Newbie Needs Help With Radio Wiring

[Baby John]

Hello fellas. Newbie here from Mendenhall Ms. Just bought a new aluminum boat and bought a radio for it and want to get it wired up as quickly as I can. I have the schematic or wiring instructions that came with the radio and I'm still a little confused. Even though it seems like only three wires...a black ground wire, a yellow positive lead for the battery, and a red accessory wire. I know this is simple but electrical wiring just intimidates the heck outta me.

It looks like the black and yellow are grouped together and feed through a supplied fuse block. Black would go to ground but where on an aluminum boat do you run the ground wire? It shows the yellow wire running straight to the battery but recommends me installing an in-line fuse. If that's the case I think I can handle that. It shows the red accessory wire running through a "normally open ACC switch and it appears as though the red wire get's spliced into the yellow wire. That just doesn't seem right.

And...I have a switch panel with an ACC switch that nothing is connected to as far as I can tell.

Can someone help me by explaining this to me as if you were talking to a 3rd grader?

I've attached the wiring diagram.

 

[DaleH]

Black needs to go back to the negative post of the battery. If you have a combo fuse/breaker box up at the helm or similar, it can go back to the negative connection there.

Typically yellow on radio circuits are the "always (non-switched) hot or powered" conenction, where with digital radios you don't lose pre-set radio stations and such. Not having this would be like disconnectng the battery to your car ... you'd lose all your pre-set radio stations and the like.

Red would go to the positive at the combo fuse/breaker and this wire powers up the radio.

Just NOTE this wiring herein is specific to this radio use .... as otherwise the new convention explicit to marine DC circuits is that yellow is replacing the black color as the ground wire ... due to boats or houseboats blowing up where the owner plugged into shore power and combined AC black (hot) wires with marine DC black (ground) wires ... which equals fire if not 'kaboom' :shock: !.

 

[Baby John]

Ten four...thanks Dale

Black needs to go back to the negative post of the battery. If you have a combo fuse/breaker box up at the helm or similar, it can go back to the negative connection there.

Typically yellow on radio circuits are the "always (non-switched) hot or powered" conenction, where with digital radios you don't lose pre-set radio stations and such. Not having this would be like disconnectng the battery to your car ... you'd lose all your pre-set radio stations and the like.

Red would go to the positive at the combo fuse/breaker and this wire powers up the radio.

Just NOTE this wiring herein is specific to this radio use .... as otherwise the new convention explicit to marine DC circuits is that yellow is replacing the black color as the ground wire ... due to boats or houseboats blowing up where the owner plugged into shore power and combined AC black (hot) wires with marine DC black (ground) wires ... which equals fire if not 'kaboom' :shock: !.

 

[timsmcm]

If you have the wiring documents post them as a picture so we will know what you need . I am sure it came with a schematic.