Constant uninterupted 12v from house batt to front cap

[Captain Morgan]

Hey folks,

Another question please on my quest to mod this GreyHawk 29MV.

I want to snag 12v from under the rig, preferably on the passengers side at the door entrance area and get wire UP to the top and forward to the entertainment center.

In my entertainment area is an A/V dist amp that is 12v powered but I need plenty of juice and that pwr supply wiring looks nominal and I need hot 24x7.

Has anyone done this sort of thing before, or have ideas?

Today I took apart a lot of cabinetry and found some wiring but nothing was obvious from that.

Thx in advance.


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[Grumpy]

When we had our 08 SENECA I was able to run extra wires up to the overhead bunk area by putting them behind the vinyl covered wing behind the passenger seat. It is only attached with the screws that are under the caps, there are no screws near the wall so it will not pinch any wires behind it. You should be able to get the wiring under the carpet over to the wall and then come up behind the panel

Just a suggestion

[Captain Morgan]

Oh boy, any chance you have a pic of the area you refer to called a wing, and what in your rig had carpet? Is attached with screws covered by caps?

There's the bottom of the cap and in mine a bed that slides in under the entertainment center. It is overhead of the front seats and about 4" thick. it looks like a grand place to run cables but I haven't been audacious enough to tear in to it yet.


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[RoyBraddy]

Seems like I was needing to run another 12VDC line somewhere so I picked up one of these 12V small sub station units from AMAZON
. This gives you fuse protection and you can run wires anywhere you might need them..



Roy Ken

[Grumpy]

Originally Posted by Captain Morgan

Oh boy, any chance you have a pic of the area you refer to called a wing, and what in your rig had carpet? Is attached with screws covered by caps

The vinyl covered piece behind the passenger seat on the living area side. Our floors and cab had carpeting.

[Captain Morgan]

@ Grumpy, Thanks for a more detailed explanation. I'm heading through the coffee drive through to see my favorite barista and then to the RV to re examine before it gets hot out. As I recall, there really isn't much beside or behind the passengers seat in this rig, just the door and entrance steps.

In as much as your idea being on the passengers side and my current house battery on the drivers side, I'll just hop over temporary. Once I pull the trigger on the 400ah of lithium they'll be on the passengers side to load balance weight from what I'll have in the slide on the drivers side.


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[Grumpy]

Originally Posted by Captain Morgan

@ Grumpy, Thanks for a more detailed explanation.

What you have in the picture is what I was talking about. I didn't realize they went to wood since every interior picture I've seen they are vinyl covered luan. That was what I removed and I was able to put my wiring tight in the corner and put that panel back. Once I got to the bed area I used Wiremold to take it forward along the edge of the wall. Painted it to match the plastic bed runners. Not sure what gauge you want, but I used 12/2 with a grey outer casing that is used for most brake controller installs.

[Captain Morgan]

Whew. I took that thing off today and it's all solid w steel beams. The fiberglass you see is the side of the RV. There's no double wall there, just single pane.

I can't find any hidden recessed access to the front. I know I could use some cable management solution and get back behind the stereo cabinet door by drilling a hole. I could do that on either side.

There is access at the bottom though going down through the gray foam, so if I were to use cable management then going through the floor and straight up in an empty cavity would be a lot easier.





After I explored all that wing and bed area, I went back to the cabinetry where some cable area already ran and pried up a shelf that was stapled down, exposing a wire run. I found the point where the wire turns downward and heading to the floor in the back of the grill access under the stove and fridge.





Ok great, so now I can push/pull string and wire from that cavity up to the top cabinet and then forward to the awning wiring and an 18" jump to the 1.5" hole in my ceiling I'm using.

The fish cable I was using is perpetually stuck though on something behind the fridge and I can't free it up, so I'll have to cut it and I don't have anything on hand.

So my next strategy is to go UP from the bottom with some coat hanger wire and snag it at the cabinet access hole.


I'm with you on the jacketed 12 or 10 just pricing and guesstimating how much I need at that gauge. This is for the Lorex security system with DVR and 4 cameras, the wifi / Lte router, a NetGear Nighthawk and maybe other negligible stuff, @ around < 5A. I already have some regulated 12v PSU and Blue Sea power dist blocks I'm moving from my wrangler to the RV.

[Captain Morgan]

The links to the pics I had which were hosted on Amazon, were removed and I can no longer edit the post. So here they are, uploaded here.

[pconroy]

Originally Posted by RoyBraddy

Seems like I was needing to run another 12VDC line somewhere so I picked up one of these 12V small sub station units from AMAZON
. This gives you fuse protection and you can run wires anywhere you might need them..



Roy Ken

Those look great!!!


I have a cheaper version installed now and might upgrade.


For uninterrupted 12V, I ran wires directly to the battery, and used a "subpanel" like Roy suggested.


I also found constant-on, uninterrupted 12V power going to the fridge. I tapped into those wires for 12V on that side.

[Captain Morgan]

Ya I got the distribution covered, it's the 12v PATH from the house batteries I'm addressing in this thread. FOCUS.

If I can get to the fridge wiring at the bottom (90% of run to batteries) from my existing wire pull location (see photo in previous post) then I can get out of the rig there and head to batteries directly underneath. It's a crazy zig-zag to get it done.

I'd rather not add 5A that I 100% full time depend on to an existing circuit unless I know what the demand already is and if the wire is rated for anything more. ("hey nice rig, what did it look like before it burned to the ground?")

I ordered some jacketed stranded copper (NOT CCA) 12/2 and 18/2 earlier and this will be most everything I need for the main supply and some additional alarm sirens and xenon strobes etc.

Now I need to start pulling stuff outta my Wrangler to recycle.

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[Bullitt6283]

Originally Posted by Captain Morgan

....In my entertainment area is an A/V dist amp that is 12v powered but I need plenty of juice and that pwr supply wiring looks nominal and I need hot 24x7.....

I have the front entertainment center option too. When I replaced the television I bought a 40" Jensen which is 12 volt powered. It draws 70 watts and I used the power feed to the distribution amp as the source. The wiring diagram shows it as a 14 ga wire on a 15 amp fuse. It's been a while and no smoke yet....



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[Captain Morgan]

Thanks Ron. I wholeheartedly agree with your decision and rationale. My need for devices there just exceed what I think is advisable and I need it hot all the time. Please believe me when I tell you, that was my first choice! Infinitely easier than what I've gone through to do something different.

I have 12awg romex pulled from the bottom of my rig now, through a new hole in the floor and up through all the hidden cabinet spaces and almost to the front of the cap. I just need to bridge a 2' span from the cabinet over the door to the hole (formerly knob) in the ceiling and then on to the front with the string I have in place. The 1.5" hole in the ceiling will have a plastic tube as the sides to keep the styro from coming out, it goes from the junction box on the roof and down through the hole.

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[Bullitt6283]

I understand your reasoning and I must congratulate you on your efforts!


Cheers,
Ron


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[Captain Morgan]

Honestly I thought there would be more DIY knowledge and resources on the forum. The most exhausting and time consuming part has been discovery. With a lot of undertakings it can be said that 90% of the things you need to do will only take up 10% of your time, and there's the 10% of things you must do that will take up 90% of your time. Trying to discover and re-engineer with no prior knowledge is an example of this saying.

Once I actually get the projects completed I'll post the project threads with the pics and step by step how-to's etc. Even though this will be of a Grayhawk 29MV package some of the knowledge is universal.


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[Captain Morgan]

I finally got the romex ran to the cap where I needed it. I never could make it to the hole in the ceiling so I had to drill a hole and exit the cabinet across the extrance door, hop down to the cap slab and enter another hole at the front cabinet doors. From there it was all open in the back, nothing to it.

I'm already ordering some plastic raceway for the cables on the roof so I'll use some inside to hide the exposed romex run.

[Captain Morgan]

@ Grumpy = I needed to run a small 4 conductor from the dash area to the cap where I ran cables to, in order to pull the 4 conductor back to the 1.5" antenna hole. I was able to run the cable in the trim under the glove box and over the passengers door and get right in behind the WING. I backed the screws out and stubbed the new cable out in the corner of the wing and the wall in order to run with the 12awg in the traceway.


Anyhoo thanks again for the wing recommendation it comes in handy.