Finally getting around to doing my electrical sub panel in the cruiser. its been a LOOOONG time coming and my additions to the system are making it a necessity.
My plan is to use this
Which is a dual panel fuse board. 6 circuits on A and 6 on B. Common ground bus and separate positive busses. This lets me assign some stuff to a circuit that is energized from a relay tied to my ignition hot, and some tied straight to the battery.
I’ve figure out mostly what Im doing in terms of wire, terminals, relays, switches etc but I still have some questions I was hoping to get help with.
1. Bluesea says that this block is maxes at 100 amps total, 30 amps per circuit (per fuse). I was thinking about having a single 4 awg wire come in from the battery to Bus A and then an 8 AWG wire from the BUS A terminal to the relay that will power BUS B. So all the current would hit the BUS A post, but it wouldn’t stay there nor would it exceed 100 amps. Would this be safe? Alternatively i would bring in 2 x 8 AWG lines from the battery and run them separate. Plan A is cleaner and makes my goal of having this entire fuse system as self contained as possible. The BUS studs are #10 - 32
2. I plan on having at least 2 relays in a box with all the fuses. My goal would be to buy a waterproof box I can seal up this system with glands. Bad idea for heat? Something like this
I would fab up a bracket for this and coming out of it would be 12 x 14 awg wire with weatherpak connectors and 2 large gauge wires headed to battery. Again the goal is that the box would be a new bracket away from whatever vehicle I want to install it in.
3. anyone have another good idea for a box? I was thinking about raiding the junkyard for an OE box from something, but I would gut it and use the box only. Im a little concerned about the durability of a hobby box like this in my engine bay.
4. should I just ditch the box idea and do a plate?
another interesting option that I like is to just bring it inside
(in the drivers footwell near some computers like locker and cruise control)
5. Lastly, and this one probably sounds really stupid...whats the story on grounding? Does the return to the negative buss need to be the same gauge as the supply? is there a good reason I shouldn’t terminate the ground at the device (on the chassis or body) instead of returning it to battery? It would save me a lot of trouble (and wire) to not have to bring the negative back to battery, but I also don’t want to have bad grounds.
I could have gone with a bussman like SO many people have done (and its a GREAT solution) but I wanted it my way, with ATC sized fuses instead of the minis.