12 Volt help what am I doing wrong

[Woodbutcher]

I have run 14/2 wire from the rear of my tear up to the front to feed 2 wall sconces and 2 DC sockets. I have a single wire as a power feed. I wanted to use a terminal strip like this.



I have a box buried in my floor and was hoping to get the whole mess into it.
I connected the power wires and all 4 of the other leads. I put in 15 amp fuses and the power lead fuse would blow. I then tried just hooking up the power and 1 light. Blows again. If I take the power lead and the 2 sconce light leads and tie them together without the terminal strip and fuses the lights work. What am I doing wrong and how can I correct it?

[Dale M.]

Your description of the problem is a little confusing.....

You need to verify that each wire has no shorts of cross connections...

You have to have a 12 volt source feeding one side of fuse block (unit you call terminal strip)... The voltage goes through fuse and on to lamp socket. by the "hot" wire ( 12 volt) of the 14/2 pair

Other wire in the 14/2 pair goes from ground source, bypasses fuse block and goes directly to lamp socket....



Dale

[Woodbutcher]

The wires have black writing on one side of the pair. So I used the black writing side as the ground side through out the project. I ran all ground wires on one side of the terminal and all the power leads to the other. Then I fused each one. I kept ech lead directly acrss from its mate. Now that I typed this explaination out I realized that I completed the neg/pos circuit as soon as I put in a fuse, thus causing a short. Do I use the terminal with out the fuses thus connecting each side only to itself?

[madjack]

...yep, keep in mind that the fuse block you are using has NO provisions(shown) for ground (or common)...your grounds should all be going back to the 12vdc (negative side) source...other than that, you have a wire crossed/shorted somewhere....
madjack

[Steve Frederick]

Get a terminal block without fuses, land all of the common/ground conductors there, then connect the terminal block to the neg side of the battery.
You can get a block that will work at Home Depot, in the crimp connector section, made by Ideal..
The drawing by Dale shows the other (hot) side of the system. You'll need to create a "buss" on the side that runs to the battery, like Dale showed on his feed side on his illustration.

[Woodbutcher]

Thanks guys ... I got it now. As you can see, electrical is not my strong suit.

[mikeschn]

Well, I may be too late, but since it seem you are doing the same thing I did, I figured I'd show you my setup again...

http://tnttt.com/viewto ... lock#11309

Mike...

[Woodbutcher]

Thanks Mike! I did get it to work. Your setup is prettier then mine. But it now works. It's only hooked up to a test battery now. I still have my inverter wiring to do. So be ready for some more dumb questions when I get there. I see you have 10W fuses in. It that the best size for the small 12V lights?