Upcoming wiring project

**warning, i may ramble***

ok, so i want to make sure i have everything on hand for my upcoming wiring project. i want to wire an aux. fuse block in my truck to distribute power for my fog lights, off road lights on my brush guard, my reverse lights that will be mounted on my bumper, and for my power inverter. i've been doing some research, and there is some gaps in my information.

when i run my power to my fuse block, should i use another inline fuse from the battery to the fuse block?

with all of my lights, i plan to run relays so i'm not sending power straight from the fuse block to the switch. now here is my thoughts on the power inverter. i'm looking at one that is 400 watts continuous, is it even possible to run wires from my blue sea fuse block to a relay then to the inverter? i'm fairly certain that will have to be a pretty large gauge wire. if you are wondering why i want to run it off of a switch, i plan to mount the inverter under the seat so if i can just use a dash mounted switch rather than fish around under the seat for the on off switch i would much rather do that.

what gauge wire should i run from the battery to the inline fuse or whatever to the fuse block? from what i've read, i need to add up all the demands for everything i intend to run off the block, correct?

thats all of the questions i can think of right now. i'm sure i'll think of more as i get into this.

thanks!

 

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Did you see this thread?
http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/technical-chat/103969-electronics-basics-reference.html

 

ah thank you for posting that. i missed that one some how. i'll go through that and then come back if i have anymore questions

 

Sounds good. I would look at the specs of the inverter you want to get and see what the amp draw is on that, then base your wire gauge and relay off of that.

 

on that inverter it is not 4 amps draw. if you run 400 watts thats about 34amps draw. 400/12=33.33 amps.

 

Alright, yeah I'm not to familiar with inverters. I figured it was the output volts that you calculated with.

 

well depends on what you are discussing. in ops case he needs the draw which is 34 amps. if you want to power something off the inverter about 4 amps is all that can be powered off the inverter which is not much. as you said there 400/110=3.63 amps

 

well i've been researching on my upcoming project. i think i may have found a hiccup in my plans. my fuse block says it "give 30 Amperes rating per circuit". my 400 watt rms power inverter (assuming it never goes into the peak demand) will require 32 amps.

i figure my total amp demands (using 12.5 volts) will be 70 amps, but i'm not sure if my fuse block can handle it (it has 6 available slots), mainly because the inverter requires 32 amps and thats assuming it never goes into peak demand.

i think the most i would be plugging into the inverter would be my laptop or maybe my charger for my led drop light. i actually probably dont even need an inverter as high was 400 watts rms.

 

At this point I would just wire it to it's own fuse separate of the fuse block.

 

use a distribution block. one big wire runs to the distribution block. then 2 smaller yet still big wires. the distrubution block has 2 large fuses. still a good idea to put a large inline fuse close to the battery though.