Wiring mess behind converter panel

[myredracer]

Am just in the process of tidying up the mess 'o spaghetti behind the converter. Is there any reason why I shouldn't bundle the pos. or neg. wires (each in their own bundles) with zip ties?

Also, when I disconnected all negative wires and the ground wires from the buss, the radio stayed on. What would cause this? Not sure how it would still get it's negative supply.

[myredracer]

The EMS display is only in that spot temporarily until I decide where to mount it. One thing about these is that they are designed for surface mounting plus I don't want it near the TV which is right above.

FLY 4 FUN wrote:
Looks good

One thing I noticed...is that your EMS display inside the cabinet on the floor? I would think you would want it mounted in a visible area (or maybe that is in view in a manner I cant see from the photo)

Daryll

[FLY_4_FUN]

Looks good

One thing I noticed...is that your EMS display inside the cabinet on the floor? I would think you would want it mounted in a visible area (or maybe that is in view in a manner I cant see from the photo)

Daryll

[WILDEBILL308]

That is a large improvement.
Bill

[time2roll]

Bundling is fine unless it is wire feeding a 1000w+ inverter.

Radio must have a second ground such as through the antenna. This why all power should be off during repairs.

[myredracer]

This is how it ended up. I didn't hear anyone say there's no way you can do that, so I went ahead and bundled the wires. I used tie-wraps because that's what I had on hand. Sure was a lot of excess wire I trimmed off.

The new box on the left contains relays, LV transf. and a current sensing relay for heaters I installed. We now have 3 permanently mounted recessed wall heaters - in bedroom, bathroom and living/kitchen area each with their own individual thermostats. The heaters automatically shut down when the total load gets to 30 amps (adjustable). All 120 volt branch circuits except AC and heaters now run through the control box. Detail to follow in another post.

Not at all impressed with the factory workmanship in wiring terminations and splices. Some stranded #14 LV wires only had about 1/2 the strands into the terminals in the panel because they were cut off when stripped. Whoever does the work doesn't know how to use a wire stripper. One 120V connection to a breaker barely had any copper showing and the lug was compressed onto mostly plastic. Potential fire hazard. Two ground wires on bus in panel were totally loose. Potential shock hazard. Makes me wonder if the factory has any trained electricians on staff.

Next thing I'm going to do in there is put a piece of filler plywood in to seal up the 12x12" opening into the underbelly. There's quite a noticeable draft coming up from it (without fans on). Also going to pull out the 4" duct which goes into the underbelly space and back up into the kitchen, insulate it and re-install. The duct runs 4-5' in a cold space.

Now heading out the door for our first camping trip of the season and will get a good test of the new heating system on the weekend.

[Joe417]

myredracer,

Since it sounds like you already have the job done, post an 'after' picture.

Some of us do appreciate neatness. A sign of character in any job.

[WILDEBILL308]

myredracer wrote:
Am just in the process of tidying up the mess 'o spaghetti behind the converter. Is there any reason why I shouldn't bundle the pos. or neg. wires (each in their own bundles) with zip ties?

Also, when I disconnected all negative wires and the ground wires from the buss, the radio stayed on. What would cause this? Not sure how it would still get it's negative supply.

I feel your pain. I spent 40 plus years building airplanes and fixing them. I use a good string tie more than zip ties. If you want to get fancy you could label them but that can be a lot of work for not much return. You can find out what wire goes to what with a good meter.
Bill

[MEXICOWANDERER]

I've done it but doing it right involves using wire markers both sides of the bundle and twisting lacing all the wires onto a nice braid. Ask the DW how to braid. Looks pretty too. Pretty much neuters effects of induction. Yes you have to disconnect all the wires to braid them.

[Ron3rd]

You could always tidy it up a bit with some split loom which would make wires easy to remove if necessary.

[Gdetrailer]

Joe417 wrote:
There's no reason "not" to do it.

Messy wiring issues are a pet peeve of mine. I've cleaned up the mess on all the campers I've ever had.

By doing this on my TC, I found a wiring path where the Mfgr. had brought the main ground into an external lighting junction with 10 awg and then taped off to carry the ground on to the fuse box with 12 awg wire.

This probably would never have caused a problem but, I work in electronics and couldn't leave it alone.

When you get them neatened up you'll not only have more room for your project, if you do have an electrical problem, it makes issue easier to figure out.

Good Luck with your project.

There is NO REAL GOOD "REASON" to "neaten it up"..

I also work in "Electronics" and one of my BIGGEST "peeves" is those folks who think neatening up the wiring has any benefits other than making it look pretty and using up thousands of unneeded wire ties :M

Sure it can be pretty-fied but the poor sap down the road that may end up NEEDING to find that one lone bad wire in a tightly wrapped and wire tied bundle has one heck of a lot of CAREFUL work in CUTTING all those wire ties without causing more collateral damage in the process.

Even worse when the wires that are already darn near too short are bundled tightly to the point of risking damaging the connections with any movement..

To me that looks pretty darn normal and is better than many other RVs may have.. My current TT HAD ALL the battery "grounds" for ALL the runs wire nutted BEHIND the paneling.. Only ONE 8 ga white wire came out of the wall and went to the converter battery ground connection.. Found that when I was rebuilding my TT.. Made for a "neater looking" job, but boy what a mess that would have been trying to find a bad ground connection.. Not to mention, 8ga would have been pretty light for five 10A fuses, one 7.5A fuse and several 15A fuses all on ONE ground.. It was one huge wire nut.

I would just leave well enough alone and be happy there is some slack in the wires and if you ever need to trouble shoot you won't be cussing yourself out down the road while carefully unbundling your handy work..

[Joe417]

There's no reason "not" to do it.

Messy wiring issues are a pet peeve of mine. I've cleaned up the mess on all the campers I've ever had.

By doing this on my TC, I found a wiring path where the Mfgr. had brought the main ground into an external lighting junction with 10 awg and then taped off to carry the ground on to the fuse box with 12 awg wire.

This probably would never have caused a problem but, I work in electronics and couldn't leave it alone.

When you get them neatened up you'll not only have more room for your project, if you do have an electrical problem, it makes issue easier to figure out.

Good Luck with your project.

[Artum_Snowbird]

Cut some 1/2" long pieces of rubber or plastic pipe of various sizes, slit one side, then slip the wires into the rings as required. It will look a lot better, and you can easily remove a wire or two if required.

[RoyB]

I called my wiring groups in my 2008 OFF-ROAD POPUP a "RATS NEST"... It was using a three zone 12VDC group where all the wiring was divided up in the three groups and tied into the ELIXIR Converter/fuse panel using many large YELLOW wire nuts. All of the 120VAC ROMEX cables were also grouped together using large YELLOW wire nuts feeding the ONE 120VAC 30AMP Circuit breaker Very professionally done hehe...

Being OFF-ROAD some I ended up with poor 12VDC connections making it unreliable.

I ended up replacing the ELIXIR Power Converter that only had one 120VAC Circuit breaker and four 12VDC fuses with a WFCO WF8900 series power distribution panels that had 5 LARGE 120VAC circuit breaker slots an 11 12VDC fuse positions including two REVERSE POLARITY fuses.

I had all of the wiring already run to the this area so it was not a hugh effort converting over to a more modern Power distribution center. i did have to re-wire a couple of circuits to make the wiring longer to reach some of the interior fuse positions...

I went over-board abit and enclosed all of my 12VC wiring inside PCV flex conduit that ran under the floor areas so that underbrush and things associate with my off-road trips would not drag any of my wiring off under the trailer. It seems the original install of wiring would go through a large hole in the floor of the trailer and then go in any direction under the floor to get from POINT A to POINT B. Now everything is enclosed in PVC CONDUIT and PVC JUNCTION BOXES and all large holes holes coming into the trailer area are very well sealed against insects and whatevers. I also increased the DC wire size to #14 and some #12 2-conductor cable wiring using what is called BOAT WIRING cable.

This pictorial sort of describes what I ended up with...


I can also run RG cables or other wiring runs to any point of the trailer using the PVC Conduit.

My DC CURRENT SAMPLE circuits are all bundled together in thier own PVC CONDUCT paths.

My 120VAC ROMEX cables remained unchanged which are stapled to interior walls of the interior cabinets running around the trailer.

Worth the effort for me as I am always running new mods and changes like all good Ham Radio guys do...

Roy Ken

[ScottG]

You could do it but there's no good reason to. They are fine the way they are.