Wiring help

[educky]

I tend to underthink on somethings and overthink on others, and it's a curse, I've been staring at boxes for things in my garage i need to get in my rig, but always put it off because I'm not sure I'm doing it right... So I present you a MS Paint Diagram! (Ignore the fuse values and there is a reason I am not wiring the ground straight to the battery so please be gentle on me)



Does this look okay? Id rather minimize running cables through the firewall, and while I could get some power from somewhere in the cab, I don't necessarily think this is a bad option either so i don't have to splice in some harness somewhere. Do I have the gauge wire alright?

 

[Ubiety]

Looks reasonable to me as long as you are sure of your grounds. I am not an EE though, more of a trained monkey... ;)

 

[Flipper]

IMO I would run 4 to the breaker from the batt and both the fuse blocks from the breaker with 6 instead of a fuse block into another fuse block

 

[Dilldog]

You will want to run your ham radio on a dedicated circuit straight to the battery so you don't get electrical interference and noise. Also most radio manufacturers recomend fusing both the power and ground and running both straight to the battery.

 

[educky]

IMO I would run 4 to the breaker from the batt and both the fuse blocks from the breaker with 6 instead of a fuse block into another fuse block

Would you then run 2 diff breakers I'm assuming?

 

[educky]

You will want to run your ham radio on a dedicated circuit straight to the battery so you don't get electrical interference and noise. Also most radio manufacturers recomend fusing both the power and ground and running both straight to the battery.

This was mentioned in another thread, but there's a ground sensor on my vehicle and the consensus is to find a different ground rather than dealing with the ground charging sensor. I don't have the link on me explaining it, but I know typically you want to go through the batt neg, but in this case can not.

 

[Flipper]

Would you then run 2 diff breakers I'm assuming?

Either way, you could tap your 2M right off the breaker also which would basically be a direct run from the batt, which is a good idea by Dilldog. The one plus with one breaker, if you have an emergency issue to troubleshoot you can completely disconnect your system with the manual trip on the breaker and isolate it from your trucks stock wiring. A good ground is very important, I would make my own and not depend on the trucks wiring to have a direct ground especially with all the plastic in vehicles today. We rented a Jeep the last time we were in Colorado and the only place I could find to put my magnetic mount 2M antenna was the wheel well on the inside of the cab everything else was plastic! Lol

 

[educky]

Either way, you could tap your 2M right off the breaker also which would basically be a direct run from the batt, which is a good idea by Dilldog. The one plus with one breaker, if you have an emergency issue to troubleshoot you can completely disconnect your system with the manual trip on the breaker and isolate it from your trucks stock wiring. A good ground is very important, I would make my own and not depend on the trucks wiring to have a direct ground especially with all the plastic in vehicles today. We rented a Jeep the last time we were in Colorado and the only place I could find to put my magnetic mount 2M antenna was the wheel well on the inside of the cab everything else was plastic! Lol

Like one of these? Again, the Ground loop prevents me from grounding to battery, Wiring & Grounding
see the ELD section.

 

[Flipper]

Yey

Like one of these? Again, the Ground loop prevents me from grounding to battery, Wiring & Grounding
see the ELD section.

Wiring #3 exactly! You are correct with the grounds also, seat bolts are a good choice. I had a extra AC Inverter in my other truck before I upgraded to a pure sine wave so I decided to put it under the drivers seat facing out the back in our Outback. Fused it at the battery with a blue Seas post mount then ran 4 thru the firewall then down thru the center console. When I went to use one of the drivers seat mounting bolt for the ground, especially with a very high current draw I noticed Subaru had the carpet cut in three sides of a 2” square in the carpet under the seat when I pulled the carpet flap back to see what they cut the carpet for, there was a ground stud welded directly to the floorboard with nothing on it!! must have been for some accessory that we didn’t have, made my day! Love working on that car, so well engineered. There was even a rubber blank in the firewall soI didn’t even have to drill to pull the 4 ga.

 

[educky]

Yey
Wiring #3 exactly! You are correct with the grounds also, seat bolts are a good choice. I had a extra AC Inverter in my other truck before I upgraded to a pure sine wave so I decided to put it under the drivers seat facing out the back in our Outback. Fused it at the battery with a blue Seas post mount then ran 4 thru the firewall then down thru the center console. When I went to use one of the drivers seat mounting bolt for the ground, especially with a very high current draw I noticed Subaru had the carpet cut in three sides of a 2” square in the carpet under the seat when I pulled the carpet flap back to see what they cut the carpet for, there was a ground stud welded directly to the floorboard with nothing on it!! must have been for some accessory that we didn’t have, made my day! Love working on that car, so well engineered. There was even a rubber blank in the firewall soI didn’t even have to drill to pull the 4 ga.

Hrm, I was really hoping to simplify by having fuse blocks used, so I'm going to have to run two positives into the cab... so the name of the game is to isolate the ham from the rest of the gear as much as possible, would this mean I cant use the same ground (seatbolt) for both the bluesea box AND the HAM? Also I guess I'll need to use the inline fuses on the cable provided with the ICOM, instead of the neat fuse block.

 

[Flipper]

Like one of these? Again, the Ground loop prevents me from grounding to battery, Wiring & Grounding
see the ELD section.

Keep the inline fuses that came with the 2M wiring harness like Dilldog mentioned also

 

[Flipper]

Hrm, I was really hoping to simplify by having fuse blocks used, so I'm going to have to run two positives into the cab... so the name of the game is to isolate the ham from the rest of the gear as much as possible, would this mean I cant use the same ground (seatbolt) for both the bluesea box AND the HAM? Also I guess I'll need to use the inline fuses on the cable provided with the ICOM, instead of the neat fuse block.

Ground is same ground for everything. These are just options, I have connected many radios into fuse blocks. I would use the Icom harness with fuses on + and - , what you could do is come right off the positive of your cab fuse block that comes from the breaker that way you won’t be running thru 2 fuses. Same with the neg from the 2M harness, take that right to the ground strip on the cab block

 

[educky]

Ground is same ground for everything. These are just options, I have connected many radios into fuse blocks. I would use the Icom harness with fuses on + and - , what you could do is come right off the positive of your cab fuse block that comes from the breaker that way you won’t be running thru 2 fuses. Same with the neg from the 2M harness, take that right to the ground strip on the cab block

Alright, I think I'll just run a 10ga from the breaker to the ICOM (using the ICOM fuses/harness) for now, and forego the in-the-cab fuse block for now. I'm much more interested in getting my HAM back in working order than other accys. I need to remember to K.I.S.S.

Thanks for all your advice!

 

[Flipper]

Alright, I think I'll just run a 10ga from the breaker to the ICOM (using the ICOM fuses/harness) for now, and forego the in-the-cab fuse block for now. I'm much more interested in getting my HAM back in working order than other accys. I need to remember to K.I.S.S.

Thanks for all your advice!

 

[Flipper]

I liked your idea with the cab block just connect the Icom harness to the pos and neg connection on cab block, it’s the same circuit and your losing the 2nd run for the radio. You are not going to see any difference with your 2M. I’m retired now but worked for a high end boat dealership where I installed all the electronics on the big offshore fishing machines, the big boys with the triple and quad engines so I think you can trust my suggestions. Good luck with your project, need any help, give me a shout!

 

[educky]

I liked your idea with the cab block just connect the Icom harness to the pos and neg connection on cab block, it’s the same circuit and your losing the 2nd run for the radio. You are not going to see any difference with your 2M. I’m retired now but worked for a high end boat dealership where I installed all the electronics on the big offshore fishing machines, the big boys with the triple and quad engines so I think you can trust my suggestions. Good luck with your project, need any help, give me a shout!

Opps sorry, do you mean my wiring2 diagram above? as opposed to running a 2nd wire for the icom? and for clarification for all of the diagrams, I did not mean running all of the items (lights, cb/frs, etc) on the same set of wires coming off the block, obviously there are plenty of connections on the block for everything to have it's own fuse etc.

 

[educky]

I liked your idea with the cab block just connect the Icom harness to the pos and neg connection on cab block, it’s the same circuit and your losing the 2nd run for the radio. You are not going to see any difference with your 2M. I’m retired now but worked for a high end boat dealership where I installed all the electronics on the big offshore fishing machines, the big boys with the triple and quad engines so I think you can trust my suggestions. Good luck with your project, need any help, give me a shout!

So we are talking about this correct? Or did I just muck up the understanding even more?

 

[Dilldog]

Like one of these? Again, the Ground loop prevents me from grounding to battery, Wiring & Grounding
see the ELD section.

Good to know, I was not aware of that subsystem.
To add, really you just want to get the radio wired in as close to battery as possible and on its own circuit to reduce the chances of noise when transmitting and receiving. You dont need to, the radio will still work, but people might tell you you have whine in the back ground. I think the diagram you have at this point will be good to go. Just keep in mind that if you get reports of a noisy signal you might need to try moving your power and ground around to get it effectively closer to the battery. I also wouldnt hook anything else up to the fuse block where you are pulling power and ground for the radio. If you run the factory Icom harness to maintain the fuses (I would do this) I would be tempted to ditch the fuse block all together and just wire it up to breaker. Again your concept looks good and it will work, but if you get noise just investigate better isolating the radio harness.

 

[slomatt]

Be sure to size the breaker and wire feeding it properly. The purpose for the breaker is to protect the wire from experiencing too much current, so if you have a fixed breaker size in mind (ex 80A) you should pick a wire gauge that can carry that current plus a reasonable overhead. The breaker should be located as close to the battery as possible to minimize the length of un-fused wire.

As others mentioned above it is important that radios have fuses on both the positive and negative wires. The fuse on the negative wire is to prevent large currents from grounding from the antenna through the radio if your main battery ground is damaged or disconnected.

As long as you have low resistance connections there is very minimal difference from an electrical perspective between connecting your radio directly to the battery vs to a fuse block

 

[educky]

While I know the answer to this is "Depends" is a 100a breaker fine for the use case in my last diagram. I actually will be only having HAM, maybe FRS, very maybe a 12v lead to my GoalZero on the cab fuse block, and maybe a compressor on the underhood block, maybe 6-8 offroad lights.