DONE!! TOWER, RACKS, SPEAKERS, AMPS, FAT SACKS!!!!

brotherbrown831 · Outlaw Joined: 26 May 2008 Posts: 154 City: Oklahoma City

I have been waiting for this for a long time! Yesterday me and three buddies finally got all the spring projects on my boat done. The tower is a Big Air H20, the cans are Kicker KMT6's I got some racks from eBay and plumbed up two fat sacks under the floor in the ski locker. We also added two 600w amps, one for the tower, one for the cabin. I will post more pics soon, but for now here is a before and after.

Brit Rider · Posted: Mar 23, 2009 4:42 pm Post subject:

Wow! Great job. you say this was all done in one day?!?! Shocked

brotherbrown831 · Outlaw Joined: 26 May 2008 Posts: 154 City: Oklahoma City

Yeah we did everything in one 8 hour day, my buddies really helped out a lot! I could not have done it with out them. The hardest part was mocking the tower in place do decide the best place to mount it functionally and aesthetically. We ran out of day light so I don't know if the Bimini will still work, but it looks like it shouldn't be a problem. The only things we have left to do is
leak check the plumbing on the fat sacs
run the wires up the tower
Tune the EQ and amps
add the backup battery
throttle up and RIDE!!!!

Okie Boarder · Ladies Man Joined: 03 Mar 2008 Posts: 10056 City: Edmond

Looks good. Take some more pics of the sacks and close ups from the back if you can. Do you ever make it up towards Tulsa?

brotherbrown831 · Outlaw Joined: 26 May 2008 Posts: 154 City: Oklahoma City

I just started wake boarding last summer, the only two lakes I've been to ae draper and T-bird. This year we are planning some get away weekends at some new lakes, like grand, eufala, texoma. More pictures are on the way but my boat is crazy dirty, there are metal shavings and fiberglass dust everywhere. Once its cleaned I will take a ton of pics and post them up. Im dying to see what she looks like on the water.

Okie Boarder · Ladies Man Joined: 03 Mar 2008 Posts: 10056 City: Edmond

Sounds good. If you want to take a weekend camp type trip up around Tulsa, let me know. We go to Skiatook every weekend and camp there several times a year. Skiatook is very clean and a very enjoyable lake. You're welcome to join us anytime.

brotherbrown831 · Outlaw Joined: 26 May 2008 Posts: 154 City: Oklahoma City

Sounds good, your boat going to be ready to toss a mean wake this summer?

Okie Boarder · Ladies Man Joined: 03 Mar 2008 Posts: 10056 City: Edmond

I hope so.

brotherbrown831 · Outlaw Joined: 26 May 2008 Posts: 154 City: Oklahoma City

All that work and now there is snow on my boat!!! I wanted to test the new fat sacs setup. Sad

stupid midwest!!! I MISS CALI!!!

brotherbrown831 · Outlaw Joined: 26 May 2008 Posts: 154 City: Oklahoma City

Lucky me the bimini still fits. I took her out to the lake today to do some testing with fat sac placement. Also finished the wiring in the tower, THAT IS A HUGE PITA!!!! Here is a pic of the tower with the Bimini up.

WakeMikey · Addict Joined: 29 Mar 2008 Posts: 640 City: Fridley

Looks good you got real lucky that your old bimini still fits! Smile

Okie Boarder · Ladies Man Joined: 03 Mar 2008 Posts: 10056 City: Edmond

Looks good!

brotherbrown831 · Outlaw Joined: 26 May 2008 Posts: 154 City: Oklahoma City

Finally got her in the water. It was a totally different boat from last year.

jixxxer · Posted: Apr 23, 2009 1:21 pm Post subject:

Nice job!

crashhappy · Outlaw Joined: 04 Aug 2008 Posts: 116 City: Acworth

Looks Good! How did the wake turn out with the new sacks?

brotherbrown831 · Outlaw Joined: 26 May 2008 Posts: 154 City: Oklahoma City

The wake is alot better!it moved the ramp further back so I had to extend my rope out a bit but it is sooo much firmer. I will try to get a picture of the wake this weekend. The weather has been horrible lately.

NKCrider · Posted: Apr 28, 2009 10:58 am Post subject:

brotherbrown831, is that a big air pylons H20?

if so, did you run the wire outside the bottom tower legs then drill and run them in the top arch?

brotherbrown831 · Outlaw Joined: 26 May 2008 Posts: 154 City: Oklahoma City

I ran them inside the lower leg, then they come out and back in above the leg joint. I will post pictures later, but everyone I have talked to about this tower has had to run thier wires this way.

NKCrider · Posted: Apr 28, 2009 11:50 am Post subject:

brotherbrown831, we were under the impression the lower legs were solid stainless...
we ran ours outside the tower inside a stainless shower line, held to the tower with stainless steel zip ties, ran the shower line into the upper half and fished the wires the rest of the way through...

pet575 · Posted: Apr 28, 2009 12:01 pm Post subject:

So, how much weight is in there now and where did you place it? Any before/after pics of the wake?

brotherbrown831 · Outlaw Joined: 26 May 2008 Posts: 154 City: Oklahoma City

Right now I have 500lbs in the locker, and 250 in the bow. 80% of the ballast is forward of the driver. Most people prefer to sit in the rear of the boat so the weight ends up fairly even. Unfortunately I have a 3.0L 135hp engine so I don't want to add any more weight. I found I get a nice wake at 1350lbs total (people and ballast) and my highfive still pulls up the rider well at that weight. If the weather gets better this week I will be going out and I will post before and after pics of the wake. It really does make a HUGE difference. The tower also helps alot.

cross12920 · Newbie Joined: 23 Mar 2009 Posts: 35 City: Norman

Nice work. I wish we could supe up our Regal like that. We just put an extended pylon on and now just need some weight BAD!

If you ever need a third or fourth, hit me up. I live in Norman

brotherbrown831 · Outlaw Joined: 26 May 2008 Posts: 154 City: Oklahoma City

I cant believe it, I blew on my tower already. I was getting some nasty crackling noises from one of my KMT6 pods, so i took it apart and when I opened the can the thing smelled like burnt electronics. I check both speakers and the voice coil on one of the speakers was burnt!! This sucks!!!

+++SILVER LINING+++
So its $150 for a pair of replacement 6 1/2's or its $210 for another pair of pods...
I ordered two more KMT6 pods this morning... Im going to run three across the tower... I dont know how im going to wire it yet, but im thinking its going to look pretty sweet.

I have two 600.4 amps, right now 1 amp is for the tower and 1 is for the cabin speakers. If I add another pod I will have to borrow two channels from amp #2 and run all four of my cabin speakers off 2 channels. Its not ideal but i care a lot more about the rider hearing the music then the boat...

taitrt · Soul Rider Joined: 11 May 2009 Posts: 413

Hmm... Speakers really shouldn't just "blow".

You might want to rethink your setup if you're blowing speakers easily. Ideally your speakers should be rated for the same amount of power as your amps.

pet575 · Posted: May 21, 2009 1:22 pm Post subject:

Actually you want to overpower your speakers so that you don't use the full capacity of the amp. You just have to be careful to set things up so that the max volume for listening will not mean that the amp is at full capacity at that volume or else it WILL blow the speakers. Any chance you missed this step and fed max amp power to speakers that couldn't handle it?

taitrt · Soul Rider Joined: 11 May 2009 Posts: 413

brotherbrown831 · Outlaw Joined: 26 May 2008 Posts: 154 City: Oklahoma City

Well I am not sure exactly how I blew the coil. The Amp is only rated RMS 60w x 4 at 4ohms. So bridged i figured about 120w x 2 at 2ohms. The pods are rated at 150 RMS at 4ohms so even if I did have them up to loud they should have been able to handle it. There was virtually no distortion and I carved out all the base frequencies with a crossover before the signal even gets to the AMP. This time I am just going to limit max volume a bit more to ensure this doesn't happen again. In retrospect I would have rather gone with a 1000.4 but "que ser ra, ser ra"

While I was at the audio shop this morning I priced out a full Wet sounds system, a 485, and a pair of 60 would be SWEET!!! Its not justified on my little I/O but i have made plans to buy a new "Wakeboard" boat some time early 2011. Got my fingers crossed that everything works out. If I get a new boat, then I am putting that WetSounds system in.

svahle · Newbie Joined: 23 Mar 2009 Posts: 28 City: Bolivar, MO

FYI - KMT6s are around 3 ohm, not 4 ohm. Wired parallel you were down around 1.5 ohm. So, you were pushing more than 120w. Also, unless your amp is stable at 1.5 ohm or below, you were likely stressing it too. I question whether the amp gain was tuned properly.

brotherbrown831 · Outlaw Joined: 26 May 2008 Posts: 154 City: Oklahoma City

Anyone have a recommendation of an amp that would work well to power three pods? I would prefer to use one amp for the tower, for ease of tuning and troubleshooting.

the fat kid · Newbie Joined: 29 May 2009 Posts: 14

dude you just had it cranked too loud and probably in full range crossover(too much bass), if your amp isint rated for 2 ohm operation it will heat up and go into protect mode it wont explode your speakers(for future refrence), hrm, so youll have 3 pods on your rack, each with one positive and negative output per pod, theyre rated at 150rms, so you need something like this if youre on a budget, (it doesnt seem so)
http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_17758_MB+Quart+NAU+460.html#

or this if youre not
http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_13287_Alpine+Marine+PDX-4.100M.html

no you dont need to run them at full rms to be loud, you can but its reccomended that you run at least half to 3/4 of the rms being 150 watts in this case. youll want 75 to 100 optimally but the 60 will work on the cheaper one fine.

another thing to take into account is that the mb quart has rca outputs, helpful if youre planning on adding a subwoofer amp later on. if not just hook each one to its own seprate channel and rock on.

just curious are the original two pods speakers being replaced? just wondering why youre adding a third pod? and when you set your amp this time put it into hpf, or high pass and tune it that way itll filter alot of hte bass out that those speakers cant handle, if its not enough bass for you buy a sub woofer and tape it to the side of the boat, itll be sweet, if you go the subwoofer route, id keep the original two pods bridge them like you did, which will give you more than enough power from the amp at two ohms, and take the other two channels and run a sub off them (channel 1&2 can have the filters set sepratley from channels 3&4) so you can run high pass on the pods and low pass on the sub(s)...

remember, tune the door speakers first, find what volume theyre at theyre their best and take it down like a notch two, remember that volume, tell your frineds, make a sticker, " volume not over 37" or something. then do your sub afterwards.

hope i helped a little... sry so long/ Shocked

the fat kid · Newbie Joined: 29 May 2009 Posts: 14

hey look what i found,
http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_9768_Kicker+SKM10+-06SKM10-.html#

cheap too.

brotherbrown831 · Outlaw Joined: 26 May 2008 Posts: 154 City: Oklahoma City

Ok so I got bored last week and wired the new speakers, No its not the most ideal set-up but it does sounds pretty good. I am running a high-pass filter and tuned my input levels down so at max head unit volume the speakers are not even close to max, this way no one in the boat can accidently turn the system up to loud. I included some pics of the new setup.

brotherbrown831 · Outlaw Joined: 26 May 2008 Posts: 154 City: Oklahoma City

I took some pics of the wake with and without the fat sacs, the boat isnt fully loaded and its hard to tell but trust me when I say the wake is completely different, im using a max of 750lbs of ballast, all of it is spread even across the floor from the middle of the boat to the bow.

ampd · Newbie Joined: 15 Jun 2009 Posts: 3

We just put the h2o tower on my girlfriends four winns 180. With some Pro 80's on the way. We live in norman off highway nine, about 5 minutes from T-bird. I'm interested in seeing how you ran your wires through the tower, we were thinkin maybe we could drill a small hole through the center of the black connector part in the back legs??? think that could work?

brotherbrown831 · Outlaw Joined: 26 May 2008 Posts: 154 City: Oklahoma City

I would not advise that, that insert holds a lot of force, I would not want to do anything to it that may compromise the strength. Everyone I have talked to has just drilled holes above and below the joint and had the wires exposed for those few inches. If you really wanna make it look sick go to the auto parts store and get some braided steel fuel line dress up kit.