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philh's avatar
philh
Explorer II
Sep 19, 2020

Powering multiple low voltage devices in the truck

It's getting to be a wiring mess in the F150. In a year, we're ordering a SD.

When towing, I have
  • Rear trailer camera
  • GPS (like to run both this and Waze when towing)
  • Front dash cam
  • TPMS (is the Ford Kit worth it?)
  • 2 phones


Would it make more sense to get the overhead switches on the SD and wire things back to the fuse box? Any other suggestions to control the explosion of wires
  • and cell phones?
    The safest thing to do, which will add more wires, is to power everything off a little inverter.
    What happens with modern vehicles is the electronics you have plugged into a DC outlet can talk to the vehicle in some instances. To eliminate this the power inverter seperates the electrical signals so there is no cross talk.
    When I say, talk to, I mean the devices put off signals, electrical surges, static, whatever, and the vehicle CPU might read this as a sensor on the vehicle and then do something odd like make minor engine adjustments.
  • On my previous truck I purchased an add on fuse block with 8 or 10 flat blade fuse slots. I mounted it high up on the insid right kick panel and ran an 8 gage wire to the battery. I added a 30 or 40 amp fuse in the wire near the battery. That gave me plenty of additional power for adding a CB radio, stereo speaker amplifier, cigarette lighter plug for a spot light and circuits for any other 12V DC toys I added.
  • I have one of these mounted in the inside bottom of the center console:
    Power Box
    It connects to the 12v aux connector in the console.

    And one of these on the top:
    Tray

    I ran long usb to micro usb or c connectors depending on the device under and through the trim pieces on the console and door jambs. My GPS has a 12v plug which had a long enough cord to allow it to be routed under the trim.
    I am running a phone, GPS( the one in the truck is not suitable for towing), TPMS monitor, rear observation monitor, and a dash cam through all this.
  • I would run some of the items on a dedicated fused circuit straight from the battery and not through the factory fuse block.
    GPS, front dash cam and cell phone chargers would be connected to this source.
    I am guessing that they are all USB type connection. They would not draw that much!
  • I don’t need a rear camera when moving forward. My GPS, when on, is on the dash screen. Neither of our phones needs constant charging.

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