Where is the best place to mount an ANL fuse holder in the engine bay? There's not a lot of room around the battery & the ANL fuse holder that came with my 1AWG wiring kit is rather large (125mm L, 37mm W, 37mm H).

Pictures of where you have yours mounted would be great :)

might be just enough room between the guard and the battery ? , there is enough there for mine although it's not 1 gauge !! .

I know access may be a limited but how often do you need to pull the fuse ?.

If it was a breaker that would be even simpler !
got a pic ?

I made up a lttle bracket that screwed used the bolt that mounts the ?fuse box? cant rememeber exactly as it was years ago now, but it was a bit of flat aluminium that came out and sat parralell to the battery, in line with where the 0AWG was comming through the fire wall up from behind the glovebox.

I had a big dog ANL fuse holder too, it was a prick of thing. Trying to find a neat way to install it in the 250 now.

Hope that helps.

I've only got a little 4AWG fuse holder but it sits between the battery and the guard where the loom runs into the cabin,

There's not much room elsewhere to stick it really, the fuse box is a little in the way and theres barely any room above the battery or down behind it on the firewall...

I dunno if mine is the best place to mount the fuse holder but this is where mine is mounted on a custom piece of aluminium mounted just above the passenger side strut tower.

Naturally as close to the battery as you can get is the best location.

Done mine as so

Same type of fuse holder as mine,

Did you run a seperate earth from the battery to the amp too?

My strut brace is in the way where you have yours DR-JEKL

The fuse holder I have looks very similar to this


Thinking I'm going to have to make some sort of bracket like BIGW did or maybe look at a circuit breaker as caveman suggested.
Was going to run the power & rca cables today but I just couldn't be bothered pulling the car to pieces. Is there an easy way to get into the boot with out pulling the seat & trim out?

Hi Leiden

Not sure who your question is aimed at, in my case I have run a separate earth lead to the amp you can see it in the photo. Only way to do it.

I just ran mine straight to the rear seatbelt bolt after cleaning the contact area. figure there is more steel between there and the front of the car to the earth pole.

I can't think of a way of getting the power wires and signal(RCA) leads to the rear without removing at least the bottoms of the rear seat. I ended taking the passengers seat out.

I am sure someone did a photo guide on how to do the rear end throught the grommet in the firewall, i have some pics somewhere will post em if a can find them.

Bottom of the back seat just lifts up at the front and pulls out. The I just unbolted the bolts at the bottom of the seat back, and that gave plenty of room to get the cable through

Got firewall sorted. Going in the grommet behind the battery like I'm guessing everyone does. I remember seening pics on getting the rear seat out to replace the rear speakers. Just have to find some enthusiasm to do it now.

cpufix, So you have run the earth the whole length of the car back to the battery?? :blink: Every install I've done I've just run the earth to something handy/closer like a seat belt mount just like caveman did. Ever noticed when you buy a wiring kit it only comes with @1M of earth cable vs. 5M of power.

Found this on the Kenwood website

Quick tip guys if you havent already, Jekyl i can see Marty has done in your case (hes engine bays are always so tidy) but whatever size main power you run earth the battery with the same ALSO. Common cause of voltage drop lights dimming etc.

If you check the resistance ohms from the battery earth connection to the point you are actually earthing your amp you will find its not zero ohms, hence you get voltage drop as mentioned by BIGW. So to reduce this a separate earth lead the same size as the +ive feed is run from battery earth to the amp earth.
Very common practice.
It does not cost much to run an extra lead and to be sure its correct, last thing you want is earth hums on a amp.

^^^^ is done quite often, but for larger stereos it can be quite difficult to run double runs of 0awg down a car.

This is the 'right' way to do it, however not always practicle.

Based on my last install I didnt run an extra earth line, just used factory grounding points, made sure they were clean and ran as shortest ground as possible. Also used the same ground point for both amps.

Had no issues with system noise.

for insurance purposes the fuse must be close to the battery ( i think within 300mm )
for fire risk. ( i recommend checking with your insurer )

failure to do so could mean your car burnt out and insurance not wanting to pay

It doesn't really matter where you mount it, as long as it's secure I suppose? I have a nonmounting fuse which i just leave dangling. Those bling bling audio ones are just wayyyyyyy to big for its function.

This

http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?I...er&form=KEYWORD

Does the same job as

http://akamaipix.crutchfield.com/products/...11FH4ANL-f.jpeg

And your amps are fused anyway, it's just to protect your battery incase you accidentally slip the 12v onto a ground short

They don't do the same job - the Jaycar one is only good for up to 20A, which isn't much - 240w, so assuming a bit of inefficiency I wouldn't want to run much more than a 200w amp on it. From memory I have a 35a fuse in mine, with a single relatively small amp.

It's not so much to protect the battery as it is to protect your car from catching fire. I had a cable where the firewall cut through the insulation (should've had a grommet, but the bit that did the cutting was hidden away) in my old Primera. Very important to have.

I've got one kinda like the second one. It's screwed onto the side of the relay holder - looks good, and keeps things well protected.

e: I have P6384 from Dick Smith. $13. I paid $2 for my first one (mate there, staff discount), but then lost one end of it when I was between cars so had to buy another anyway.

LOL

The fuse isn't meant to "run" your amps just because it's rated up to 240w. It's there in case you short something or your amp malfunctions and fries itself, by that time even a 50 amp fuse wouldn't save you from a fire.

Good amps would have fuses in them already, the constant line fuse is just to protect you if your constant falls out during driving and shorts against the body....

I don't see how this will work with 1AWG cable. The supplied fuse was 200amp. Also it's also best to mount as close to the battery as possible. The old rule of thumb was within 300mm of the battery.

Simply Put. Wrong.

This is where the internet can be harmfull for new players. I wouldnt even use that fuse holder for wiring up a deck. They are the shittiest fuse holders and over time when cables have tension on them it will lose the contact.

You need to get a fuse holder suitable for the job. If you run 0AWG get a 0AWG holder. you can get these in maxi blade, anl, agu. But dont go trimming back cable to fit 0AWG in a 4AWG fuse holder.

A good rule of thumb is add up all the fuses on your amps then the total should be your fuse in the engine bay.


Few quick tips:

ALWAYS FUSE YOU HOT LEAD 12V

ALWAYS FUSE WITHIN 300MM FROM BATTERY (Sometimes good to fuse at the other end 300m from the amp or have a fused distro block for a bit of added insurance)

ALWAYS EARTH YOUR BATTERY WITH THE SAME SIZE CABLE AS YOU RUN FOR YOU MAIN 12V LEAD

ALWAYS SECURE YOUR FUSE HOLDER!!!!!!

The amount of times i had guys come in who just had floating fuse holders was amazing. The vibration in an engine bay can cause all kinds of havoc and it wont take long for the cable to come out of the socket and short to the body.

Well I ended up making a bracket to mount the ANL fuse holder on so I could have it as close the the battery as possible. Next step is to upgrade the battery & terminals.
(Didn't run an earth back to the battery thought)

Work on the priciple that what comes out must come back in.

I decided to mount mine on the side of the battery cover, seems to hold well