Well this is it, First up a Disclaimer, I am not an Auto Electrican by trade.
What I do have is Telecom Trade and Advanced Trade Cert, back when it was a four year apprenticeship, I am a qualified Electrican, and 20+ years of doing all sorts of interesting stuff from designing power systems in hospitials and Nurse call systems to fire alarms and working at mine sites, industry to domestic wiring. Currently I look after complex power systems for radar and communication systems in the aviation industry. Oh and I have wired / re-wired a few cars. Oh and I have terible handwriting and cann't spell, get over it.
Now wiring cars and working on cars is usually done by qualified trades people, because the consequences of doing it wrong, can be expensive or worst case fatal. Now wiring cars is fairly easy when you know how and understand whats happening and how things work, but it is up to you to make sure you know what you are doing and wetheir you should be attempting any work on a car, don't try to blame me if you stuff it up or it doesn't work the way you want. This advice is to help you but I am not resonsible for what you do and do not do.
So take care, take your time and have fun, but remmeber death can be fatal and no one wants to be deceased and dead.
Now I was hoping to find some simple program that I could use to draw wiring diagrams but so far have not found any, if you know of any please let me know.
OK to start with use Personal Protective Equipment
Safety glasses when soldering
Always take your watch and rings off when working on car electrices
When using insulation tape do not stretch it, it is tempting to stretch it when wrapping wires etc so it looks nice and neat, however tape will over time contract back to normal lenght and unwrap itself, leaving gooey sticky mess behind, so loom up you wries neatly and wrap tape carefully around without stretching it and it will stay nice and neat.
When soldering apply heat to what you are soldering and solder to what you want to solder this is so solder will get good penitration and a good connection. Don't try to melt solder onto soldering iron and then flow into item being soldered
When running wirers always run too much and leave long tails that can be trimed off once cabling is all tidied away and correct lenght is known and even then leave wires slightly to long.
Always use a fuse
Always put a connector on unterminated wires
Never run wires thru or around sharp edges, use cromites
Work area needs to be kept clean and tidy and well lite
Mistakes can be very costly be sure, be doubly sure of what you are doing, then check again
OK I am working on some videos on the correct methods of solderiong and stripping wire in the mean time admire my artistic talents with some simple wiring diagrams and circuit explainations.
Now to explain if you look at car wiring one circuit at a time it is very simple.
You have a battery, negative terminal is connected to body of car, positive terminal is connected to starter motor and fuse box and from there to all the electrical components in the car and from the components back to the car body and thus to negative terminal of battery
Looking at a relay the terminals at the bottom
Edited by cruiza, 10 May 2010 - 08:30 PM.
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