Am I about to make a mistake? Powering Carnetix

**PatInTheHat** · 08-02-2007, 07:30 PM

My plan was to run an 8 guage wire with a 15 amp fuse straight from my battery to the carnetix 1900. When I received the carnetix I noticed their connector is using 16 guage wiring.

This leads me to believe the carnetix was designed to just run off a power cable inside your car?

What do you guys recommend? Will I have any problems running straight from battery at 8 guage and then splice the wires to the carnetix down to 16 guage?

Or should I just find a 12V battery tap inside my car and run it that way?

**Kalt** · 08-02-2007, 07:49 PM

Originally Posted by PatInTheHat

My plan was to run an 8 guage wire with a 15 amp fuse straight from my battery to the carnetix 1900. When I received the carnetix I noticed their connector is using 16 guage wiring.

This leads me to believe the carnetix was designed to just run off a power cable inside your car?

What do you guys recommend? Will I have any problems running straight from battery at 8 guage and then splice the wires to the carnetix down to 16 guage?

Or should I just find a 12V battery tap inside my car and run it that way?

You have connect the carnetix directly to the battery, but you can always run the 8 guage wire to a distribution block.

**dupa2** · 08-02-2007, 10:32 PM

I connected mine right to the radio harness, but I'm not really overloading the PS. I have minimal setup (1GHz epia, with flash drive, no hd, no cd, just the screen)

**DarquePervert** · 08-03-2007, 07:37 AM

Originally Posted by PatInTheHat

My plan was to run an 8 guage wire with a 15 amp fuse straight from my battery to the carnetix 1900. When I received the carnetix I noticed their connector is using 16 guage wiring.

This leads me to believe the carnetix was designed to just run off a power cable inside your car?

I wouldn't do it. You're definitely on the right track with the 8awg cable. That might be overkill as far as the wire thickness, but it's certainly not going to hurt anything...

Originally Posted by dupa2

I connected mine right to the radio harness, but I'm not really overloading the PS. I have minimal setup (1GHz epia, with flash drive, no hd, no cd, just the screen)

While it may work for YOU, it's certainly not recommended if you want a safe installation.

**PatInTheHat** · 08-03-2007, 12:52 PM

Alright im just going to find a way to splice the 8awg and the 16 together and continue as originally planned.

Just to double check, is it perfectly ok to go from one guage to another? I also purchased 12 guage to run throughout my car and I noticed most cabling is 18guage+ and I will be having to make several splices.

**tn6478** · 08-03-2007, 12:57 PM

Yep u gonna have to find a connector to connect the two together. I myself use 8 gauge wire for my car pc. Just use a tapper to tap into the wires if you want to that what i do.

**GoHybrid** · 08-03-2007, 01:05 PM

i just took the 16ga and meshed it straight into the 8ga... it helps if you haven't already twisted or otherwise mangled the bare wire ends. Once they were together i just flooded the joint with solder and used heatshrink tubing around it. Worked like a charm.

**PatInTheHat** · 08-03-2007, 01:24 PM

Perfect thanks guys. I may just do what you did GoHybrid, works for me.

**Kimota** · 08-03-2007, 02:01 PM

I second GoHybrid's idea, thats what I did too.

Make sure to get electrical solder from radio shack the ones they carry melt failry easy. Ohh and be sure to put soldering flux/paste on your wires prior to soldering, it will make the soldering wires together MUCH easeir.

**alchemist29** · 08-04-2007, 11:25 PM

Here's a nice little table that has some good recomendations for vehicle wiring:

Code:

                Length of run (in feet)
    Current     0-4  4-7 7-10  10-13  13-16  16-19  19-22  22-28

      0-20A     14   12   12     10     10      8      8      8
     20-35A     12   10    8      8      6      6      6      4
     35-50A     10    8    8      6      6      4      4      4
     50-65A      8    8    6      4      4      4      4      2
     65-85A      6    6    4      4      2      2      2      0
    85-105A      6    6    4      2      2      2      2      0
   105-125A      4    4    4      2      2      0      0      0
   125-150A      2    2    2      2      0      0      0     00

Generally it is not OK to splice a larger gauge to a smaller gauge without a fuse sized for the smaller gauge in between the splice, if the smaller gauge is on the load side. If the smaller gauge is on the supply side, then you want a fuse sized for the smaller gauge between the supply and the small gauge wire. Remember that fuses are there to protect your wiring from melting/burning so you always want to put a fuse in the circuit rated just below the maximum rated current of the smallest wire in the circuit.