Show off your aux fuse panels.

NP. This forum is all about sharing idea and warnings.

 

Damn. What all do you have wired to that?

 

Ditch lights, lightbar, and backup lights. Have room for 3 more accessories powered by a switch

 

What about that bus bar in the back? I see the 6 pos and 6 neg connections on the blue sea.

 

@paranoid56, I thought you’d like to see what I did to one of your auto brackets for the first gen to make it fit in a 2004 manual.

 

There’s 6 relays under the panel. The positive and negative on the blue sea are for the relays. The extra blue sea common bus is where I run all my negative wires for my accessories. The positive go to the dual bus.

 

You run all the grounds off your accessories all the way back to the panel? I'm building mine. Have a 6 rocker switch panel all wired up and ran through the firewall. Maybe I'm missing something here, but my plan for each accessory was one positive to come off the fused bus of the blue sea and go to relay, one from relay to neg bus on blue sea, switch to relay, relay to accessory, and accessory to local ground. Do this 4 times for 4 accessories and I only have 8 wires (4 pos + 4 neg) all going to the blue sea. I have no plan to run the other two busses you are running, but still run 4 accessories.

What am I missing?

 

I have 6 wires going through my firewall, one to each switch. No, I don’t run my grounds to a local ground. I prefer everything to be in one spot for ease of access if I need to remove an accessory quickly. From my relays, one wire goes to the + on the bus, one to the - on the bus, one to the acc +, and one to a switch. It’s a very common design. The only difference is I chose to use a common ground for everything and a dual bus bar to keep things clean and simple for easy install and removal. My accessories don’t require any splicing or soldering. They bolt in and bolt out when needed. I have a total of 12 wires going to the fuse block, which makes sense because I can add up to 6 accessories (6+ and 6- wires=12). You choose to only add 4, which is why you only have 8. Not sure what your confusion is.

 

You answered it. You run your grounds off the accessories all the way back to the panel. Thanks.

 

Yep, it just makes it easier for me. I also use that ground bar for other things not hooked up to my switch panel like my raptor lights and stuff. Better than running it off the battery terminal imo or some random bolt. It helps ensure I get a solid ground.

 

That is what I asking originally. That makes more sense to me now, raptor lights and other accessories not part of your switch panel are in play. I'm just grounding locally on "e" bolts that are already there (oem grounding bolts). I'd rather not run the line all the way back from my rear pods for example and add another bus.

Also, in case my 6 six rocker switch panel with four relays didnt make sense, the other two are for my compressor and locker.

 

Gotcha. My reverse lights are at a local ground on the frame under the bed, but my ditch lights and light bar are definitely grounded at the relay panel since it’s not a far distance. I’ll be wiring some side lights for my roof rack tomorrow and I’ll be tapping the grounds into the ground of the lightbar with solder to hopefully lessen the wires in the windshield weather strip. Not sure if it’ll work, but I think it should.

 

Why not just splice a wire off the light bar ground (heat shrink too) and use spade connectors past that? Then it wont be permanent and you could remove it if needed, versus soldering.

 

I’m not a big fan of using connectors or wire taps. I’m gonna solder onto the negative wire of the LB and use some deutch connectors at the pigtail of the lights so I can easily disconnect them easily if need be.

 

Ahh. Ok that is where I was going with it, disconnection at will. Yeah I dont like wire taps either.

 

Moved aux panel over the fuse box and added SPOD Bantam.

 

@m603holden

 

Sooon

 

Really? What should gauge should I replace it with? Going to have a CB, ham radio, and my 2 10” PIAA LED light bars. Probably going to put ditch lights and side lights on the truck as well. Advice is greatly appreciated!