DC-DC Converter Installed and Wiring Cleanup

I installed the DC-DC converter - the Azure Dynamics DCDC750 BC12 battery charging unit. First, I had to build a few cables. These are the high-voltage cables. The red Anderson connector actually goes to the heater, not to the converter. The black connector is known as a Yazaki connector - it looks like a better design than the Andersons (for one thing, it looks like it is waterproof - it has silicone seals).


Next, I installed the cabling. The thick 4 AWG cables coming from the battery are new. The unit puts out roughly 60 amps, so you need some pretty hefty cable to avoid a voltage drop and overheating / burning up cables. All of the cables are protected by plastic spiral wrap. In the lower left, you can see that I have installed some twisted pair wiring onto the Hall-effect current sensor - I'll have a full post later about hooking it up.


With the DC-DC in place, I decided it was time to clean up the spaghetti explosion. First, I installed a Power Pole to hook up the 12V battery to the original fusible links which run the electrical system. This replaces a bolt wrapped in electrical tape, which was not a good long-term design.


I also upgraded the wiring to the power steering pump. It pulls up to 60A. I previously had used 10AWG wire - about 8 feet in all. Using the calculator at this site, it showed a likely voltage drop of nearly 1V - which translates to about 60W at max power. Which is a full lightbulb of energy going through a fairly skinny wire. Which could then burn up. Also, this would restrict the power of the pump. I upgraded to 4AWG, which should be plenty adequate (both the positive and negative sides were upgraded).


Finally, I spent quite a lot of time routing cables into looms and making things neat and pretty with zip ties. I still have not permanently mounted these two relay boxes. Going to have to do that soon...


Next up - cleaning up the routing of cabling into the passenger compartment, and, hopefully, starting to hook up the dashboard.