[aprssig] APRS In A Car

[Andy Gonzales]

If you are fortunate enough to have a newer vehicle, what is wrong with the
"always on" power ports.  (I wish they would use some other form of
connector than the cig lighter adapter).  I connvert to Anderson PP at a
distribution block.  The line feeding the block has pos and neg inline
fuses. The block feeds the D700 and a laptop adapter.  I do not use the
highest power setting on the D700 with the computer on.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Gleichweit" <smokeybehr at sbcglobal.net>
To: "TAPR APRS Mailing List" <aprssig at lists.tapr.org>
Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2006 2:36 PM
Subject: Re: [aprssig] APRS In A Car


I have a large stereo in the truck, along with the radios, and what I
did was run a piece of #1/0 from the hot side of the underhood
solenoid to a fused block on the speaker box, where the stereo amp and
other electronics are located, along with some radios. I also have a
piece of #1 wire running from where the cab attaches to the frame to
another (non-fused) block for the ground. The 1/0 line has an 80A fuse
under the hood, and each of the 4 fuses in the block are 40A. I try
and maintain all of the factory inline fuses in the radio power lines,
but I keep the runs as short as possible, or I use a larger gauge wire
to minimize the IR drop.

Once I get the truck cleaned up, I'll have to post some pix of the
install.

On Mon, 23 Jan 2006 22:42:37 -0500, "Robert Bruninga"
<bruninga at usna.edu> wrote:

>>... Maybe someone else had this problem,
>>it was a scary experience. ...  I imagine if it was
>>left unattended it would have caught fire.
>
>Yep I learned that lesson the hard way.
>GPS was running on the same power cable as
>the radio.  But was using small #26 wire.
>Yes, radio is fused at 10 amps, but when the
>GPS cable shorted under the seat, the #26
>got red hot (still drawing less than 10 amps)
>and caught the center console on fire.
>
>I got me, and the radio and laptop out of the
>car and then chucked the flaming center console
>out of the car.  In another 10 seconds the car
>would have been toast.
>
>Lesson is that fuses only protect if the WIRE is
>big enough to blow them.  This is often overlooked
>when hanging small 100 mA devices off of the
>radio power cord.
>
>Bob
-- 
John "Smokey Behr" Gleichweit FF1/EMT, CCNA, MCSE
IPN-CAL023 N6FOG UP Fresno Sub MP183.5 ECV1852
List Owner x6, Moderator x4 CA-OES 51-507
http://smokeybehr.blogspot.com

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