# 2002 Cobalt 226 Boat install



## Silverbullet555 (Apr 26, 2010)

just thought I would share an install I am doing on our boat. 

It started out as just adding a couple speakers, an amp and replacing a couple older speakers. Well, it certainly has changed a lot since then.

Boats are acoustically a crappy situation, so I tried to keep that in mind during the install. I wanted to be able to maximize control of the system, try to keep costs in check and still bump a little when I want to. Kind of a jack of all trades.

I started by finding a place to mount the amps. Found a spot and mocked up a mounting rack.









The rack had to be in two pieces so it would fit in the opening. I used 1/2" Starboard for the material to mount to.









I started laying out components to try to come up with the best place to put everything. Initially I was using mostly kicker amps, then I realized, they would not fit, especially if I put a sub in that same compartment.









This was the original plate for the stereo mount. You'll see the new one later.









Drew up some wiring diagrams to better visualize all the different connections, etc.









Started laying out actual components to get a sense for the actual fit.









Switched some of the components (got rid of the kicker stuff) to save space. Good thing I did. Ended up going with an Alpine PDX-M6 for the sub, JL HD600/4 for the tower and JL XD600/6 for the 6 channels in the boat.










Decided to add some bling.









Epoxied marine plywood mounting blocks to the compartment to screw the rack into.


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## Silverbullet555 (Apr 26, 2010)

Figuring final placement of the amps.









Drilling lots of holes.


















Installed standoffs so I could put a piece of plexi over the top to protect it from getting bumped when putting stuff in the storage compartment.









Plexi (with blue protective coating) laying on top of the standoffs. 3 1/2" in between the rack and the cover.









All the amps were placed on spacers for two reasons. Allow airflow underneath and bring all the wires up under the amps to make a cleaner look.


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## Silverbullet555 (Apr 26, 2010)

Time to run some wires. 0 guage from the battery to the distro blocks. 4 gauge from the distro blocks to the amps.









Lots of wires making their way to the right places.









The little parts seem to take the longest. These are jumpers to wire up some of the speaker pods in parallel.









I had to figure a way to let air in so the fans would have some fresh air. So, designed some grills and had them cut by a friend.

















Had a new stereo plate cut (twice) by the same friend. Made room for a Clarion EQS 746 so I could balance the tower speakers out.









Filled the letters in the engraving with the same color as the boat. 









Decided to add some LEDs to the panel. Mount flexible LED strips to circle cut outs of acryllic. Wired all together to a switch so I can turn them on or off.

















Lots of stuff means lots of wires.


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## Silverbullet555 (Apr 26, 2010)

Added the wiring for the switches and it got even messier.









Making the wiring a bit neater.









This is the switch so I can choose which temp sender I am reading.









Test fitting gauges and switches.









Wiring some diodes into a relay to prevent inductive voltage kick back when switching off.









Testing relay's, switches, fans, leds, etc.


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## Silverbullet555 (Apr 26, 2010)

Got the head unit and EQ installed into the mounting plate.









Installed a USB header and a 3.5mm panel mount. 









Getting switches and gauges installed. The knob is the selector for the temp senders. I can monitor each amp temp and the ambient air temp in the compartment.









Left half of the panel. The ACR LED in the upper left illuminates when the batteries are combined and charging. When I turn the ignition off, the batteries become isolated with the stereo running off one battery and the starter and essential systems off the other. The switches control the fans, each amp, the LED's, etc. I wired them normally closed so in most cases, the button will not be depressed, the LED ring will illuminate and the amp is on. If I want to turn something off, I depress the button and it latches, turning the item off and the LED ring.









The whole panel.









So what's left?
I have to make some cuts in the boat for the extra components. Plan is to do those this morning after dropping my son and wife off at my sister's house. Then I need to make the final connections for the plugs that connect the amp rack to the boat. I need to cut out the inlets for the air flow into the amp rack, but that should be pretty easy. I also need to build the speaker box and wire in the automatic battery combiner/isolater. 

Someday, it will be finished.


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## Brian_smith06 (Jan 31, 2008)

Nice work. Those jumpers make me want to order some tech flex right now and do some work on my car


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## CraigE (Jun 10, 2008)

Very Nice ! 
How about some pix of the boat.


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## tintbox (Oct 25, 2008)

Looks good dude. Nice detail work as well.


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## Silverbullet555 (Apr 26, 2010)

The boat in question before I put tower speakers on.









With 2 of the 4 speaker pods mounted.


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## Silverbullet555 (Apr 26, 2010)

Got the amp racks installed today after having to make some shims and try to work some details. 









Working on installing the new faceplate.









Installing the second of three amps.









Ran out of energy and time tonight. Tomorrow I will finish installing the second amp and do the final wiring to the battery. I'm not real thrilled as to how this came out, especially after all the work I put in. I have learned a lot, but I hope to not have to do this again.

However, I am sure I'll do some other kind of install at some point.

I still need to build the speaker box, but that will be the last think to do, then it will be time to tune everything and make sure I got all the rights on the right and lefts on the left.


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## eviling (Apr 14, 2010)

just a side note, an electrical diagram should flow, you drew your diagram like a part diagram, electrical diagrams should have an end and s start, the lines can go from end to end, much easier to read...because it took me a solid 10 mins to figuire out your diagram :| 

but none the less! impressive work is an understatement, that is top noch fabricate, koodo's


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## scooter99 (Dec 21, 2008)

Man this really is a great install. The only thing that makes me nervouse about the whole thing is that I dont see any grommits in the diamondplating for the power and ground. This is in a boat and at higher speeds you're gonna be doing some bouncing. I would hate for the diamond plate to cut through the techflex and the shielding on the power wires. Probably not a right away concern but I would say a concern for the future for sure. I'd hate to see your system go down for a couple dollar fix. Other then that I dig the creativness and your design. The install skills are superb as well. Love to see it when it's done!


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## Silverbullet555 (Apr 26, 2010)

eviling said:


> just a side note, an electrical diagram should flow, you drew your diagram like a part diagram, electrical diagrams should have an end and s start, the lines can go from end to end, much easier to read...because it took me a solid 10 mins to figuire out your diagram :|
> 
> but none the less! impressive work is an understatement, that is top noch fabricate, koodo's


It's been a long time since I drew an electrical diagram. 20 years to be exact. More for my own benefit though it did not cover everything, especially as I changed components. Thanks for the kudos.


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## Silverbullet555 (Apr 26, 2010)

scooter99 said:


> Man this really is a great install. The only thing that makes me nervouse about the whole thing is that I dont see any grommits in the diamondplating for the power and ground. This is in a boat and at higher speeds you're gonna be doing some bouncing. I would hate for the diamond plate to cut through the techflex and the shielding on the power wires. Probably not a right away concern but I would say a concern for the future for sure. I'd hate to see your system go down for a couple dollar fix. Other then that I dig the creativness and your design. The install skills are superb as well. Love to see it when it's done!


It's actually not diamond plate so I am not to worried about it. I used acryllic that has a diamond plate faux backing on it. After making all the holes, I used sand paper to round the edges. Behind the acryllic is starboard which has the backside of the wholes rounded with a router. You bring up a very good point though and it is good info for those reading as they can save a lot of pain.


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## Cobalt232 (Jul 22, 2009)

Nice boat! I'm partial to Cobalt's though. See user name


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## silverdiesel2574 (Feb 22, 2008)

Love you build!


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## Silverbullet555 (Apr 26, 2010)

Got all three amps installed today. Looks much better with the wires hooked up.









The final wiring to the distro blocks.









Another pic of all 3 amps.









Hooked everything up asnd it actually works. Have a little work to do on the temp gauge due to a broken wire and one of the temp gauges reading Hi.

Pretty stoked that nothing popped when hooking up the wire.

I need to put the cover over the deck to hide that wiring, install the isolator and build the speaker box. Feels great that we are getting close.


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## scooter99 (Dec 21, 2008)

Hey correct me if I'm wrong, but dont those fans need to be isolated? having them open like that doesn't that defeat the purpose of those kinds of fans? I thought hey needed to be at an opening closed off of where they get their air from? I'm not making any sense am I? It's late, but Im' curious. It's turning out nice!


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## Silverbullet555 (Apr 26, 2010)

By isolated do you mean in a box. There will be a cover on this rack which will help tp focus the air flow up. There is an air intake right above the fans on the cover so they will be able to draw air in.


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## ttocs388 (Jun 25, 2010)

I thought those fans drew their air from the open side that doesn't have the motor?

mounting them end-to-end might limit what they can draw in


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## scooter99 (Dec 21, 2008)

Yea that's what I meant. thanks!

My understanding with those was that they kind of run like an infinate baffle sub set up would. The front and back need to be sealed and separated from them to get the full draw of the air flow. The side without the components needs to be vented to allow air in to blow through the baffle into the compartment that needs to be cooled. 

Again I've never installed one of these, but I was doing some research a while back and that's what I understood as to how you're supposed to install them. Again I may be mistaken but i was jsut worried about you getting the full potential out of those things. As well the same thing about the wires, which was why I asked about the grommits earlier. I would hate for that beautiful install to get destroyed because of a cut corner. Just looking out for you and the time you've invested bro! 

I can't wait to see your sub box and everything with the cover on it! Keep up the good work!


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## Silverbullet555 (Apr 26, 2010)

You are thinking of squirrel fans that pull from the open end. These are tangenital fans which pull air from the top and put it out the bottom. In the end, I think they are going to be not needed, but I didn't want to have to add them after the fact.


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## Silverbullet555 (Apr 26, 2010)

Built the speaker box last night and cut the hole for the woofer this morning.










You can see the braces to add additional support. I used 3/4" Marine Grade Plywood at the recommendation of the speaker maker. I made the face as small as I could to accomodate the speaker. May not be the best idea, but we'll see how it works. All the joints are glued and screwed together. I did have to remove a couple screws and replace them with shorter ones on the edges of the speaker cutout. I will also be placing another sheet over the speaker cut out to provide additional support. It will go all the way to the edges and screw into the side walls. It will be glued as well. All the goop you see on the seams is a construction sealant. It stays flexible and I used it to seal all edges. I will drill a hole in the back for the wires to come out and then seal that hole up. Then I will let it sit for a while in the sun to dry.

Close-up of the braces.

























Finally I will grab the router and clean up the edges with a roundover bit and cover with some left over carpet.

Here's a pic of the sub set into the opening.

















The sub is a Wesounds XS-12 dual voice coil sub. Each voice coil is 2 ohms and I will wire them in series to make it a 4 ohm speaker. Just gives me flexibility and since I am running an amp that puts out the same power at 2 ohms and 4 ohms, this will work well. If the amp put out more at 2ohms I would probably have gone with a dual 4 ohm voice coil to make it run at 2ohms.

I am going to first mount it firing into the side of the hull and see how that sounds. Then I will put it firing up and see if it sounds better or worse. It will be in the compartment in front of the helm.


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## jimmy2345 (Jul 12, 2010)

Marine grade plywood?? First time I have seen that used for a speaker box.

Nice install.


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## Silverbullet555 (Apr 26, 2010)

jimmy2345 said:


> Marine grade plywood?? First time I have seen that used for a speaker box.
> 
> Nice install.


Wetsounds has found the MDF seemed to have trouble in the marine environment, even with resin coating. It probably would have been fine since this is in a dry spot, but I went with their recommendation.


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## Silverbullet555 (Apr 26, 2010)

Finished the speaker box tonight with some carpet. Did it the easy way and it is not perfect, but it will do.










The carpet definitely hides the defects in the box which I like.

Put some rubber weatherstripping on the bottom of the speaker and then wired the two voice coils together to make a 4 ohm speaker.










Next to a spray can to illustrate the size.









Speaker all screwed down and ready to thump.


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## scooter99 (Dec 21, 2008)

Did you get pics of this installed yet? Or is it installed yet? I'm very interested cause I have a situation where I need to do something similar and I want to see how and where you installed it.


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## Silverbullet555 (Apr 26, 2010)

scooter99 said:


> Did you get pics of this installed yet? Or is it installed yet? I'm very interested cause I have a situation where I need to do something similar and I want to see how and where you installed it.


What pictures do you want to see more of? It is mostly installed. I had to remove an amp to send back for repair and the sub has to be replaced. The deck and stereo panel are in as is the main panel.

The cover is not quite on yet as I need to stop tomorrown and pick up some additional tape for the grills.

Let me know what you want to see and I will take some pics this weekend or post links to what I have already taken.


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## scooter99 (Dec 21, 2008)

I was wondering where you put the subbox mostly.


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## Silverbullet555 (Apr 26, 2010)

scooter99 said:


> I was wondering where you put the subbox mostly.



I don't have much in the way of pics of the sub since I had to pull it to replace the sub.

The boat I have has two storage consoles. One in front of the driver and one in front of the passenger. The amps are in the storage locker in front of the passenger and the sub is in the storage area in front of the driver.

I will start with the sub firing at the side of the boat. If I don't like the sounds I can change the sub to firing up, towards the driver or towards the inside of the boat. The box design allows me to place it in any of those positions.

This isn't my boat, but behind each of the seats you see in this picture is a large storage area. On the drivers side is the sub and on the passenger side are the amps. As soon as I get the new sub installed I can take some more pics.


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## scooter99 (Dec 21, 2008)

Ok sounds good!


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## jfried (Jan 29, 2015)

Sorry to dig up an old thread... is it possible to get the pics back?


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## Silverbullet555 (Apr 26, 2010)

I'll see what I can dig up.


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