Thread: 12v cables, voltage drop and good locations.

Hey all,

Can anyone point me at some threads discussing:

A) cable sizing/voltage drop and what's best for running power to the read or a D2 with a future rear aux battery setup in mind

where is best to buy said cable in Bris or delivered to Bris.

C) good cable paths / entry points into the rear cargo area. Thinking of aux fuse box on drivers side at the moment, but if there's a better path on passenger side I'm happy to realign my head a bit.

Links and/or advice would be much appreciated! :-)

Cheers Wil

Ps: I did search a few times, but on my mobile app the results weren't great. would do better on the computer but couldn't find a power socket on the bus. Curse you Translink.

When I had a D2 (13 yrs) had two aux batteries. One in the normal place LH firewall, and one up in the rear RH mudguard.

Way back when I killed an Engle with ostensible 25 Amp cable - lots of insulation for the rating and little copper. Voltage drop and Amp increase burned out the motor in the sealed unit; ie volts go down, Amps go up!

At the recommendation of the Engle guy I re-wired the whole truck fridge circuits with 8mm with soldered eyes and blades; and all the other power circuits for Laptop, inverter,and sundry other things with 6mm. Those diameters are for the actual copper, not the cable dia. Apart from the fusible links on the batteries, all of the "power" fuses were ditched and replaced with 30 Amp Circuit breakers and control was through 30 Amp relays. Only the smaller end services were fused, the fridge ran on control relays, and circuit breakers directly from each battery and through the 8mm cable. Once that was all done never a worry.

Unless you have a professional crimping tool which will cause the copper in the crimp to flow between the cable strands, except for light duty, solder everything.

All is much cheaper and less inconvenient than having your fridge crap itself; and Sods law says it will always fail at the most inconvenient time in th most inconvenient and expensive manner.

I'm currently building the same system into my SVX.

Oh! and to make sure you can get everything little last drop out any solar panels same rules apply, mine run 6-7mm twinflex with caravan plugs out out to about 30m in two joinable lengths.

Cheers

RF