Electrical questions

[Hendrik]

I want to structure all of my electrical wires, fuses and relais. after a bit off searching on the internet I found these:

at http://www.vehicle-wiring-products.co.uk/V...ays/relays.html

Does someone know them or are there some other options?

Thx in advance!

Hendrik

[FridgeFreezer]

Those are very neat - bit spendy for my tastes but a good way to get stuff organised and reliable. VWP have had far too much of my hard-earned over the years

Before you buy one (or something similar), sit down and draw out your entire electrics system and PLAN how you want it to work, what goes where, what needs changing / improving / fusing / would benefit from the addition of a relay etc.

Then plan for things you might possibly want to add on in future - you'd be miffed if you wired that lot in then added a new stereo and had to bodge an extra fuse + supply somewhere 'cos there was no space left in the proper box

BTW many modern cars have a battery-mounted (or near-battery) fuse-and-relay box that you can have for a few quid from the scrapyard, I think some later Metros and other Rovers had them. They may not do it all (and you'll probably need to buy replacement terminals for it to make the job neater) but you'll save a lot of dosh and they're not bad bits of kit. Likewise, the fuse holders from Range Rovers are not bad and the terminals can be bought from VWP, they hold a lot of fuses and you'd have to spend about £25 at VWP to get a similar holder.

If you have the time, go on an electrics hunt at the scrapyard with a few quid in your pocket, pick up any fuse boxes / relay holders etc. that take your fancy and try to grab as many fuses & relays (esp. high amp ones) as possible. Scrapyards don't sell a lot of that stuff (how often does your fuse holder break?) so it should be cheap. Also look out for some cars that have miniature circuit breakers in place of fuses, these are £££ to buy but the scrap bloke won't know what it is. The ones I found are a black thing about 10mm x 30mm with two spade terminals on the back, a little red button on top and "10A" written on them. Difficult to spot but worth having. As are 40/50/60A relays (look for glow plug relays from diesels, electric window/sunfroof relays in big Volvos/BMW/Merc etc.) useful as "master" relays for some circuits.

[rtbarton]

I wondered about one of these, but the trouble with centalising relays & fuses is that you increase the amount of wire you use.

I opted for a distributed system, the headlight relays are near the headlights which means there is one thick wire to the ront of the vehicle and thinner wires to control the relays.

[FridgeFreezer]

Wire is crud proof, relays aren't so...

In the 109 I had a fat cable to behind the dash, bussed across two fuse holders, which then powered everything via relays behind the dash.

In Petal, we applied the same principle but it was all in the roof so Jez would drown before Petal would. It worked too, although Jez totally failed to drown

(This went up to about 3" from the top of the windscreen )

[rtbarton]

Pefectly valid point, mount them in the roof I say!

My Landrover won't get used for that sort of work - but I have in fact put the relays in Tupperware boxes!

[Nigel H]

While at the scappy look out for "plug-n-play" diodes as well - they can be very useful in some Electrickery circuits

[FridgeFreezer]

Got to love tupperware

[siearl]

In that case who's up for a party.