Spacejunky

Now I know there have been lots of posts on this, and I think I have read all of them over the last 24 hours. But none of them really answer my questions. If maybe I missed some of the posts I appologize, please just point me in the right direction if this has been answered before.

What I want to do:

I am trying to wire in two devices into the fuse panel. I am installing a radar detector and a satellite radio unit. I want the power for both items to come from the fuse box, and I am going to run the power lines from there to the top of the dash board where both items will be kept.

What I have:

2 mini vampire cable attachements line those posted by others. Also 30ft of 16 guage wire.

My problems:

It seems that there is not enough room in the fuse panel to attach one of the vampire clips to the upper set of fuses without having problems with putting the door to the fuse panel back on.

Also, which are the best spots to stick each of the vampire cables as to not have any elecrical problems. Such as how high a fuse to stick on the vamp cable.

Is the easiest thing to do to just cut off the attachment that came with the device for the cigarette lighter cable and then attach two wires to that. The hot one goes to the vamp cable, and the other one to ground.

Is there akready a good ground spot near the fuse panel to but the ground wires as to not have to drill a new one?

I appreciate any help that you all can give me.

Charles Cope

A couple questions/comments..

Do you know the current rating for the two accessories you will be using? that should tell you how to fuse your new power feeds. Worst case - fuse below the capacity of the 16gage wire should be fused at 15 amps (I'd go less if possible).

Can you use the ground connection on the fender? Just get an eyelet that works for a 6mm - 1/4" bolt

good luck on the vampire connections

cc

Spacejunky

The Sirius unit I am using uses a 3A fast blow(no jokes) fuse.

For the vamp connectors, I have fuse sizes up to 15A. Since I want the circuit to pull extra amps due to adding the devices, I may need to go up from the current fuse size. So if it is normally a 10A circuit, and I add a 3A device, I take a chance of blowing it too early, so I might go to 15A fuse. But this of course means I take the chance of the fuse not blowing soon enough.

I can not find any information on the amp pull of my radar detector. It is a Cobra ESD-9210. I am guessing it is no more than 3A also.

Not sure how much this extra info helps. I appreciate any help on this.

vmiller6

When I hard wired my radar detector I found an unused live with ignition fuse (in my case they had wired for power sunroof that's not there) and I just tapped into that. I have done this on several cars. It always works. Also with the fuse in the line before it hits the fuse box, you don't have to worry to much about a fuse not going soon enough. That fuse will always go 1st no matter what amp fuse you have in the box.

Spacejunky

Even though there is no running amps for the detector I can find, I did open up the cigarette lighter plug for it and found a 2A fuse. I should be good then with the standard fuse for wherever I stick each of these. So the question then is the room, and any particular location.