A good place to pull 12v from?

[Train-train]

I have dug into the electrical of the small trucks and cars i have had, but my bus has so many places to get a 12volt feed. Is there a proper place I should tie into?

I have not done anything to my bus's electrical except pulling the wires from the amber and red flashers. I want to install a CB for long haul trips. I can see that the school system had a communications radio mounted but I can not find where they powered it from. I also want to provide a 12v lighter socket for the occasional movie that the kids will want to watch for these long haul trips.

Behind the light switch panel, there is a row of fuses, probably 15 to 20 of them. It looks like the black wires towards the back come from a heavy duty solenoid. The solenoid is sourced by a very heavy gage red wire. The fuses are marked 12v, 20 amps. On the driver's side of the row of fuses are spade connections that number about twice as many as the spade connections I mentioned on the other side of the row of fuses. The spades and wires that come off of the driver's side are white.

I wish I had a schematic of this fuse board as I could much more confidently figure out what I can tap into. Do any of you know for sure as it could save me a lot of time and worry.

[the_experience03]

That sounds very similar to what I have in my bus. I simply tied into the fuse panel from that large solenoid on an unused circuit. You could probably do the same, tie to the solenoid with a separate fuse panel, or use a circuit that is no long in place such as a blower circuit.

[lapeer20m]

i agree with the above post. alternatively if unable to find an unused slot in the fuse block you could attach a wire directly to that solenoid as long as you put a fuse as close to the solenoid as possible...

You may only have power when the key is on, which may or may not be ok for your 12volt cigarette outlet. If you need/want power when the key is off you can attach a wire to the opposite side of the solenoid as it should have power all the time.


on my buses, i always take an unused switch on the main switch panel and designate it as "main bus power" I wire this switch to turn on the solenoid that feeds power to all the 12 volt items in the bus. This way i can have power when the bus is parked and the key is off, but i still have the flexibility to turn everything off when the bus is not being used.

[the_experience03]

Good idea on the hotwiring of the solenoid, Jason! I think I might have to do that as turning the key off and on is a bit of a pain, plus I don't like the idea of my fuel shutoff staying on, even if it shouldn't hurt anything, catastrophic leak or not.