Installing CB

[illking]

I just picked up a Cobra 75 for a good deal. I was wondering where to pull power from. Ive only added an accessory to my motorcycle and that had prewired leads. Do i run wire from the battery or is there a better place to do this?

[TexGX]

I had wires installed above front seats for the house battery. If not there, I would connect to the rear battery to prevent any accidental draining of the starting batteries.

TexGX

[Bbasso]

Personally I would run a 10 gauge wire from your house battery with a fuse in it straight to your CB.

[larrie]

Originally Posted by Bbasso

Personally I would run a 10 gauge wire from your house battery with a fuse in it straight to your CB.

I would suggest running a separate 10 gauge ground wire back to the battery as well. That way you will have the best power and best ground available which will help reduce stray emissions.

[Scalf77]

A lot of how and where you wire this in depends on how you want it to work and the way your van is already wired. While wiring directly to your battery is the easiest thing to do, unless the item your wiring draws a lot of current, I would try not to do so.

If you want to tap into your existing accessory circuit, using one of the piggy back fuse holders would work. Robot Check That of course puts it on your starting battery, and would have power when driving or the key is accessory mode.

You can wire it into your house battery, but here again it would be better to tap into the Fuse distribution for your house battery rather then going directly to the battery . 10 Gauge seems excessively large for this device, but much of that would be determined on the overall circuit length.

Direct battery power connections can cause issues later on if you want to install battery disconnects, battery monitors, and such.

-greg

[illking]

Thanks for the suggestions. I mostly plan to use it to stay in touch with other pals in convoy or when out of cell reception and maybe listen to some chatter now and then. But most of its life will be not in use and the radio disconnected. Ill probably mount the box out of sight under the dash near the dog house, and hang the mic near the right of the steering wheel. I like the add a fuse idea, does it actually have a fuse in it or do i then add an inline fuse?

Eventually ill get a sat phone for emergencies. Last year we experienced two near death experiences. One of wich a friends ham radio saved a guys life. I know a lot of us are far from reception lots of times, Those 2 experiences really shook me up, I have a SPOT for when i ride my dirtbike solo but ill be keeping that in the rig from now on.

[arctictraveller]

Originally Posted by illking

I like the add a fuse idea, does it actually have a fuse in it or do i then add an inline fuse? .

The supplied power wires are probably fused, but you must ALWAYS add a fuse at the power source. The power cord supplied fuse protects the radio, but you need to protect the supply wires. The idea is that if there is a short, the wire between the battery and the supplied fuse could melt causing a fire if there isn't a fuse at the source. That fuse is sized to protect the wire, not the radio. Every wire has a maximum current carrying capacity beyond which it will overheat. That capacity is your maximum fuse size.

[Scalf77]

If you use a piggy fuse, you pull out they existing fuse to the circuit you are tapping into, put in the piggy back with the fuse you pulled out into the main position. Then you will fuse the appropriately for the added circuit, there will be a inline fuse on the radio already, if you do not lengthen the wires provided the you could use the same value fuse for the piggy back fuse. Keep the wires as short as you can , make sure you ground is a very good ground connection. Make sure the wire crimp from the piggy back to the Radio wire is good, purchase a good crimper.

There are lots of ways for you to do this, but this should be pretty easy.
-greg