For my 3 sets of lamps I run on the rig and my Warn Power Interrupt I just installed, they all have switches to power them up.

All that is required of the wire that goes to the switch is very low amperage.
For these I tap into a fuse in the fuse box down by my feet.
Even my CB is wired up there tapped into the cigarette fuse.

It is a pain though to squeeze the wire in behind the blade fuse and push it back in.
The wire often falls out when you are tying to put the fuse back causing me a lot of frustration.

I need to re-wire my Warn kit I put in Sunday as the fuse I am tapped into is the tail light ones, and the lights must be on in order to let the switch work.
Not good.

I will re-wire it today using one of this type.


You just have to crimp on a female spade conector, then slide it over the tap, then push the tap in along with the fuse.

But in my search on Google yesterday I ran across a very rad type of tap.


Here is the site.
This type is a lot better, and I am going to order up a few and give them a try.
The part that you use as a tap is also separately fused from the main fuse you put back.

If you have a lot of stuff like I do where you are tapping into your fuse box, this looks like a pretty good setup next to going out and getting an external fuse box similar to the Painless Wiring one that goes under your hood.

 

Here's my solution. Located in the center console, ran 10 gauge wire to the cheapo auto zone fusebox, holds 6 fuzes.


Corey you probably already know this, but for anyone else tapping fuzes make sure you tap the hot side of the fuze and then provide this line it's own fuze, this will prevent blown fuzes.

 

Good advice Bill.
Hey, so that box you have there just has one single 10 gauge wire going to your battery?
Then the other wires you have "tapped" there are for the stuff you wired up?

Is the box also grounded close by?
That is a nice looking setup and an alternative also the Painless one.
Corey

 

I thought I was the only clutz that had trouble putting the fuse back in w/ it falling out (the wire) all the time! I am glad to hear I am not. Both things are great ideas and I will have to check them out! Thanks fellas! :beaver:

-Ryan

 

I give up. I tried the first type in my pics above, and it won't stay in. Too much force.
I was better off leaving the wire tucked in like I had it, but I am trying to get away from that type, and will eventualy re-do all my taps at the fuse box in the future.

I am going to do one of 2 things.
try and get a fuse tap like in the animated GIF at the top of this thread, or put a fuse on my wire for the switch and run it straight to the battery.

 

I'm sure this is a real problem when you have tons of electrical ad ons. I have a handful of added circuts and have had to improvise for every one. The first was a dome light for the camper shell for which I found a funky tap that fits into the normal fuse hole but has 2 fuses sticking out sideways and above the other fuses in the box like so:

__________________( to shell dome light)
F
||||||||||||


Imagine the '||||'s as the normal vertical fuses in the box and the 'F' as a plug in for 2 fuses held horizontally with a second fuse coming from the top of the 'F' and wired to an accessory. The middle '-' of the 'F' goes back to the original line of '||||'s for the original "dome" circuit.

I chose the "dome" fuse to tap for the shell dome so its always available.

For the electric locker and (inoperable) shower pump circuits, I got 12 gauge wire in line blade style fuse holders and wired them directly to a wing nut attachment on the + terminal of the battery that was there when I bought the truck.

The big red winch lead wire went below all of the spaghetti and the wing nut attachment. It is sandwiched between the felt doughnut and the clamp/ wingnut deal that connects the starter, alternator cables, and extra circuts.

DO NOT DO IT THIS WAY!!! :pat:

I suggest getting a second fuse block BEFORE you start adding a bunch of electrical gadgets to your rig. Maybe get a second fuse box like the one that goes in the left kick pannel and put it in the right kick pannel. Then as you add circuts for extra lighting, CB, stereo amp, electric locker, onboard blender, camp shower, 12 volt refridgerator, power heated mirrors, etc. you will have a neat clean power source available and you won't have a spaghetti factory under the hood like i'm getting.

I'll soon need to rewire all of my gadgets because I didn't plan ahead. :pat:

Good luck folks!!

 

Yep, just one single 10 gauge wire in, 6 taps coming off for accessories (so far only 3 are used).
The box does not need a ground, it is simply a hot pass through. To ground is to short:pat: .

 

Hi All,
not to praise napa, but that happens to be where I shop local.
Anyways, they have several aux fuse panels that use the ATO/ATC fuses. All of these have single feeds to them, so they all have to be battery, or all Ign, or whatever. Some of them also have a ground buss bar (a double row of male terminals)
Where I show (?x?) it means # of rows on panel and # of fuses in each row
Some part # for those interested:
FB6262....4 fuse (2x2) w/ground buss
FB6261 and FB6264 14 fuses (2x7)one has ground buss (don't know which is which, the pix and desc are switched)
FB6263 4 fuse (1x4) this one is compact
FB6265 6 fuse (2x3) w/ground buss
FB6411 10 fuse (2x5) w/ground buss
FB6413 18 fuse (2x9)
FB6414 10 fuse (2x5)
FB6415 6 fuse (2x3)

 

I just got back from Schuck's Auto Supply, and this is what I bought.

Paid less than $20 for all the parts.
The fuse box is made by Buss Fuse, and the female connectors are marine grade.

This is not to clean up the mess though on my fuse box by my feet.
I can do that with another one (will need help on that in a minute)

This box I just bought is to clean up the jungle here on my positive battery terminal.
This looks easy enough to do.
Take the new box I just got and run 10 gauge power wire from it directly to the positive battery terminal.

Yank off all the wires I have going to my battery now. They are for all my off road lights, the horns, and probably a few forgotten things
Take all those wires and put the female ends on them and attach to the new box I just got.
Very easy, and much cheaper that going out and buying that "Painless Wring" box that sells for a lot more.
These taps will be hot all the time.

Now my other question is if I get another box and go the route Wild Bill did, that will be to take off all of the wires I have "tapped" in behind my fuses in the cockpit.

But, I want to keep these taps so they only can come on when the key is on acc. or run.
So where would I take the 10 gauge wire that would run from a new box and attach it?
I could run it right to the battery like Bill did, and the box I just bought today, but I'd rather have it set up for key only.
These taps would be for the CB, Warn Power Interrupt I just put on, and all 3 of my switches for the off road lights.

None of these circuits in the cockpit require high amperage. Only low to energize the relays under the hood when the switch is turned on.
Corey

 

how about splittint the 10 gauge that you have just run to a second fuse box through a relay that is driven by a switched live from the ign , than you will have two fuse boxes one that is perm live and one switched live. giving you plenty of future up grades

 

Corey,
Just wire it up so your Ign (or accy) source turns on a relay that supplies the panel with power.
Remember like the relay I showed you at work (when we both still worked)

I can still get the relays and plugs

David

 

Thanks guy's for more suggestions.
I spent about 2 hours under the hood a bit ago cleaning up loose wires that I stuffed into that black wire loom stuff.

Also had to re-wire my Ramsey Wireless Remote for the winch.
Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't.
There is no power that goes to the receiver, only a ground wire.
So I suspected it was not getting a good ground.
Yep, moved the wire to a better spot and it works great.

I got to looking under my hood since I just spent a lot of time under there, and I don't even think I have room for that fuse box.
It is that tight under my hood.
The firewall is lettered with 30 amp relays I used for all 3 sets of my lights.

I just may take that fuse box which happens to be the same exact one that Bill has, and hook it up in the glove box, or under the dash out of the way.
Then I will just wire it directly to the battery and then have my lights and CB come on whenever.

My lights under the rear bumper are already wired up that way being tapped into the brake light fuse.
It might now be such a bad idea after all to have the lights come on whenever I want, and I have been wanting to have the CB available for sometime without using the key.

Only drawback is you have to make sure all the switches are off, or the battery drains
I don't think that I'd accidentally leave any of the lights on as they light up the night and would be pretty hard to miss.

Now to find a place in cab to mount that box.
I'll worry about the jungle growing on my battery later. That is going to take some planning on where to locate a box under there.
Corey

 

The owner of the company in my first post that has the fuses that have the built in tap just wrote to me.
Here is what he has to say:

There ya have it. These are still a pretty cool idea if you only have a few items to tap into.
But with all the stuff I have now, the seperate fuse box makes more sence.
Corey

 

how about getting really fancy and having a timer on for your acc so all you do is hit a button and they power up for an hour?

 

Pretty critical point up there in Corey's post: Thos of us w/ "later" model (3rd gen) runners have mini , narrow blade fuses and the accessafuse won't fit that...yet...
bs

 

OK, a little update here.
I have the itch to attack the wiring jungle in my fuse box in the cockpit.

At a later date I will get the same box I bought last week and attack my battery and clean it up, if I can find somewhere to mount the remote fuse box.
It's that dang tight under my hood.

Right now as you can see in my link above I have 5 things tapped into my fuses.
Though this method works good, and doesn't require hardly any power to energize the switches that are going to them, it just downright looks like crap.

I want to do what Bill did and run the 10 gauge wire to the battery with an inline blade fuse a few inches from the battery.
I am all gung ho on doing this, only thing is I am trying to figure out where in the heck to mount the 6 gang fuse box.
I don't want to stick it in the console as I'd have to add on a bunch of wire to route it there.
There just isn't much room inside these Toyota's when it comes to mounting something.

If I do attempt this soon after finding a suitable mounting location, I will take pics to document it.
Corey

 

OK, finished my wiring project today. It was very easy, just a little time consuming.
And I get to do it all over again when I decide to clean up the mess on my battery.

I highly recommend this mod if you have a lot of taps into your stock fuse box like I did.
Thanks everyone for the suggestions here. I have the same box as Bill's, and it fits good under the hood.



Corey