Confusing Wiring Diagram

[Inarticulate]

Hey all,

I bought a little self-powered Blaupunkt subwoofer and am trying to install it myself. I can't for the life of me figure out how to wire it. It comes with its own harness, which has two 16 gauge power wires and two 16 gauge ground wires. I emailed Blaupunkt and asked them if I use both, and they said no - one set or the other. However, check out the diagram - it shows both power wires going to a single connection. Same with the ground. Anyone have any ideas?

 

[Stevenredx]

Looks to me like you use both of them.... i don't really understand why they would put two if you didn't use both of them.

 

[project-c2]

I would just run it like the diagram says. Power both and ground both. Only one way to find out if it works.:biggrin:

 

[TacoInvader]

Yep, I wouldn't definitely run both. It's not going to hurt anything by doing that.

 

[Inarticulate]

Thanks guys, that's what I'll do.

But now here's my second question: what do I run between the battery and the fuse? Two 16 gauge wires? One 16 gauge? One 8 gauge?

 

[project-c2]

How many Watts are you pushing. 8 ga. maybe to 2 (whatever fits in the terminals)?

 

[Inarticulate]

It's only a 70 watt RMS, 140 watt peak amp. The fuse terminal will fit up to an 8 gauge. That was the smallest I could find.

So I should pretty much double what's there? 16awg X 2?

 

[blackx-runner]

It's only a 70 watt RMS, 140 watt peak amp. The fuse terminal will fit up to an 8 gauge. That was the smallest I could find.

So I should pretty much double what's there? 16awg X 2?

use the biggest wire that the amp connections will fit, and make sure to instal an inline fuse close to the battery.

 

[Scratchy]

Wire size doubles every 3 gauges. So in your case, 2x16ga = 1x13ga.
So 12 or 10 gauge would be plenty in this case.

 

[gravity]

you can run a 16 gauge from amp to fuse then run 16 back to amp

 

[BlackCat]

They probably packaged the 2 16ga wires on each of the power and gnd because it's a common harness that gets used in other applications where those same wires are used for other purposes. But, in your application, they dedicated both wires to pwr and gnd because one 16ga pwr or gnd wire by itself wouldn't handle the peak amperage loads so they needed both together. As for what to run from batt to fuse, the biggest wire you can make fit safely. I would use a minimum of whatever you've got going from the fuse to the amp itself (i.e. two 16ga or whatever the equivalent of a single core wire is).