wire size

What is the recomended wire sizing for

1) Tower speakers
-2 speakers?
-4 speakers?

2) 200-400 watts amp--power and ground gauge with fuse size

3) 500-1000 watts amp " "

4) over 1000 watts amp " "

5) battery cable size when adding a xtra battery. Short run of 2 feet

6) tower lights-figure 4 55 watt lights


any thing else?



Thanks

I'd start here: https://forum.moomba.com/showthread.php?t=13273

There are also a couple other threads started around that time that may be useful.

To keep it simple we ran 12 awg to every speaker, bought a 100ft spool of 4 conductor (4 wires, 1 run). Makes it easy.

We used 2/0 for any battery wiring but 1/0 would be fine.

We used 4 awg from distribution to amps.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by moombadaze

What is the recomended wire sizing for

1) Tower speakers
-2 speakers? 12-14 gauge
-4 speakers? 14 gauge

2) 200-400 watts amp--power and ground gauge with fuse size 4 gauge Add the fuses up on the amp and thats the size fuse you need on that leg for the power side.

3) 500-1000 watts amp " " 4 gauge

4) over 1000 watts amp " " 4 gauge

5) battery cable size when adding a xtra battery. Short run of 2 feet 2 gauge

6) tower lights-figure 4 55 watt lights

7. Power distribution blocks make it so much simpler. Run 0 gauge to the power and ground for the distro then you have the built in fusses for your amps. Then you run the amp power and ground from there. If the distro blocks are close to the amp and batteries you can get away with 2 gauge battery cables. Thing to remember is think like a plumber if you got 2 4gauge pipes into 1 pipe then it needs a 2 gauge to allow the proper flow.

any thing else? Quality RCA cables. Dont cheap out here because this is the sound quality



Thanks

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See Blue and Red updates

DC halogen lamps are very different from the transient nature of audio. Lighting specs are especially hard to compare from brand to brand. But if you have four true 5 amp lights then you need no less than 4-conductors of 14-gauge for separate front and rear circuits or 2- conductors of 12-gauge for a single circuit. Resistance will dim the lights and create heat in the wire and particularly in the connections so we solder everything. Four lamps are too much for a 15 amp marine switch. Two switches are fine. Relays are rated for intermittent use so divide their rated capacity by a third for use with DC. Skip the helm buss if you are drawing as much as 20 amps and go directly to the battery via 10 gauge minimum.

David
Earmark Marine