Alvin

Bob, be prepared for systems with blown fuses or old connections. This is your opportunity to go over anything, become familiar with each system and tidy up. Keep an eye out for in-line fuses and things which may need attention as you go.

If you hook it up wrong, almost for sure bad things will happen. Don't do it. Isolate 1 system at a time, connect each system after you're sure. Label everything and make copious notes.

Yes, agree. To answer this question about a given application it varies case by case and really, night by night if traveling. Vehicle power almost demands that each RV owner becomes knowledgeable abound conductor gauge and losses. Perhaps the best way to answer this question is to link to copper loss tables: Http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_wire_gauge and "ampacity"... Http://wiki.xtronics.com/index.php/Wire-gauge_Ampacity ...

The rule of thumb I often see is to assume the gauge of wire required for loads of 80% power at the plug. We can all apply the line loss tables to figure this out for each case. That would be 1440-watt load max for AWG 14 with corresponding 15-Amp breaker and 1920 Watts load max for 20-amp service using 12AWG. I also like to see lots of 30amp sources in a home and 50-Amp for RV and garage service. I know copper is pricey but it's a great insurance policy. Other rules of thumb may be more useful case by case. I can't wire without thoughts of voltage drop. In my experience I also consider the reactive components if required since today's wiring is going more and more into whole home automation technologies like Z-wave, x10 (dying) and my choice, Insteon. Nice clean power is the goal.

I've learned over the years for my own wiring in my own home to go big on wire, liberal on breakers, and over-achieve. Self love. Use of small gauge wire is anticipated worst case for the next owner who may test my assumptions. Same for my military PCB designs. If you want to shoot your power supply or Ethernet router out of a bazooka, they hire me to design it. I see how the codes are suggestions for state and local municipalities to enforce, but with my designs I hold to mil-std and commercial enforced standards....no room for skimp. My suggestion is to spare no effort for safety. Have enjoyed the comments, but come down on the side of safety. Rarely do we need to play McGiver but good to know how. In practice, not so safe. We protect the non-technically inclined first.

http://www.grote.com/tech/fmvss/rv_chart.html Looks like national highway regulations, and other references to DOT. May vary from state to state. Plus all those lights makes your rig so pretty.

Ahhh... the GFCI. I have a love/hate relationship with those things. In the new house I had built in 2012, those things are all over the place it seems. I'm still mapping which GFCI goes to what. Wanted outlets in Garage... GFCI. Outlets on the porch... GFCI. Outlets on the eves for Christmas lights... GFCI. Outlet in the furnace room... GFCI. Storage room... GFCI. Kitchen, yes, I knew I'd be getting GFCI there. Six bathrooms... all connected to GFCI's... but I have no idea which when goes where yet. Pretty soon every outlet will be required to be a GFCI. lol

I don't believe all of Harbor Freight's stuff is sub-par. Just with these two particular extension cords I bought. They started sparking and "plastic carbonization" at the female plug end. I was using my Odyssey at the time to live in while working on my old house and all I was driving was a couple of small space heaters in the Odyssey to keep warm through the night; a fully load for sure (I think the space heaters were 900-watts each). I had the extension cords plugged into the old house power and the 20-amp breaker didn't blow unless I tried to run A/C... after which 10 minutes would cause the breaker to blow. It's possible that it was a result of cumulative stress on the wires, and by the time winter rolled around and the extension cords had enough, including being covered with Utah snow. Other 12-gauge extension cords I bought have not failed. I'm sorry to say I didn't dissect the cables to see if they were really 12-gauge. They went right into the trash. As mentioned, the fail point was the cable ends. I should mention that the cables did get kinda warm.

An issue that should be brought up is that some elcheapo extension cables do not have the appropriate size conductors to carry the full load. I bought harbor freight cables once which were very sub par. For my odyssey, I use 30-feet of 8-AWG from my house dock shore power. I bought the wire and put on the plug heads myself. The RV service dock was an add-on to my home construction when I had the house built in 2012. I had it set up for both 120VAC and 240VAC RV service. As jdemaris mentioned this service required some very large wire since it runs about 90-feet through the house from the main breaker electrical panel. I don't trust cheap cables without testing them. I design power supplies and Ethernet switches and routers for the vehicle uses in the military (humv's, jeeps, tracked vehicles, Bradley tanks, and many many types of aircraft....my stuff has to work because lives depend on it, or can depend on it). I would not skimp on wire, but the connection points are major points of failure. Proper strain-relief is important.

My Odyssey has a generator compartment in the rear passenger-side corner, under a clothes closet behind the toilet. It has a door on the outside and the Generac generator fits inside perfectly. When I bought my rig, the generator was sitting there, all brand-new, not connected to fuel or power. Previous owners bought it and never finished the install...so it was new. Not sure if you have a compartment in your sunrader, so I don't know where you might put one. But I do recommend the Generac, it's been very reliable. Don't know if this helps, but here is the posts I started when I was a noobie, trying to work out fuel and generator issues: http://toyotamotorhome.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=3048&hl=alvin

At my old house, I used 15 amp cables and that was not wise. They heat up, and anyway, I would trip the breaker after 10 minutes running AC. At my new house, I had the electrician wire up 40amp service for both 220VAC RV and also for 120VAC like my odyssey. You need 8 or 10 gauge wires, and should run 30amp service to your RV. If you need extension cables, bigger conductors are better. The generator in my rig was not cheap. It's a 30-amp Generac QP-40, but runs steady and quiet under full load including AC and microwave oven at the same time. 3600-Watts. To put it in, you need some kind of manual or automatic transfer switch....you only switch to generator after it's running, and ALWAYS disconnect from generator before killing the generator. Forgetting to disconnect will subject your appliances to 60Hz to 0Hz wave forms which they were not designed for, as well as fluctuating undefined AC voltages. I did this once and blew a rectifier module in the Generac generator....2 hour repair job and $100 dollars. Lucky that's all that happened. More about the transfer switch. It can be as simple as an RV plug installed as the generators output where you keep your RV AC docking cable coiled up. Here is the proceedure to connect: 1. Make sure RV is unplugged and the main breaker is off. 2. Start the generator and wait for it to stabilize as needed. About 10 seconds for my Generac. 3. Plug in the RV AC power docking cable to generator output. 4. Flip house breaker back to "ON" and use any appliances up to 3600watts. With an automatic transfer switch, it senses when the generator is powered on and stable, then it transfers automatically. Also senses if generator suddenly starts to die, for quick disconnect. Much safer.

Sounds like a battery or connection issue since it's clicking. I've got a generac 30Amp generator in my odyssey. Can you take a battery around to the generator and jump connect it directly? If that works then you'll want to check all the connections for corrosion.

No, and yes. These LED's are wired for 12VDC and require no regulator. To a point, LED's are resliient to voltage and power surge transients. They do have a built non-linear in-internal resistance (RDS) that limits the current some, and if you drop more voltage across them, thereby increasing the current a bit, for just a moment, the LED may brighten just a bit for a moment if it's not saturated optically, but will not fry.

I like the LED light mod suggestion. Thank you. I found that you can buy a bag of 100 of these for $80 here: http://www.ledmarketing.com/p/36-1210-smd-led-car-light-panels-980-37399106.html Should do about 10 Odyssey's. Buy 300 or more and you can get the price down to 72-cents each. lol

I've been buying 12V replacement lights and fixtures for my 89 Odyssey here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000BRCL5E/ref=oh_details_o05_s00_i00 and here: http://www.amazon.com/Progressive-Dynamics-PD781WSBCV-Single-Ceiling/dp/B000BRJVIY/ref=pd_bxgy_auto_img_y There are 12V, cheap, and require no converters. I don't consider these expensive at all?

If you have a switch on the front end of your power (the 12V side), it's off... no phantom load issue. So lets say you have a 12V to 5V dc to dc converter and you put the switch on the 5V side, you may have a tiny load because of the converter (not the LED loads on the converter). So, get out a micro-amp meter, put it in current measurement mode, then connect the meter to the circuit. If you measure 0.1-milliAmps or less, don't worry about it. Here's why: The battery will lose capacity over time anyway even not connected, you need to charge it for 10 or 15 minutes every month or so to extend the life. uA loads (micro Amps) aren't typically enough to worry about compared to an amp or two for powering even a small light bulb. If you can run a small light bulb for 1 hour, then you can run a 100-microAmp load for 10,000 hours.... where the calculation breaks down anyway if you're not charging your battery periodically due to losing battery capacity naturally. 10,000 hours is more than a year.

getout, your wire resistance will be negligable. Look at this web site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_wire_gauge Notice that 20-AWG wire, the resistance is about 33-ohms per kilometer... or about 33-milliohms per meter. So you would need about 30-meters of wire just to have one ohm of resistance. You're more than safe. I think your selection of a DC-DC converter that you linked to is great and that your plan to run several of these circuits in parallel is fine. You'll get alot of light for your 25W investment and taking into account the 90% efficiency, 27.5-Watts in, will produce 25-Watts out. This is a very good solution to your project. Side note: You may want to consider tapping on plugs for any other 5VDC appliances or devices you have just for the sake of handiness; about 50% of all of those devices we use that have 120VAC wal-warts attached are really just supplying 5V to some small circuit. The trick is to make sure you connect the polarity right. I'm a huge snob when it comes to getting rid of walwarts. Walwarts are the scourge of the digital age. lol.

Your power loses won't be huge with an LM7805... or just a resistor, but why waste the power? You should get a high efficiency DC-DC converter... something like this: http://www.amazon.com/Converter-Step-Power-Supply-Module/dp/B00A71CMDU Use the google search "DC-DC converter 12V to 5V" and see what you come up with. DC to DC converters modulate the DC voltage input, adjust the level, and use a high frequency modulated P-FET or N-FET to provide you with a well-regulated output at a given voltage level (in your case 5V). I design these systems all of the time in my job as an EE, but you can buy one cheaply and ready made for your application. You won't have the dropout power wasted as with the LDO solution suggested above (LM750x types). If you have any back-leakage on the EMI you can quiet it down with a ferrite but I doubt that will be a problem at all (unless you're trying to meet mil-std's with your RV. lol). Your efficiency will be around 90% or better for the power conversion. I like 7805's, but not on vehicles where battery life should be conserved. You can also pick up any 12V car cigarette lighter to USB charging adapter... and pull off the 5VDC and GND from 2 of the 4 wires. Maybe you already have one of these... so just get an old USB cord and do a little surgery. Type "Car USB charger" into amazon.com... you'll see what I mean. USB charging voltage is 5V and most new ones will do 2 or 3 amps. Old ones at least 1Amp.

I know you said the battery is new or newish, but my experience and knowledge tells me that you should do some testing using a 2nd new battery. I have actually seen bad batteries shortly after purchase, and also after only one winter season of use. A bad battery can actually read 13 volts but have such a high internal resistance that it is useless for starting.... and it's always harder to start it after leaving the vehicle overnight. Please see this post from several months ago: http://toyotamotorhome.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=3332&st=0&p=17906&hl=+alvin%20+battery&fromsearch=1entry17906 I still hold to my guns about buying (or at least testing) with a 2nd battery. It's only about $100 or less... and (SO FAR) every time I've thought it could be something else, it has turned out that a new battery did the trick, even when I thought I had a good battery for sure. I'm also an electrical engineer by trade with limited automotive experience (but if you want to shoot your Ethernet router out of a bazooka I'm the guy you want.... I design and ruggedize advanced Ethernet systems for military aeronautical applications); I recommend you do the easy thing first; another new battery (or test with some truck battery you can swap in). Cold temperatures can hose a marginal battery too. Does it start later in the day after the sun has been shining on your vehicle? Then replace the battery. Try this test to eliminate your vehicle issues: Run the motor and charge your battery up as much as you want. 2) turn off your motor, and completely disconnect both battery terminals, but leave the battery out in the cold with the vehicle. 3) Go away overnight... since the battery is complete disconnected, it can't possibly be draining anything from the vehicle while you sleep. 4) In the morning, re-connect the battery. Does it still not start? Then your vehicle is fine, and it's the battery; replace it. If the vehicle started up great, then as long as you are satisfied it wasn't something else (like a warm summer night) then maybe you have a vehicle problem. If the vehicle barely starts, I still put my money on replacing the battery. Good luck.

As the generator starts and stops, it is not simply the voltage which can do in your solid state devices, but it is also that the generator engine is coming up to speed and is not yet 'governed' to produce a 60-Hz output. Almost all solid state devices and appliances are supposed to work at 120VAC/60Hz. This 60Hz is not at all 60Hz until the generator has reached it's running set point and is regulating the alternating current (voltage) to occur at approximately 60 Hz (or 50 Hz in many non-USA countries). Chances are a given device can make it through this period, but the nature of the startup/shutdown ramp on a generator output is quite literally a complex time-varying function of voltage and phase. There are some generators which will not allow this voltage to be applied until something close to 120VAC/60Hz is reached... which is nice. Yours may or may not be at issue, but you can probably find out by doing a little research, perhaps finding a PDF of the operator's manual or a call to a generous but knowledgable generator-manufacture representative may work too. Unless you know your generator is designed to work this way, I can tell you that almost all simple voltmeters will only give you a part of the story... and it's even worse than that (as good students of electrical engineering can tell you), because most voltmeters have AC settings which are ONLY designed to read accurately at 60Hz frequencies, and are therefore not suitable for reading startup/shutdown voltage and phase information. For doing this, you need any cheap oscilloscope, triggered at the moment you press the start button and the spark-plug starts firing. Such a scope can give you an accurate picture of the rapidly time-changing startup ramp, along with any unknown transients and you can also get a good picture of 0 to 60Hz frequency variation (and possible overshoot) if you set the recording for the proper scale. This is why so many RV's simply use the simple "time-delayed" generator transfer switch... more expensive monitoring equipment could also give you active feedback which could also determine when it is safe to switch in the power, but at a cost of several hundred dollars. (I paid about $80 for my time-delayed switch). I hope I'm not coming across as some kind of wanna-be know it all. I'm just an electrical engineer who has been exposed to my profession for about 25 years, and I hope this helps. I agree with Manieah too about his solution with the plug...it works; I especially agree with him about the GFI plugs (I think you can have 1 of these for every 3 or 4 outlets). The cost of the box, plug etc. is minimal, about $25 probably, and you can get a GFI for $13 bucks... do this regardless of which method you use! But the cable-n-plug method is not automatic and it still leaves open the possibility that your RV can be plugged in, with the breakers on, and THEN you or someone in your RV pushes the start button on the generator... causing 2 to 4 seconds of electrical chaos throughout the entire system. One final admission. I had my step-son work on my generator (he is a mechanic) to get the gas line and all hooked up. It worked great... for one try. Then, he did exactly what I just outlined in the above paragraph... started the generator with the RV plugged in... to devices. The damage was too my generator itself, and cost me several days of research and $110 for a new generator voltage regulator to fix the problem. Therefore, I still recommend the transfer switch for those (like me!) who make mistakes.

Applying generator power is also just a hair tricky upon starting and turning off the generator since the voltage can fluctuate. To get past this, a generator transfer switch typically has a time delay circuit built in to allow generator AC voltage to stabilize. I don't know if you have this type or not, but if you notice a delay when you turn on the generator in the transfer relay clicking over to generator, then you probably have this type of transfer box. If you don't have this type of transfer box (I had no transfer box initially in my rig), then the best procedure is to manually turn off all breakers prior to starting your generator, start the generator, wait several seconds, then turn your breakers on. Follow the reverse procedure when turning off the generator. If you need a transfer switch with a built in time delay, this is the type I bought and it works great: http://www.progressivedyn.com/prod_details/trans_relays/pd5110610.html It sounds like you've got the reverse wiring issue covered, I just wanted to make sure someone mentioned the variance in the voltage when starting/stopping your generator... avoids possible fried appliances.

Thanks very much for that update. I was thinking about the same speaker as well for our yota cab. Question, any chance it can also slide under the seat? or is it too high? Thanks, Al

Well, the rush is simply that I do this trip 4 or 5 times a year, and I've been doing the same trip now for 13 years... Plus, traffic out in the open desert at night is typically 85 right on the nose with most drivers. 60mph is dangerous.

You need an exorcism. I don't think that an 86 has a vehicle computer does it? You may go at the problem by disconnecting systems as possible in an attempt to find a known good starting point.

I am still looking at the optimal cab sub woofer set up. I did connect the "direct 6" outputs to a logitec Z5300 surround sound system in the rear, so I can turn that on while driving since I'm also equipped with a sun force 1000 watt investor. Sounds great. The other input to the Z5300 is the optical output of a 24" flat screen. For the cab I'm considering the two following solutions: http://www.amazon.com/BASS600-8-Inch-Low-Profile-Amplified-Subwoofer/dp/B000OSZA44/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1290914415&sr=8-1 Or http://www.amazon.com/Aura-AST-2B-4-Pro-Bass-Shaker/dp/B0002ZPTBI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=musical-instruments&qid=1290914802&sr=8-1 This is needed because I don't always travel with the inverter turned on and the z5300 sub woofer is not available.