joeymc13

Tips/tricks on wiring, lol!?

Well... 12v in your car will pinch just a little, but it won't kill you, if that gives you any comfort

8 degrees outside and dried out, cracked fingers don't work well together while you're trying to wire stuff up, thats why they invented garages and heaters

On a serious note, once you do anything with a conduit that has positive voltage flowing through, insulate it as soon as possible once you're done doing what you have to do with it. If all conduit with positive voltage is insulated, and no bare metal or ground wires that have insulations stripped back are exposed, you can't shock yourself. If you don't shock yourself while wiring stuff up, that points you in the direction of being decent at wiring stuff up!

If you plan on tackling a wiring project, in the house, in your car, in your airplane, whatever, Ill help you out. Ask your questions and do your research before you start, and you can take care of business! Don't be scared of it! When in doubt, disconnect the negative battery terminal, and you can't get shocked, lol!

Cobb2819

except the fact that you can ARC Weld with DC Current

1998GsRIntegra

Yea it was a definite pinch. Running it over my tounge to check for current was not one of my better ideas. I guess what I am really getting at is how do you make your wiring job look decent? When ever I get finished wiring anything I'm like "damn that looks like ****" but at least no one else can see it. Thats the bright side sadly enough.

joeymc13

Yeah, thats true... Power wires jumped straight off the battery can do a little more than pinch ... I was just thinking about the little 18-20awg wires on a 7.5 amp circuit behind a radio or something...

Cobb2819

i was gonna say, my matco ratchet has a nice little arc mark from a battery, hahaha.

joeymc13

wow... using your toungue to test for voltage prob isn't a preferred method for accomplishing the test. (as you found out though, it can be quick and accurate, lol!!!) Thats what they make Digital Multi Meters for Just hit up sears and get yourself a little craftsman DMM for like $20. It will be the best investment you ever make if you work on mobile electronics on a regular basis.

Wire management is HUGE for me... There are several steps you can take in order to make your wiring look neat, and professional. Here are some steps I try to take:

-Cut the wires down to equal lengths. If you are wiring up a radio, and all the wires are different lengths, you end up with a mess.
-Use proper wire termination. That basically means, use the right connector to perform the job. The first thing that pops into my head is power and ground at an amplifier. I've seen soooo many times where someone just takes their 8awg pwr wire, strip the insulation back, and split the strands of copper in the middle to make a spade looking shape, shove it into the screwdown terminal at the amp, and tighten it up. It gets the job done, but looks really bad. Just grab yourself an 8awg spade, crimp it onto the end of that power wire, and tighten the terminal down on the the copper spade, vs the copper strands of non-insulated power wire. It looks a million times better. Also, after you terminate your wires, use the proper wiring insulation. An example... lets say you used solder as your wire termination for your radio harness. The best solution to insulate the solder joint would be heat shrink wrap. If you don't have that, then high quality electrical tape can do the job. Outside of that, there isn't much else I would use. Don't use scotch tape, duct tape, moving tape, etc... it looks horrible, and in many cases, isn't very safe. That moving/packing tape can loose its adheisiveness in the constant hot and cold temp changes inside of your car, and the tape can come off, exposing your solder joint.
-Use proper method of securing your wires. Once your wires are terminated, how are you going to secure them. Zipties are my preferred method. A lot of ppl like to use tape. (I like zipties bc if you have to go back through your work, with zipties, just cut them off. With tape, once you remove the tape, it ends up leaving this sticky, oily, residue that can be quite messy in a customers car. I usually end up washing my hands like 10 times while working on a car in which the wires have been secured together with tape.) Don't get me wrong, I'll use tape when I do an alarm or something, bc I don't want ppl to be able to look under the dash, and see all my aftermarket security wires. I want those wires to blend in with the factory wiring.

Here's a cpl examples:

I had to troubleshoot this alarm not too long ago, Wire management is horrible, right?


Here is the alarm I prepped to install into my car. Notice how wires are twisted together, to make the bundles smaller, and how they are taped up to match the factory taped up wires in my car. Once this is in my car, Compare how that will look vs. the previous picture where there were no steps taken to manage the wires...


Securing wiring after termination? All I used in this case was zipties. This was a temporary wire management situation, (meaning, I would be removing the wiring shortly afterwards, I had to hook everything up temporarily, and tune the stereo, then remove everything to send to my upholsturer). Once I got all my stuff back from the upholsturer, I actually got even more **** about the wire management. The first thing I do, is try to avoid having any wires cross eachother. I keep them running parallel with the wires that run along the same bundle. Another step that I took once I did the final wire management, was the zipties are equal distances from eachother. Its just a matter of taking pride in your work. None of those wires are visible in the finished product, but if someone went behind my work for some reason, everything looks tidy and professional.

Tekkaboy

iTrader: (2)

Good stuff, I don't have any questions right now but I'll keep that in mind!

1998GsRIntegra

Awesome info. Thanks