AMFM/CD Player

[Neicy]

Need opinion on having just installed radio. It was installed in the cabin not the cockpit. The question is, should the actual housing of the player itself be extremely hot when playing? Also the CD's removed are very hot also. I have asked the guy who installed it and he changed the wiring a little but this weekend it was still hot. Is this normal??

[teshannon]

I have one in my cabin and it is not hot. Something is wrong there. I would get back to the installer and ask him to correct the problem. The CDs should not be hot either. Does it work correctly otherwise?

[Neicy]

Yes it seems to work great except for the heat which worrys me. He connected it straight to the battery. I did queston that but he assured me it was the correct. I contacted the factory and they also said it should not be hot. He had the yellow and red together and the factory said the yellow should be straight to the battery and the red should be connected to a switch. I asked him to change it and supposedly he did, but yesterday it was still hot.??

[teshannon]

Something is still wrong. The only thing I can think of is if you have the installation instructions then check his wiring. If you don't have them you can probably get them on line. If the installation is correct I would send the unit back for a replacement. Also make sure it is fused. Good luck.

[sailingdog]

The yellow is the memory function wire, and should be left live if at all possible, and it should have a 1 amp fuse in it. The red is the power lead for the stereo, and needs to go through the breaker panel.

Some units, depending on how they are installed can heat up, since they may contain an amplifier, which generates a fair bit of heat. How is the ventilation around the unit. Is it possible the heat is coming from some other piece of equipment??

[Neicy]

The opening is 24x24x24 (used to hold an old furuno screen) so there is plenty of space, I had it mounted to the top of cabinet. There is nothing else around at all. Thanks for the response.

[camaraderie]

Quite hot is quite normal...especially if you have a high power unit. If the unit is working fine and there is air circulation around the unit don't worry about it.
The red and the yellow are commonly run together straight to the battery but this puts a constant drain on your battery so many boaters don't like this.
You can simply run the red wire to a breaker switch and leave the yellow disconnected but you will have no accurate clock or station memory if you do this.
Let me be clear that when I say "quite hot" I mean like a cup of 7-11 coffee...not hot enough to fry an egg!

[labatt]

Is there anything else you can hook the yellow wire to in order to keep the station memory? I don't want it to run to the house batteries direct

[sailingdog]

You could always hook it to a small 12V lithium battery like some alarm systems use... which would probably power it for several years quite nicely. Would also need to hook the ground of the battery to the DC ground side.

Originally Posted by labatt

Is there anything else you can hook the yellow wire to in order to keep the station memory? I don't want it to run to the house batteries direct

[Bill Mc]

Check your owners manual the yellow wires amp draw is minimal (Read-milliamp )

Fair Winds,

Bill