Dual Battery Upgrade. Some specific questions

So after going through a few of the dual battery threads I am going the Blue Sea ACR route.
http://bluesea.com/category/2/productline/overview/387

Just really like the clean look of it. Here is my stereo setup. 2 Kicker Amps. A 700.5 to run the Cabins and sub. (4 polk DB's and a 12 inch Kicker sub). I have a Kicker ZX 350.2 running the tower speakers(2 MB Quarts). WE don't usually run both the towers and the cabins and until last year we never had the need to run the stereo with the boat off, but now with 2 little girls growing up we found ourselves at the sandbar occasionally so would like the chance to run the stereo w/o the boat on w/o fear of not starting.


My alternator is upgraded as are the lead wires. I honestly don't recall the exact specs at this moment, but I am pretty sure it was a 105amp alt. So good to go on that.
I have an Interstate Deep Cycle that i was planning on using(battery that came with the boat. I know its not an Optima or a Kenetic, but my stereo system isn't that big either. The specs on it are
Model SRM-24
550 CCA 690MCA. RC at 25amp is 140min


So a couple of final questions.....
Would this be a decent battery incorporate? The battery isn't that old and tests fine so wouldn't mind saving some cash in that department. Would I be best served running that as "batt 2" to the amps and getting a better/new "starting" battery, or keep that as the starting batt and buy a bigger aux batt? Or just nix it and buy 2 new batts altogether. Would most likely still stay standard batts not go Optima/Kenetic.

I understand you run the wire from the ignition to prevent overloading and have the relay work. Can you just add a wire to that purple connection and run it across or do you have to splice into the existing. Kind of a dumb question as I think you should just be able to add a second wire to the post, but I am by no means an expert in electronics on the boat and really don't want to short anything out

Also the wiring diagram recommends fuses in practically every connection? Should I abide by the rule? I am going to hard wire all my amps to the second battery and they all have fuses in their connections and the factory connections that are hardwired into the boat also already have that built in. Just curious on what the thoughts on this are? Any specific places that for sure require an extra fuse?



Thanks for the help.
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Ok
I can't speak about the quality of that batt because I honestly don't know.

As far as which battery goes where, well that kind of depends on what you want/value most. Using the blue sea systems isolator/relay you talk about above will isolate your two batteries, so do you value a good starter battery more or a better battery to run your audio system. The chances of you deep cycling your starter battery are lower and I'm more of an audio person so I would most definitely get more use out of the better battery being used as the auxiliary battery as I would be more likely to deep cycle it.

Now this is where you loose me. I'm not sure what you are talking about purple wires/splicing. A normal simple isolator would have three connections one for the alternator and two for your batteries. This keeps the two batteries 'separate' while the engine is off allowing your aux batt to be drained and your starter battery to remain untouched. This system appears to be doing the same thing with some added features. However it looks like you don't have to interrupt the flow from the alternator to the starter battery for this one to work. Not sure if that's what you are talking about.

Fuses are there to protect the wires. And thus should be placed close to the power source (battery) no more then 16 inches away. A lot of people will go without fuses when building systems because their amps have them and are 'protected', but when their power wires melt and start to burn they only have themselves to blame. Using the proper gauge wire will help prevent such problems as well. Personally if I'm going to run any power wire more then a foot I'll fuse the wire. Hope some of this helps.

I installed the Blue Sea 7610 ACR on mine right after i got the boat, the dealer had added the second batt but only ran a Perko, dumped it all and started over. Don't know about any purple wire. I do remember them stating to fuse both leads to the batts from the acr, i used thermal breakers in the correct wattage. I run the typical setup for batts, starting & deep cycle from interstate. I also run Kicker amps, a ZX700.5 & ZX650.4 and have no issues, but i also don't sit in a cove and blast the tunes at full volume either for hours. Wife would blast the back of my head if i attempted that one!

I hear you on the tunes Razz Same here. I will most likely be listening 1hr tops at a minimum volume. We don't win any stereo contests. Very rarely do I run the stereo w/o the boat running, but with my 2 little ones we find ourselves at the sand bar more often.

The purple wire I am talking about is what makes the Blue Sea "automatic" (It's purple on the MC ignition....maybe not on all boats)
You run it from the ignition to the Blue Sea and when the key is in the ACC position it breaks the circuit in order to only allow draw from the secondary battery. Upon turning the ignition it will switch back automatically to the "start" battery. So I think this takes place of wiring it from the alternator. It also has an internal sensor that will prevent a circuit overload while starting as well as combining the batteries if the voltage is to low. Upon the alternator kicking in and the unit sensing that it will charge both batteries at once. So that iginition wire makes it"smart" and hands free so to speak. I was originally going to go with a regular Borg Warner, but this Blue Sea was a nice little package I was turned on to I thought. It was clean, neat and simple.

I have decided to run the deep cycle to he stereo and bought an Interstate 24 MXHD dual purpose starter/deep cycle to be the main battery and my other deep cycle wil be the secondary to the amps. We shall see how it goes.

Thanks fo the replies guys.