Can i install a car radio/cd player onto my boat?

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And I agree DavidJ's suggestion re iPod. We have got rid of all the CDs on the boat and just use an iPod which we can plug in on the flybridge or saloon.

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I was considering 'hard wiring' mine in, since I have a socket on the rear of the radio just for this (AUX)
Did you find a waterproof socket for the flybridge for the ipod lead? next question where from?
 
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suggest not going for a CD (they don't enjoy bashing up and down and it is good to have music while you are on the move)

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I don't think this is a problem, cars bump around a bit too don't forget.
had a car type CD player on the boat for years without problem.
 
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suggest not going for a CD (they don't enjoy bashing up and down and it is good to have music while you are on the move)

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I don't think this is a problem, cars bump around a bit too don't forget.
had a car type CD player on the boat for years without problem.

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It was a problem for me. You could hear the CD skip and that was with quite an expensive Blaupunck (however it's spelt??)
 
I've always used car radios and never had a problem, but they were all down below. However most modern car radios need a 12v feed to maintain the code to prevent theft - which is a pain as you have to keep entering the code(and remember how to do it!) but I've just bought a Goodmans CD/Radio from ebay with a lift off front panel which doesn't need a security code.
 
Hi dont know what sort of boat you have but if it has a cuddy or cabin, mount it in there where it is protected. When you purchase your car radio/cd make sure you get one with a remote. Pain in the butt going downstairs to change it all the time!
 
Right then - on a related thread - in desperation I turned to the forum last night as I struggled to install my Pioneer CD/MP3 player car stereo on my boat. It just won't work. I am a complete novice at this but it seemed a relatively straightforward task (ha - is anything straightforward on a 25 year old, badly wired boat). I don't want it to do anything fancy - I don't have a remote etc - I just want the damned thing to play CDs and be able to plug my laptop into it via the aux cable. So, the way I see it at the most basic level, if I wire the yellow (positive) to a positive and the black (ground/negative) to a negative wire, it should work - yes? The circuits at the boat end are all good - I've tested them. I know there are no speakers connected at this point but the unit should surely turn on if there is power going to it?

Anyway, it didn't work so then I thought that the red ACC cable, which is usually connected via the car ignition, should also have power going through it to fool the stereo into thinking the ignition is on. So I took the second yellow positive (splits off the main positive before it goes into the block that plugs into the stereo) and connected it to the red ACC cable which then goes into the block that plugs into the stereo. So, theoretically, there should be 12v going through both cables now. It still won't work.

Am I missing something?

There are some additional cables which I do not know whether they need to be connected up or not. An orange cable which says Illumination/dash light and a blue one Power Antenna.

I'm yet to get to the speaker bit. There is a horrible cat's nest of wires wired through wires wired through wires, old and new, some redundant, some not, some should be - a result of 20 years of people fitting stereos into the same spot. i just want to make sure I can get the unit working before I attempt to sort that bit out.

Can anyone help me please? I can send photos if that would help.

Cheers.

Katie
s/y Monty B
 
That should work +12v to both yellow and red, and black or the casing to ground/0v. On a DVD player (but yours isn't) the handbrake wire (to stop you watching movies in a moving car) usually needs to be grounded. I'd try connecting the dash illumination light to ground, but I doubt that's your problem. Have you checked that you do have 12volts, using a meter? You can prob download manuals and install instructions from the manufacturer's website. Also there is usually a fuse at back of radio
 
Kate,
does this spaghetti look anything like what's behind you Pioneer car CD/MP3 head unit? this is off mine, and note how the yellow & red wires are connected to their "opposite" wires, rather than "yellow-to-yellow" and "red-to-red"; the Pioneer installation manual does mention this it states that "Depending on the kind of vehicle, the function of #
and #5 (i.e. yellow and red)may be different. In this case, be sure to connect #2 [yellow] to #5[red] and #4[red] to #5[yellow]"
PICT1287.jpg
 
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