Installing cd player in a boat?

Question

Hey guys. I have an old boat that currently has a fm/cassette player in it. I would like to install a fm/cd player. How difficult would that be. I hear that I need the correct wiring harness but I don't know what to get. I've never installed one of these before. Can someone help? I'll take whatever advice you can give. It looks like several wires hanging off the back of that cassette player. Will they all match up to the new cd player???

Answer 1

It might be easy, it might be hard.

You won't find a wire harness adapter; you'll have to do the wiring manually.  The wire colors on the cassette player SHOULD be the same as those on the CD player, unless the cassette player is very old.  An after-market wire color standard was developed several years ago, but before that each manufacturer used its own code.

It's possible that your cassette player is a "shaft" type; this is the case if it has a volume k**b and a tuning k**b located on either side of the cassette slot.  If so, the opening that the cassette player uses might not be the same size as that needed for the CD player.  You might have to do some cutting.

Also, an older cassette player may have used a "common ground" speaker wiring system, where each speaker has its own (+) wire but they all share a common (-) wire.  If so, it won't be compatible with a new CD player, so you may need to do the speaker connections differently.  In a worst-case scenario, you'll need to run new wire to each speaker.

Usually boat installations are fairly easy because the wiring isn't too difficult to access.  Be sure to make your connections moisture and corrosion-resistant; solder and shrink tubing is recommended.

Answer 2

Connections is one of your problems. The new unit should guide you on the wires being aligned.

Importantly its the moisture levels and the bumps that you will have to worry about. The water can get rather bumpy specially when under way and so the unit will have to be a good quality one which is meant for rough use conditions to take all the bumps and keep the music from skipping and worse yet damaging the player and or the disc.

The usual connections are the power wires two (pos and neg)plus ground. Then depending on your set up you will need right and left speakers with two wires each and you may have two more speakers as well. Make sure you keep the polarity of the speaker wire the same they also have a plus or minus or you can just look at the current copper to color type logic.

Stay safe on the water and remember noise on water carries and so other peoples tunes are noise to you and vice a versa.

Safe boating

Answer 3

The wiring harness adapters are usually used in cars to allow you to plug into the factory plug. I have never heard of one being used on a boat. You can simply pull the cassette player out and use the same wires to connect the new cd player. Chances are the cassette player will have the same color wires as the new cd player. The most important are the three powers wires, yellow is usually 12v+ battery constant, red is 12v+ ignition\acc\switched, black is ground. Once it is all hooked up make sure it turns on and off with the key, if not switch the yellow and red wires. The grey,white,green and purple are your speaker wires. They should all match up it should be easy.