fused

I can't believe its been 10 days since I updated. There have been many nice days, and a few productive ones. I have been keeping a checklist of action so I can post. Before I get into it, I want to apologize to the folks who have commented on this blog who I have not responded to. I'm not all that great about posting, so just because I've now figured out how to deal with the comments, it doesn't mean that I'll be better about responding. I will try, though.

Fuse Box

After looking at different after-market and RV fuse boxes, I decided to go old-skool. I bought a VW bus fuse box off of TheSamba (www.thesamba.com/vw). I figured, it has 12 fuse locations, so, why not? After pulling out the extra relays (which I'll re-sell) and some of the wires, it's ready for re-purposing. For reference, I'm going to document my fuse assignments below.

There are a couple of interesting things to note about these boxes that I only figured out by digging into them this way. Some of the "supply-side" fuse locations are electrically connected. Obviously, this was by design, but if you're going to re-purpose a fusebox, you need to be aware of that. Also, some of the relay holes are sub-sized. this is again by design so a relay can only fit one way, but it makes "input" side decisions a little more limited.

FUSES

in - out - purpose

32 - 1 - cab, kitchen overhead lights

32 - 2 - OPEN

18 - 3 - stereo

06 - 4 - stove 12V plug

06 - 5 - overhead NAV 12V plug

14 - 6 - CD changer

30 - 7 - pop-top light

30 - 8 - OPEN

07 - 9 - OPEN

07 - 10 - slider 12V plug

02 - 11 - OPEN

02 - 12 - OPEN

I followed a simple rule of pairing circuits which wouldn't be used at the same time.

One thing to call out here is I'm re-using the old fridge electricals. Meaning, the city/battery switch, charging timer, fridge on/off switch all come into play. All of the circuits above will pull directly from the battery, except for the 2 dedicated to lights: 1/2 and 7/8. Those 2 inputs (32 and 30 respectively) will be fed by the wire that used to feed the fridge. So, the lights will have a main switch (fridge on/off switch), and will be capable of being fed directly from the shore power line. I don't know if it will really matter that much, but I think its important to remember. Since the battery charging mechanism feeds the accessory battery(s), everything will benefit from the shore power in some way.

Stringing Wire

The rest of my time these past few days has been pushing wire around. I mentioned a "NAV" 12V plug, for example. I'm putting a 12V accessory plug over the passenger-side sun visor so I can plug in my Garmin, string it across the top of my windscreen, and post it next to my rear-view mirror. This will keep the wires out of my line-of-sight while placing the NAV screen where my eyes will already be looking regularly. While switching the source to the accessory battery (reducing the risk to draining the primary if I left the NAV on by accident), this also leaves the original 12V cigarette lighter socket open. I had to run the wire for that from under the rear seat (where the fuse box is headed), into the driver-side cabinets, towards the rear and then into the headliner, all the way to the front passenger corner. The lighting wiring is in, and I started the CD changer and stereo wiring. I'll finish that up, with some speaker wiring following that, and then I should be getting ready to start re-assembling the interior.

That's it for today. I need to get back to the engine electrical stuff. I've been delaying that, waiting for a full workday window to work in. I think this Saturday will be my opportunity. Wish me luck starting it for the first time since mid-April with the now-repaired engine harness, additional OBDII plug and re-wired radiator fan circuit.