michalik_piotr

Well, it wasn't cheap but I sleep better at night now not having a rat's nest of wires running off the + battery terminal. Easy straight forward install but time consuming. Used 4ga wire, fused it with an 80amp fuse, so far have 4 things running off of it and room for two more. I am really happy with the quality of Blue Sea Systems and highly recommend it! The 4ga connections are heat shrinked and I still plan on doing that to the others and doing some more wire clean up on the relays to my aux lights and HID's but for now everything is "safe".

vital22re

iTrader: (2)

do you have a before picture?

michalik_piotr

No, I do not...but, it looked messy. Like something bad was or could happen at any time. I had two sets of aux lights and a pair of HID's running off of it (they all had in line fuses but still....not the most sanitary way of having it, not to mention both pair of the aux lights had the old glass style fuses in line). Plus they were all the small gauge wire (14 I think?).

So, now all I have off the + are the two OEM wires, plus an 8ga amp wire and the 4ga to the panel. I think thats pretty clean and tolerable. Like I said the fuse panel is fused with an 80amp fuse it self as double protection and it is marine grade Took a long time to fire it all up but straight forward and maybe not as rewarding as a lift or a snorkel but makes ya feel better.

pfdaxe

Looks GREAT!. I've been meaning to do something like this. I have soooo much connected to the + side of my battery and it looks messy. Is the 80amp fuse block necessary? Do you have the 4g wire going from your + side of your batt into the 80amp block and then to your fuse block? Hard to tell from your pic. Does this fuse block need to be grounded or do you just need the + connection from the batt? Also, what are the upper right and left connections (black wire on rt. and blue and green wires on lt.)?

michalik_piotr

Thank you pfd, I know how clean all your installs are! Its been waaay over due for me.

Not sure if the 80amp fuse is necessary but its shown on the schematic that comes with the panel. I had a choice b/t that for $30 or a breaker for $60, so...

Yes, + off the batt goes to the 80amp then back to the fuse panel, so its basically like a big inline fuse on the + side. Then, the panel IS grounded with that big black 4ga directly to the frame.

It does look confusing in the pic but all the upper wires (4) are the -neg wires and the bottom (4, all red) are the +pos (they have the fuses). For example, on the left side, the bottom 15amp (third from the top) is a + from my rear aux lights and the ground for it is the blue on the bottom (third from top) of the 3 wires in the upper part of the panel on the left side. I have lables (stickers) i need to write and stick on there, this actually reminds me. Hope that makes sense. It will once you get the fuse panel, the schematic explains it well (I did have to look at it several times before realizing its actually pretty simple).

pfdaxe

Thanks for explaining....now you just cost me more $$$ as I just found my next project

Most of my grounds are under the dash so I'll either leave 'em there or reroute to the block....

I just checked my battery...and It looks like I have about "8" things (not including stereo amp +) connected to the + post. Ouch...looks like i'll need the 12 curcuit block.

michalik_piotr

Ya, not the most glamorous mod but like I said, I felt it was long overdue for me and I do sleep better now. I would have gotten the 12 circuit one (think it would have fit... You will have to cut/pound the "weld" on the firewall to make it a flat surface) but could not justify the extra cost. Plus, I figured if I hook up more then two more things I will either need a dual batt set up or a higher amperage alt and I do not want to do either so I better chill with the accessories! lol


Ya, 8 is a lot! I thought 5 was a mess! I also have some grounds under the dash from the light switches and to the frame from the lights themselves but the ones I did route through the panel are the grounds from the relays which I think are the most important (and easiest) to route through the panel. Unless someone knows otherwise?

Roadrunner

Is there power to the accessories all the time or did you wire it to power up when you turn your key to "ACC" or the engine is running? Thanks.

michalik_piotr

Key has to be to ACC or running. I didn't purposly do it that way (didn't even think about it) its just how it came out. Thats how it was w/o the panel though when it was running straight off the battery. I think that is due to the relays (for the two sets of aux lights) and b/c of the HID are plugged into the existing OEM harness. The panel does have juice on it all the time though, the 4ga runs from the + batt to/through the 80amp to the panel. I got the whole idea from someone else's post here that linked to a Blue Sea system panel write up someone did on a tacoma on a diff board (torra?).