clean up your wiring.. Bitches

BayouTiger wrote:

This is the start of my install of a blue sea fuse block. I'm going to run the ground buss directly to the negative terminal of the battery. My question(for Steve, lol) is I'm confused from a previous post about what I have to do to the positive buss to make it switched and not always hot?

I downloaded the wiring diagram for your BlueSea fuse block. It is intended for marine usage, so it has a block of terminals for providing return paths for each of the attached circuits. This is not typically done for automotive ground blocks. The reasoning is that in a marine application, the hull is not connected to any electrical circuit. If the hull is wood or fiberglass it simply would not conduct the electricity and if it was metal, it would cause all sorts of galvanic corrosion problems with the hull in the water.

I have annotated the diagram to show the addition of a relay to turn the fuse block on and off with the ignition hot circuit (typically you connect the relay coil to the pink wire on the auxiliary power connector (cigarette lighter socket).  How you do the grounding of the various circuits that you are adding is important for the survival of your stock wiring harness. If you connect your fuse block grounding block directly to the battery negative (-) terminal and connect all of your new auxillary circuit grounds to the fuse block itself, all will be fine. If you want to use the frame as a grounding path for any of these circuits (assuming significant current draw) you must improve the Rhino battery grounding scheme! Read this post regarding the improvement of your stock grounding:
hotrodrhinoforums.forumotion.com/t1104-improve-your-grounding



Oh yeah, as an afterthought: Convention has it that the positive side wiring is Red and the negative side wiring is Black for the primary circuit wiring. Color does not matter to the electricity that is flowing, but it avoids nasty sparks when hooking things up backwards and shorting things out. Banding the ends of the wires with the proper color of electrical tape is a thing that is commonly done when only one color of wire is on hand.

Thanks Steve...
I'm pretty savvy with AC wiring being that my dad is a retired electrician and I grew working with him on holidays and summers, just not to swift when it comes to 12v automotive wiring.  The wiring in the photo is just mocked up. The final wiring will be color coded.

I stopped at several parts stores today and no one had 80amp relays. I have found some on fleabag along with a circuit breaker.

I'll post as the project progresses.

Tony

BayouTiger wrote:

I stopped at several parts stores today and no one had 80amp relays. I have found some on fleabag along with a circuit breaker.

Frys electronics (and likely other diverse electronics supply houses) has a 70A automotive style relay if you are still shopping. These guys use an unusually large spade terminal for the contact connections (something like 3/8" wide tabs).
http://www.frys.com/product/6401272?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

If you are going to have the relay in an exposed location, it would be a good idea to seal all the seams and possible leak points with an electrical grade of RTV silicone sealant. The electrical grade is also called 'non-corrosive'. I use it for most all of my sensitive electrical stuff. Loctite 5040, Dow Corning 737, and GE RTV 118 are some that are out there in the market.

So is the painless 70207 the right choice?  Are their other good options? I think i'd like to have a couple of switched circuits, at least one for the horn and one for lights. Might be nice to have it set for future additions...