Car Accessory Wiring

[Yatys 93]

currently in the process of updating a 2001 90 series land cruiser prado, adding a few small electrical parts, and wondering if it's possible to add an accessory powered bus bar? say run a wire from an accessory fuse to a relay, then from the relay connect to a battery? just with looking at adding a few things, 2 dash cams plus replacing the rear mirror with a digital one since I can't see out the back with the camping set up there, couple gauges, extra usb ports/ cig lighter to the rear seats for charging, you get the idea, lot of wires and multiple fuse splitters which is where my idea came from? On the one hand this sounds like it should work fine, but also I've only tinkered a little with car electrical work so could be missing something?

 

TIA

[emosun]

a couple dashcams and a review mirror shouldnt need a relay

[Yatys 93]

14 minutes ago, emosun said:

a couple dashcams and a review mirror shouldnt need a relay

sorry, poor wording, when I said accessory I meant turns on and off when the key is turned, so I would take a wire from a fuse that only sees 12v when the key is turned to a relay, which will then allow power from the battery to power the bus bar, which will then power all of the devices, and then when the car is off the relay will disconnect the battery and nothing will drain my battery overnight.

[artuc]

Fine to do if you want. 

 

If you're doing a lot you usually would use a dedicated fuse/relay box as it ends up neater than dinky inline fuses and relays everywhere.

 

Also consider if doing or already have an aux/dual battery setup as that can change what is wired to where as you would likely run most stuff off that battery not your starter.

[Heats with Nvidia]

Also please either put a fuse right next to the battery that can take the max amount of current you will use at the same time with wht you want to add and use a cable that is thick enough for that current to connect to your fuse box, or place the fuse box very close to the battery. Because if that cable is ever damaged, you will have a cable that is directly connected to your battery possibly touching ground, which in this case is almost everything else made of metal. And thats an extreme fire hazard, hence a fuse as close to the battery as possible is needed.

[Yatys 93]

On 10/30/2023 at 11:10 AM, artuc said:

Fine to do if you want. 

 

If you're doing a lot you usually would use a dedicated fuse/relay box as it ends up neater than dinky inline fuses and relays everywhere.

 

Also consider if doing or already have an aux/dual battery setup as that can change what is wired to where as you would likely run most stuff off that battery not your starter.

IF I can find somewhere to actually put the thing, I'm looking at this: https://www.switchboss.com.au/collections/fuses-and-fuse-blocks/products/6-way-fuse-box-with-bus-bar 12 is probably over kill but its only $6 more than a 6 way and rather have a few empty than need to replace it later

 

only planing on the one relay at the battery end like you said this cuts down on the wiring, plus I'll add a fuse somewhere on that run.

 

as for the aux battery, that's already in as there is a fridge and camping lights wired in, and I am debating adding a second battery in the engine bay too since I will be adding a few high current parts, there are already a pair of 9 inch LED spotlights on the bullbar, I am thinking about adding a light bar to the roof for more light spread, kangaroos like to appear out of nowhere at night so more light to avoid that, plus I recently discovered the centre of Australia has wild camels that like to sleep on the road, so that a terrifying thought, also a winch so doubling my battery capacity for that would be great, the camping battery is only connected to the starter battery when the engine is running so the fridge doesn't drain them both, but all of these mods will only be used while the engine is running so as long as the relay does it's job I should be safe, maybe, fingers crossed...

[Yatys 93]

On 10/31/2023 at 2:31 PM, Heats with Nvidia said:

Also please either put a fuse right next to the battery that can take the max amount of current you will use at the same time with wht you want to add and use a cable that is thick enough for that current to connect to your fuse box, or place the fuse box very close to the battery. Because if that cable is ever damaged, you will have a cable that is directly connected to your battery possibly touching ground, which in this case is almost everything else made of metal. And thats an extreme fire hazard, hence a fuse as close to the battery as possible is needed.

everything and anything in this car is fused, even the voltage monitor as 2 fuses lol, for the battery stuff I have a bunch of 100 amp midi fuses so I will most likely grab another holder for this and add one of those, or I might just get a circuit breaker, see whats in stock when I go shopping