Relay and switch box!

Well it has been several weeks since my last update.  Working ~80hrs/week will do that.  In the mean time, I did get a chance to upgrade some of the wiring in my jeep.  This is a topic that is probably boring to a lot of people, but trust me the end results are cool.  And to someone who appreciates the little details like myself, the meticulous things are fun to me.

As you can imagine, offroad enthusiasts tend to acquire accessories on their vehicles to make the vehicle more functional.  On mine, I have added driving lights up front, backup lights to the rear to help with hitching things at night or flashing them at the jokers who flip their brights on you, and most recently, "rock lights", which are lights that help to light up the undercarriage and wheel wells of the vehicle to let you see obstacles better at night.  In the future there are plans for an air compressor, front/rear lockers, and a more efficient engine cooling fan - all of which will require wiring for power, ground, relays, and accessories.

The wiring can easily get out of hand and create a rat's nest and possibly fire hazards.  To simplify and clean up the wiring, I built a switch box and a relay box, which in the Jeep Cherokee world, is commonly called a "fitchbox", named for the first guy to build one.  Basically, the relay box holds a fuse block and several relays (electrical switches), that control power to the lights.  The relays are controlled by individual switches from the switchbox.  Confining these elements to the boxes allows me to consolidate wiring, and protect it from the elements.  This means instead of a power source from the battery for each switch and relay (6 total for my current setup!), now there is only one wire connected to the battery.

Pictures!

Here is the fitchbox mounted in the cubby of the Cherokee XJ, protected from the engine bay.

Cover off showing the consolidated rat's nest using soldered connections and heat shrink tubing.

I used ethernet cables to attach fitchbox to the switchbox

On the near side is the blue ethernet cable.  On the far side is the quick-disconnect for the 12-volt power and ground.  This allows me to disconnect the wires, leave them in place, and work on the switchbox when I need to add more switches

Here I am making a template out of paperboard for the switchbox

So then I bent up the switchbox out of sheet metal, mounted the switches, painted it, and installed it.

These are the switches - I chose the "Zombie lights" for the rocklights because of the way it lights up underneath the jeep, and Courtney chose the Beer light because she thought it was more fun than a regular switch.

These next two photos show the engine bay wiring cleaned up.  Before - its hard to tell but there are three relays mounted on the fender, with 6 wires with 3 inline fuse holders mounted to the positive terminal of the battery (not including the headlight wiring in the yellow tube)

After - there is only one wire connected to the positive terminal on the battery (on the left), in addition to the headlight wiring harness (the two on the right), and now there are no exposed relays under the hood (except for the headlights).

Here is a picture of all the exterior lights lit up at night

When I did the rock lights, I used small LEDs.  I had a bunch left over, so I decided to upgrade the interior lighting of my jeep.  Photos below compare the stock map lights to the LED domelight, and the stock floor lights to the LED floor light.

On a side note, my parents have rented their lakehouse out for the summer, so rather than waste our skiboat at our dock, my dad is letting me keep it at my house.  I shoehorned it in, fits with about 6" on either end.  We are about a 15 minute drive from a useable boat ramp, so Courtney and I hope to get some good use out of it this month.  She is sneaking up on 34 weeks pregnant, so we plan to put her on the dive platform and just kind of roll her off it so she can bob around in the water to stay cool.  I think it will work well!

And lastly because this is a blog about pregnancy and my boy, here is his most recent picture.  There are some perks to being a family medicine resident - I have unlimited access to the ultrasound machine, so we get to take pictures whenever we want to!