Tapping power off the battery

[Joanne]

Hi all,

I am adding a number of additional electrical circuits to my 95 Ford F-150. I'm adding a fuse block in the cab as well as driving lights and charging line for my trailer battery. I'd like to pull these circuits directly from the battery terminal. The fuse block will have a ground circuit back to the battery. The battery has top posts. I would think that the guys with the fancy car stereos would have something for this but I haven't found it online yet. Any recommendations would be welcome!

Thanks in advance.

Joanne

 

[rb70383]

Best thing I have found is Military battery terminals:
Google results

Forgot, another option is to run a big battery cable to a power stud I think thats the name of them. Then tap off of that. More: Power stud

 

[mathers420]

There are lots of ways to do it, just make sure everything is fused correctly.

Here is an elaborate set up that might give you some ideas:

http://forum.ih8mud.com/80-series-tech/239802-how-power-distribution-part-4-bring-da-power.html

 

[MakersTeleMark]

Just run big gauge cables to a remote bus bar and wire everything to that. Simple and cheap. I also always run military terminals on my batteries. If you want pics, let me know. I probably have every combination on my truck or camper that you could think of including fuses. Be glad to help.

 

[Joanne]

Thanks for the info guys!

My specific issue right now is the connection to the battery. The rest of the wiring is straight forward. After reading your suggestions and some additional research, it appears that converting my cables to ring connectors and using military terminals would make the most sense. I may temporarily tap off of the positive side of the starter solenoid until I can convert the cables.

My original hope was that there was some kind of battery terminal clamp that would allow me to use my existing connectors and still have some kind of provision for additional circuits.

Again, thanks for the responses.

Joanne

 

[MakersTeleMark]

These might give you some ideas:

 

[FellowTraveler]

Like this too.

 

[MakersTeleMark]

These guys sell good stuff:

https://www.vtewarehouse.com/

 

[wirenut]

Try a company called Blue Sea. They make lots of electrical gear for boats. It's all marine grade which is great. You can usually find their stuff at West Marine or Overtons or some other marine place.

 

[HillbillyfromAL]

Amazon carries a lot of Blue Sea stuff too. I got my bus from there and it's very nice. The screw terminals are a lot better than any of the push on I have used before. Thanks to quite a few other guys on here suggesting them I decided to try them out. They aren't cheap like the 6 blade bus at Autozone and they have all sorts of configurations. I wish I would have heard about them years ago.

 

[dwh]

http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&ke...vpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=b&ref=pd_sl_7ej42mau5a_b

 

[Joanne]

Thanks a lot guys! The information has helped me move forward with my project. I will be converting to the military terminals in the near future. I can see the advantage of using them over the stock cable ends I have now. The ground terminal was already replaced with one of the ones that clamps to the cable. I wasn't happy to see it when I bought the truck but figured I would replace it in the near future. Now I know how I want to fix both cables.

Joanne