BrunDog, Yours is the second reccommendation I heard on the Blue Sea. When I look on the mcmaster.com website, it shows a plastic cover - do you not need/use this?
More (probably) dumb questions...
To hook this up, can you go straight off of the battery or do you need some type of large in-line fuse box (i.e. 80 amp) in front of it? If so, how do you know how big of a fuse to use?
Is 12 guage wire sufficient for all of this?
For individually fused circuits, how do you know what size fuse to use?
Thanks for the replies. I really appreciate all of the responses.
Trust me when I tell you that the quality of this thing is VERY high. It does come with a plastic cover, but I am not using it. It is too damn big with it, and it is unnecessary as it does not provide any sealing or anything.
Your questions aren't dumb - that is why we have this forum.
If you go straight off the battery (or through a relay off the battery), you should add a big fuse at the battery terminal. This would prevent any problems if a short were to occur in the wire leading up to the fuseblock. I personally am running mine off the ignition bus, so mine goes through the 50A MAIN fuse of the bike. To pick the fuse size, add up all the normal maximum current draws of all the circuits. Multiply that number by 1.5 or 2 and use the resulting sized fused (round up to next size). For individually fused circuits, do the same thing. For example, if you have a GPS that draws 1 A, use a fuse of 2 A. Worse comes to worse, you will pop the fuse without damage to the unit, and then go up (3A, 5A, etc).
I used 12 AWG wire, but in hindsight I would have used 10 AWG. I have my Magnum blasters, my Audiovox cc, my digital function meter, my scorpion alarm, and my powerlet outlet hooked up to my block. Most are low current, but I still would have liked more copper.
By the way, you can also by resettable fuses. These are essentially circuit breakers that fit in the fuse (ATC) spots. These don't need to be replaced when a short occurs, but they are sometimes not recommended for sensitive electronic equipment. Check out
DigiKeyfor these.
-BD