Grounding your marine amp?

revelation · Outlaw Joined: 06 Apr 2005 Posts: 213 City: Annapolis

Simple but important question. Where do you ground your amp? I know that in cars they say to keep your ground wire as short as possible, I have always just grounded them to a close existing bolt. In my boat the amp will be about 12-15 feet from the battery location. So where will I ground the amp? If I ground it at the battery will that cause problems since it is so far away?

Thanks

tbill · Newbie Joined: 16 Mar 2005 Posts: 10

I think grounding to the Batteries or the engine block itself are your only options.

Hollywood · Posted: Jan 03, 2007 8:05 pm Post subject:

Hang it over the side of the boat in the water.

Just kidding, but if you actually do this don't worry nothing will happen. As mentioned above, you have 2 options, I would go back to the battery to avoid interference.

revelation · Outlaw Joined: 06 Apr 2005 Posts: 213 City: Annapolis

Thanks! So that won't cause any problems with a 12ft ground wire? I don't see how it would, that's just what I have always been told about car systems.

jjaszkow · Posted: Jan 03, 2007 8:45 pm Post subject:

It's shouldn't be a problem as long as you have a good electrical connection and proper gauge wire. Generally the installation manual for your amp will reccomend the gauge to you. Due to the distance, you could (should) go the next size larger (smaller gauge number) cable just to be safe. I believe that the reason that the ground wire is always reccomended to be as short as possible is to minimize the potential difference between the amp and other electrical components.

If you have a poor ground, you may experience noise in your system, or the ground path passing through the RCA grounds rather than the ground cables. But 12' with good wire and connections shouldn't have either of these issues.

revelation · Outlaw Joined: 06 Apr 2005 Posts: 213 City: Annapolis

Thanks!