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I put a new stereo in my '91 sport nautique. Two alpine pdx amps & an alpine head unit. When the stereo is turned on & engine is at idle the volt meter shows about 11.5v. When running at half throttle or more it's even less - 10v or so. Do I need to add a second battery or a bigger altenator? The battery is under the rear seat - don't know of a good place to put a second one. Any advice is appreciated.
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first thing I would do is use a voltmeter to check your actual voltage and verify that the gage is accurate. Check it at the battery and on either side of the gage if you can reach it.
I'm not sure if it carried over to the 91's but on my 89 the volt meters are notorious for reading low due to insufficient wiring and connections.
an additional battery wont help with a voltage problem, if you have one, but would give you more play time n your stereo when you are floating. -
The wiring in the older boats was undersized, get the multimeter out and to some checking if everything is wired correctly you should be seeing the battey voltage at your amps. I paraleled a new 10g hot and ground to my dash to bring the voltage up there and it now stays above 12 volts at all times.
Adding batteries will get you longer stereo run times if your sitting, upgrading the alternator will get you a quicker recharge time when your running and keep the alternator from working as hard when your running. I run a very similar sized system but with class D JL amps and had no problems with the stock stuff. I have since upgraded both though just to make sure it will be OK when we do sit a lot and I can't charge for a weekend. It's robably way overkill though.Comment
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Buy one of these and stab it in the lighter socket:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/New-1...#ht_3173wt_962
It'll tell you way more than the analog gauge.Comment
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