Just joined? Please introduce yourself.
Page 17 of 61 FirstFirst ... 7151617181927 ... LastLast
Results 161 to 170 of 609

Thread: Nomad final assembly

  1. #161
    Registered Member chevynut's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2011

    Member #:115
    Location
    Fort Collins, CO
    Posts
    10,835
    Quote Originally Posted by 56Safari View Post
    The plugs are cheap enough you could always put a meter on one as you insert it to see if it shorts.
    Thanks that's a good idea. I really think that the narrowed down tip is designed that way to prevent shorting.

    Another option would be a 3 pin XLR connector, it's a bit larger but they will definitely not short out and the connectors lock into place when inserted.
    Yeah I found several cheap 3-pin connectors but all of them are a lot bigger than an audio connector. I would also want a cover for it to protect it and so it wouldn't show. I really like the idea of having such a small diameter connector for the laptop, like the audio plug. Otherwise I need to hide it better, like inside the console box with a cover on it. Putting it inside the box makes it a lot more difficult to remove the box if needed to get to the ECU.

    I think I'll try getting an audio connector pair and see if it will work. Thanks for the info.
    56 Nomad, Ramjet 502, Viper 6-speed T56, C4 Corvette front and rear suspension


    Other vehicles:

    56 Chevy 2-door BelAir sedan
    56 Chevy 210 4-door sedan
    57 Chevy 210 4-door sedan
    1962 327/340HP Corvette
    1961 Willys CJ3B Jeep
    2001 Porsche Boxster S
    2003 Chevy Silverado 2500 HD Duramax
    2019 GMC Sierra Denali Duramax

  2. #162
    Registered Member chevynut's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2011

    Member #:115
    Location
    Fort Collins, CO
    Posts
    10,835
    Here's a great website for connector info...

    https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials...tor-basics/all

    1/8" tip-ring-sleeve (TRS) is very common as the connector for headphones or audio output signals on MP3 players or computers. Some cell phones will provide a 2.5mm tip-ring-ring-sleeve (TRRS) jack for connecting to headphones that also include a microphone for hands-free communications.

    The common availability of these connectors and cables makes them a good candidate for general purpose connectivity applications--for instance, long before USB, Texas Instruments graphing calculators used a 2.5mm TRS connector for a serial programming connector. It should be remembered that tip-sleeve connector types are not designed for carrying power; during insertion, the tip and the sleeve can be momentarily shorted together, which may damage the power supply. The lack of shielding makes them poor candidates for high-speed data, but low speed serial data can be passed through these connectors.
    56 Nomad, Ramjet 502, Viper 6-speed T56, C4 Corvette front and rear suspension


    Other vehicles:

    56 Chevy 2-door BelAir sedan
    56 Chevy 210 4-door sedan
    57 Chevy 210 4-door sedan
    1962 327/340HP Corvette
    1961 Willys CJ3B Jeep
    2001 Porsche Boxster S
    2003 Chevy Silverado 2500 HD Duramax
    2019 GMC Sierra Denali Duramax

  3. #163
    Registered Member
    Join Date
    Aug 2015

    Member #:2643
    Location
    Tampa, FL
    Posts
    428
    Laz, are you getting close to mounting the body onto the chassis?
    Dave, from the old neighborhood in Jersey!

  4. #164
    Registered Member chevynut's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2011

    Member #:115
    Location
    Fort Collins, CO
    Posts
    10,835
    As I get closer to finishing my wiring I realize I'm running into a big problem and not sure what to do about it. Space is getting really tight inside the console. I ran the 4 gauge wire back to the amp along with the 20 gauge remote wire, the 6 RCA cables, and the four 16 gauge front speaker wires inside the console. Also, I'm having to split several wires that go to multiple locations inside the console, such as the dome light power and ground. Then there's a large wire for the backup camera that has to go from the stereo to the rear bumper. There are a lot more wires than I expected to deal with and I am wishing I'd used 20 gauge or even smaller wire for some circuits that are just signals. I probably over-killed wire sizes a lot of places but I used what I had available and was conservative with current rating.

    One solution to decrease the bulk of the of wires inside the console would be to run all of the amplifier and speaker wires UNDER the console but that has it's own potential issues. I may have to consider that anyhow. This is like cramming the proverbial 20 pounds of stuff into a 5 pound box . But wire bulk isn't the only problem....the other one is the number of fuses. I built a fuse panel several years ago with 24 ATO/ATC fuses that I thought was plenty, and was bigger than any panel I saw commercially available. The panel is made up of Packard 4-fuse blocks and it's pretty inefficient as far as space it takes up but it's easy to bus it.



    A big part of the problem is that the cruise control, A/C, mirror, stereo, fan controller, door lock controller, headlight controller, ECM, VHX computer, and keyless entry ALL require TWO power inputs, switched power and constant power. That's 20 fuses alone.

    My fuse panel would have been big enough had it not been for all these dual power requirements. Some of them make no sense to me, but some I understand why two power inputs are required.

    So adding up all the required fuses if everything was wired up separately comes to 43 fuses! I have already doubled up or even tripled up some of the power wires in the harness and still need 36 fuses. I don't have room to expand my current fuse panel any more and it's almost too crowded to route wires as it is. I am wishing I'd put more of the control modules in the rear of the console where the keyless entry is going to have to reside so I could expand the panel. But that's something I don't want to re-do.

    I can still double up some of the power wires but I can't get to 24. So I'm looking at getting a different fuse panel with ATM fuses packed more efficiently. I found a couple of them with 30 fuse capacity that are actually a lot smaller than what I now have partially since the fuses are smaller. My concern is getting all the wires into them and they're not bussed. I don't know how to bus them properly because each contact only accepts one 12 gauge wire and all of my power leads from the relays are 12 gauge which would need to be daisy-chained to individual contacts.

    Here's one that accepts 30 fuses and is only 4 1/2" long and 3 3/8" wide......


    Have any of you guys used this kind of fuse panel? Any ideas on how to bus it? I have 4 power sections, Retained Accessory Power, Ignition Power, Accessory Power, and Constant Power. The terminals they use are MicroPak 2.8 series.

    My other option is to put another ATO fuse panel in the rear of the console to expand the existing one. I have a few more blocks and a lot of contacts and there's plenty of room there. However, that would require running at least one more power lead to the expansion panel and extending a lot of the wires that would go there. Also, I had not planned to make the inside of the rear of the console easily accessible like I'm planning in the front in case I blow a fuse. The problem with the ATM fuse panel above, aside from bussing, is that it's still not quite big enough. I'd feel more comfortable with a 40-fuse panel. So maybe expansion is the answer.
    56 Nomad, Ramjet 502, Viper 6-speed T56, C4 Corvette front and rear suspension


    Other vehicles:

    56 Chevy 2-door BelAir sedan
    56 Chevy 210 4-door sedan
    57 Chevy 210 4-door sedan
    1962 327/340HP Corvette
    1961 Willys CJ3B Jeep
    2001 Porsche Boxster S
    2003 Chevy Silverado 2500 HD Duramax
    2019 GMC Sierra Denali Duramax

  5. #165
    Registered Member chevynut's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2011

    Member #:115
    Location
    Fort Collins, CO
    Posts
    10,835
    Littelfuse makes this 30 fuse panel but it's not bussed either. Also, with the long mounting legs it's 6" long. It is a nice panel though. I think you have to mount it raised off of the mounting surface, or cut a hole and mount it flush, routing the wires in from the back side of the panel.

    56 Nomad, Ramjet 502, Viper 6-speed T56, C4 Corvette front and rear suspension


    Other vehicles:

    56 Chevy 2-door BelAir sedan
    56 Chevy 210 4-door sedan
    57 Chevy 210 4-door sedan
    1962 327/340HP Corvette
    1961 Willys CJ3B Jeep
    2001 Porsche Boxster S
    2003 Chevy Silverado 2500 HD Duramax
    2019 GMC Sierra Denali Duramax

  6. #166
    Banned
    Join Date
    Nov 2015

    Member #:2775
    Posts
    1,426
    I would think for low current circuits you could combine some together on one fuse, and just run like a 5 amp fuse that will more than protect a even a 20 gauge wire. Personally I love terminal strips whenever possible for connections. Easy to connect and troubleshoot, which you might have to do quite often until debugged.

  7. #167
    Registered Member chevynut's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2011

    Member #:115
    Location
    Fort Collins, CO
    Posts
    10,835
    Yes I can combine more circuits, but it also has to make some sense to me. For example, the door lock controller constant power can be combined with the door lock relays and switch. The window controllers can be combined with the window switches and power vent windows. The rarely used horn can be combined with something else that's constantly powered. I plan to do some more of that.

    It's just as easy to troubleshoot a fuse panel by removing the fuses and probing the terminal. I don't like exposed screws on terminal strips. I'll plug in one or two fuses at a time after I hook up power to make sure everything works like it's supposed to. Hopefully I won't have much troubleshooting...

    I almost screwed up yesterday by splicing one orange wire to another, which wasn't the one I wanted. While it wouldn't have affected much, when you have a bundle of wires 1"+ in diameter it's easy to make a bad mistake. I've labeled everything and pull labels off after I terminate the wires. I wish I had more than 13 color choices to work with. Wagoncrazy posted a site a while ago (which I've since bought wire from) that sells every color of wire imaginable with every color of stripes.
    56 Nomad, Ramjet 502, Viper 6-speed T56, C4 Corvette front and rear suspension


    Other vehicles:

    56 Chevy 2-door BelAir sedan
    56 Chevy 210 4-door sedan
    57 Chevy 210 4-door sedan
    1962 327/340HP Corvette
    1961 Willys CJ3B Jeep
    2001 Porsche Boxster S
    2003 Chevy Silverado 2500 HD Duramax
    2019 GMC Sierra Denali Duramax

  8. #168
    Registered Member chevynut's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2011

    Member #:115
    Location
    Fort Collins, CO
    Posts
    10,835
    Pretty sure I've convinced myself that the right answer is to add a fuse panel like the one I have. This is primarily due to the issue of bussing. Here's how they buss the non-bussed panels, which is a mess imo.


    I now have 6 blocks of 4 in front, and it's REALLY tight. I may reduce that to 5 blocks (20 fuses), and add 4 or 5 blocks in the rear for a total of 36-40 fuses. That way I'll have a spare slot or two if I ever need them. I'll just have to figure out how to make the rear fuses easily accessible.
    56 Nomad, Ramjet 502, Viper 6-speed T56, C4 Corvette front and rear suspension


    Other vehicles:

    56 Chevy 2-door BelAir sedan
    56 Chevy 210 4-door sedan
    57 Chevy 210 4-door sedan
    1962 327/340HP Corvette
    1961 Willys CJ3B Jeep
    2001 Porsche Boxster S
    2003 Chevy Silverado 2500 HD Duramax
    2019 GMC Sierra Denali Duramax

  9. #169
    Registered Member WagonCrazy's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2012

    Member #:530
    Location
    Santa Clarita, CA
    Posts
    1,793
    I vote for putting an additional fuse panel in your rear console. And redesigning that to get access to it easily. Then keep on wiring...
    1957 Nomad- LS1/T56 on C4 chassis
    1959 Fleetside Apache 1/2 ton, shortbed, big window, 327ci.

  10. #170
    Registered Member chevynut's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2011

    Member #:115
    Location
    Fort Collins, CO
    Posts
    10,835
    Thanks Paul for the feedback. I agree that's probably the best choice right now. I took a look at it today and cutting the 6 blocks down to 5, and adding 5 in the rear makes a lot of sense.

    Normally one would start with a loaded fuse panel and work out from there to wire the rest of the car. I did it backwards. Since I already had a harness with 22 wires that went through the firewall on the driver's side it seemed to make sense to work from there and bring the wires down to the console. I did some of the harness design on the fly, making drawings as I went. I built the harness from the driver's side to the passenger side, and am now dealing with all the resulting wires going into the console. I hadn't really considered the difficulty of terminating the wires in the fuse panel.

    I'm getting there. Hopefully it won't be much longer and I'll be done with it and can move onto something else I need to deal with. Heading to Texas again on Wednesday for a week.
    56 Nomad, Ramjet 502, Viper 6-speed T56, C4 Corvette front and rear suspension


    Other vehicles:

    56 Chevy 2-door BelAir sedan
    56 Chevy 210 4-door sedan
    57 Chevy 210 4-door sedan
    1962 327/340HP Corvette
    1961 Willys CJ3B Jeep
    2001 Porsche Boxster S
    2003 Chevy Silverado 2500 HD Duramax
    2019 GMC Sierra Denali Duramax

Page 17 of 61 FirstFirst ... 7151617181927 ... LastLast

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •