What size wire to use?

[Bryce Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Bryce]

Hi all I've ran a a heavy (4b&s) cable to the rear of the car from my aux battery and now I want to run some wire to the centre consol I'm installing a uhf and 2 double cigi sockets can I just run one wire say 5-6mm and splice off it or is it best to run separate wires.

Thanks in advance.

Cheers Bryce.

[Dominator Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Dominator]

6mm will be fine. You can splice into your existing wire, just remember to put a 25 or 30A fuse on the 6mm cable. (I am assuming you have something like a 100A fuse on the 4b&s cable. )

[Bryce Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Bryce]

Yep I have a 125amp fuse at the start of the 4b&s wire that comes off the aux battery which runs to the rear to a 12 way fuse block. So correct me if this doesn't sound right but I was going to run a 6mm wire from the fuse panel back to the centre console fused with a 30amp fuse then splice from there and after I splice to the cigi sockets and uhf I will fuse with the appropriate size fuse for each.

[AussieAndy Find all posts View Profile Close AussieAndy]

Hmmm.... Sounds like a lot of fuses and joins and places for problems.....

So you want to run a UHF and 2 cig sockets? Run the cig sockets off some 4mm to the fuse box, 10amp fuse for each. Run some 3mm to the fuse box for the UHF, 5 amp fuse for that. Easyer than lots of joins and excess fuses, and probably cheaper too. For lots of different colour wire you can get some 7 core trailer wiring and split it open, bam, 7 colours available from Repco by the meter. What else do you want to run off the fuse box, 12 is a lot of circuits, why not use them.

[Bryce Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Bryce]

I want to run two twin cig sockets one In the centre console and one out the rear of the centre console for kids DVD players. Do I need to run two 4mm wires for the two cig sockets. Or will a 4mm wire be ok for the two cig sockets

[AussieAndy Find all posts View Profile Close AussieAndy]

Depends on the load you intend to take off each cig socket. To make it fool proof I would wire each one seperate, on its own circuit, each with it's own 10amp fuse. That way if one accessory develops a problem and short circuits it doesn't take down both, etc. The 4mm wire is theoretically ok to draw 15amp through, but will easily supply 10amp to a cig socket constantly all day long. It's how I wired my sockets up. The only two things I have on one circuit are the two USB charge points, because they draw bugger all and I could live without them if I had to, they are just a luxury.

[Bryce Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Bryce]

So going back to what you said about running trailer plug wire what if I ran two lengths of 5 core 4mm. As I i will have 4 cig sockets plus the uhf. I'm only running DVD players iPhones and iPad.