Electrical Mis-Steps and a Course Correction - 03/18/2011
About 6 months ago I posted a small tutorial here that covered the construction of a fused relay box like this:
At the time, it was the result of not being able to find a small OEM fuse/relay box with support for 7 relays and 6 fuses and I thought my work was top notch. Haha! Well, Pez came in and told me what I could have done better and showed me a couple of pictures of boxes he’d built from scratch which really put my box to shame. At the time I got angry because his solution is what I spent weeks looking around for + I’d spent a weekend building my box, so I was childish, said some rude things to Greg (I’ve since apologized :)), and took the thread down lol! But, that was just me not being able to take constructive criticism…. Everything Greg said was true and much more elegant than what I designed, so in the end, it’s what I decided to go with for my primary fuse/relay box and the reason I ripped out my front harness after “finishing” it.
Here are some in-process pictures of the Delphi fuse/relay box I’m building from scratch:
Happy with my results, I posted the mouser.com BOM:
Basic Box Parts:
829-12146281
829-12146286
829-12162365
829-12160765
829-12077532
829-12146283
829-12146284
Relays
Omron SPDT Micro = 653-G8V-RH-1C7TRDC12 - Love these!!!
Omron SPST Mini = 653-G8W1A7TRDC12
Omron SPDT Mini = 653-G8W1C7TRDC12
Terminals:
Maxifuse Terminals = 829-12110127 - You'll need at least 8
Relay terminals (except for center section relays) - 829-12110844 & 829-12129424 - I bought > 50 of each type. The only difference between the two is the wire gauges they support. More options and part numbers are available in the datasheets on mouser.com, but beware of just looking for Female Metri-Pack 280 terminals because there are at least TWO types. The only type that works in this electrical center is the type that uses "Friction" as the locking mechanism. The "Tang" type DO NOT work. Ask me how I know :)
Center section terminals - 829-12110646 - I bought > 50 of these as well. These are bussed, which means they will come wired together. It's nice because it allows you to make mini power busses in the center section and simplify wiring, but it's also a small hassle because it means you have to snip them apart (I use shears) when doing singles.
Fuses:
Maxi:
576-0299030.ZXNV - 30A
576-0299040.ZXNV - 40A
576-0299060.ZXNV - 60A
Mini:
576-0297010.WXNV - 10A
576-0297015.WXNV - 15A
576-0297020.WXNV - 20A
576-0297025.WXNV - 25A
576-0297030.WXNV - 30A
The parts above are about 85% of what you need. Unfortunately, Delphi has discontinued a very important part of the box... The Power distribution block / stud:
http://connectors2.delphi.com/dcsgdmcs/del/attachments/2D Drawings (TIF Format)/12146285_CUS01_S01.tif
To complicate matters, you'll see that mouser is currently out of stock when it comes to the box cover and some of the locks. To get around this, I bought a used pre-constructed box from eBay:
The idea was to salvage a couple of parts I couldn't purchase anymore, but still have a mostly new fue/relay box in the end :)
If you want to do the same thing I did, just look for a 97+ Astro fuse box (Pez tip).
Extras:
Crimpers - I was able to get by with these:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002STTTI
BUT, these are not a crimp all solution. Fox example, the center section bussed terminals are very hard to crimp with one of these. Also, the sheer size of the maxifuse terminals make it impossible to use these. For the center section terminals I manually bent in the terminal teeth with needle nose pliers, then I used a basic crimp die to finish the crimp. For the maxi fuse terminals I was so unsatisfied with my crimps that I ended up salvaging pigtails from the fuse box I bought on eBay and spliced them into my existing wiring. I know Pez will be biting his tongue when he sees those splices lol! The right way to do it would be to buy the right crimper, but I really am trying to cut down on my one-use tools and this is one instance I just couldn't shell out the extra $$$ for the right tools. I DO trust my splices though, so it may look messy but it's very functional :D
So there you have it. I really wish someone had given me all this info before I started lol! This represents hours and hours of research on mouser.com. I think Pez told me Astro fuse boxes were nice and directed me to the electrical center part number (829-12146281) and that's all I got