want now with no power interruption Of course I'm still using the 5" Aquatronic speakers that came with the boat and they sound pretty crappy when you I turn it up very loud. Oh well, I need to dump some more money in this big hole in the water known as a boat