Wiring a Wheel house

[Ol' Lund]

Hi-

I am just starting to design a wheelhouse that I am going to be building. I jsut have a few questions about the electrical part. I have 3 ceiling lights, 3 switches, 6 outlets. How do i go about this? do I use like 14-3 wire? What is my best way to power my house? Battery, Generator, Solar? Thanks for the help.

[buckhunter21]

For your lights I would just have them run off of battery power, that way you dont have to run a generator all the time if all you need is lights. LED lights take very little juice but you could go with another kind if you wanted. For the receptacles I would go with either 14-2 or 12-2 wire, I would personally go with 12 because it will handle more amp draw. I would power them with a generator and also have some kind of charger that will charge your batteries back up while the generator is running.

[Ol' Lund]

so from what i'm gathering from you, I make my lights leds and run them off of a deep cycle, and then for my outlets, use twelve wire and hook them up to generator? do i do the same wiht like the tv and cd player then too, hook up to generator?

[musky796]

I agree whith the lights. You can buy solar kits and for three lights you would probably be safe with a 40 watt system. Google them, look on HSO-Classifieds. should run you under a hundred bucks the only thing is you have to asseble the actual array. That will charge your battery. Face it south and you would be good to go. Depending on your amps off your generator i would use 14/2 for 15a and 12/2 for 20a. For the light 14/2 should work good. Going back to the solar the only thing would be mounting it and taking it down when your not using it, unless you can figure a way to secure it so it wont get stolen. Good Luck!

[jeffreyd]

i dont think you need to run 12-2 as your gen wont have anythign bigger than a 20 amp circuit. i would go 14-2, for your outlets and 15 am circuit. the led lights can run off the deep cycle and you can get either a solar charger or a regular battery charger to top off the battery when gen is running. i do think that i would would wire in one 110 volt light on a switch so if you dont have the battery power for some reason you can get lighting off gen. or jst put a heat lamp that plugs into the outlet. good luck

[Ol' Lund]

I was thinking, Could i just run everything 120volts, and run it to like a small fuse box, and then go from the fuse box to a generator? or how do you hook something like this up to a generator?

[crappiekid]

Here is what i did but all these are personal preferance;

Face it you will not run generator 24-7. So Run 2- Thin Lite 12 volt lights, any external lights (highly recommended) and your Stereo on one series of wires. Next run a second series of 12 volt wires for Cig plug - tv dvd cell phone etc.. Run a 14 - 2 set of wires for one or two 110 lights , a couple 110 outlets and a 110 ground fault. You will also want a gas light just in case all else fails. Good 60.00 insurance policy. What i do on long trips is bring generator and charge battery's when they get low. (including vex lights. ) PS i also ran an extra 12 V line for a low amp computer fan to move the air off the ceiling. This works great!!!! Good luck hope this helps.

[erik-the-great]

the fuse box is a good idea and i would put a couple of 110volts lights in the ceiling and a switch to shut off the light,just a thought while your wiring drill a hole though the wall and put a 110volt light outside with a switch i use the flourance light bulbs they produce a bright white light not a yellow light and they will charge up your glow jigs i used 110v switches for the 12 volt also make sure that you wire a outlet for heater fan and maybe a 12 volt switch for the heater fan

[erik-the-great]

what i did is mount an rv plug housing on the outside of the house and the run a wire into the fuse box,then use a 12-2 from the generator to the rv housing plug and when you leave the ice the take your cord and put in the house

[Ol' Lund]

sorry if these are dumb questions, but im new to this. lol. i was just looking at the ice castle HSOforum, and the ones i looked at were all 110v. not 12v. so how do they power a wiring system like that?

[erik-the-great]

there all wired for 110v and used a generator for the power source,the new geneators out now have 110volt and a 12volt in them i have a deep cycle battery that i use and a battery charger to charge the battery during the day and a cig lighter plug with a power inverter to power the dish rec and tv and i have a 12v comp fan in the heater that will run till the battery goes dead the only problem with power inverters is that when the battery voltage get below 10.7 volts there shut off,i found over the years is that a generator will run90% of the time

[Ol' Lund]

erik-the-great, do you have a picture of your rv plug set up and fuse box? taht would greatly help me out!

[minnbowhunter]

I ran 2 complete systems in my house, 1 12 volt and 1 110 volt.

My lights are all 12 volt and 1 put in some 12 volt Cig. lighter sockets to charge my cell phone and other stuff. I have 110 outlets for the tv and radio and to charge other electronics. I installed a 110 outlet in the cabinet that holds my 12 volt battery and run a standard battery charger that is hooked up all of the time, when the gen is running the battery is charging. I made up a cord with male ends on each end, one is plugged into the gen and one is plugged into a outdoor type recepticle that is mounted on the outside of the house.

[linetrash]

i would probably run 2 seperate circuts 1-120v and 1-12v. you can run a breaker box but most generators already have a breaker and gfci built into it. definitly wire up your 12v with led's, it will extend your battery life an unbelievable amount. in your 120v circuit assuming you just want lights i would install an outlet by where you keep your battery so you can plug in your charger. after that hook up your switch and lights. i like the old school incandescents for those, they dont take that long to warm up and there is plenty of juice for it. even if you are running your charger at 10A if you use a 60 watt bulbs it will only draw about .5A's/bulb and 100w bulbs will only draw about .84A's. so a 14/2 wire should be sufficient.

[Ol' Lund]

so i could just pretty much wire up the led ceiling lights and a couple cigarette outlets for the 12v system, correct? and for the 120v system, i could run like the tv, radio, and few outlets? so the 12v system is obviously run by deep cycle batteries, and tehn inorder for 120v system to work the generator would always have to be runnin?

[linetrash]

that would work. if your planning on running all that i would definitly run a breaker box. get a 15A breaker for that circuit and you should be good. remember that the breakers are only rated for 1 break. most will do more but it is probably easier to change out the breaker in your box versus the generator.

[erik-the-great]

erik-the-great, do you have a picture of your rv plug set up and fuse box? taht would greatly help me out no have not figured out how to post a picture on the web site let but the rv plug box i purchased at menards its about 8x8 inches square and it has a plug that you plug into your rv cord into i was thinking that you could just drill a hole though the wall and run it into your fuse box from the rv plug where all your inside wire from all your outlets and switch wires are

[erik-the-great]

make sure that you seperate your 12v from 110v so you dont get interference you may have to use a on-off-on switch from napa so that you dont get ac into your 12v

[Big Buck Buster]

so i could just pretty much wire up the led ceiling lights and a couple cigarette outlets for the 12v system, correct? and for the 120v system, i could run like the tv, radio, and few outlets? so the 12v system is obviously run by deep cycle batteries, and tehn inorder for 120v system to work the generator would always have to be runnin?

You don't have to have the generator running all the time to run your 110 system. You can have a power inverter installed to run the 110 system when the generator is not running. The inverter is a device that inverts 12volt to 110 power off of you deep cycle batteries. When the batteries start to get low, fire up the generator to charge them back up.

I installed a power inverter, battery on-board charger(2 bank), 110 system, 12volt system in my last house. This system has worked out great, and will do it again in the next house.

[Ol' Lund]

bbb- could you post a link of somehting like your talking about for me? thanks.

[Big Buck Buster]

You can see what they are here:

http://www.theinverterstore.com/?gclid=COLU7ozk3J4CFQvxDAodTGSlNw

You can also see more options at a lot of the big box stores.

[Ol' Lund]

thanks for the help! lets jsut see if i got this right now, i can wire everything 110v, and have 2 deep cycle batteries, with on board charger, DC to AC inverter, and I can run the generator when the batteries need to be charged up?

[Big Buck Buster]

thanks for the help! lets jsut see if i got this right now, i can wire everything 110v, and have 2 deep cycle batteries, with on board charger, DC to AC inverter, and I can run the generator when the batteries need to be charged up?

I would still have a 12volt system installed as well.

I like to use the power inverter during the quieter parts of the night when running the generator would make the neighbors a little upset with me. Otherwise, I use the 12volt system most of the time.