Wiring Archives - Page 13 of 15

Picture of wiring diagram showing how to use a trailer converter with the Infinitybox 10-Circuit Kit.

Turn Signals with a Trailer Converter

April 1, 2016/0 Comments/in Wiring /by admin

A common question that we get relates to wiring turn signals with our 10-Circuit Kit. A lot of guys want to know if they can wire their cars or trucks with a 10-Circuit Kit instead of a 20-Circuit Kit. We put up a post on our blog a while ago talking about the benefits of one kit over the other. You can read that at this link.

For guys wiring with the 10-Circuit Kit, a lot ask about how to get our 1-filament turn signal feature when there is only one POWERCELL in the system.

Our standard 20-Circuit Kit gives you several different options for your turn signals in the rear of the car or truck. This link will get you more detail. The option that raises the most questions is what we call 1-filament turn signals. This version uses one filament from a bulb on both sides of the rear of the car to be both the turn signal and the brake light. The easiest way to check for this is by the color of the lenses on your rear turn signals. If they are red, you probably have a one filament configuration. If they are amber, you’d use what we call multi-filament.

To manage what we call 1-filament turn signals, the POWERCELL turns on both the left and right turn signal outputs at the same time when you step on the brake light. We also have special software in the system that will let one turn signal override the brake light if you have a turn signal on while stopped. With our 20-Circuit Kit, you have two POWERCELLs in the system. The turn signals coming off of the rear POWERCELL act differently than the turn signals on the front POWERCELL.

When you wire your car with our 10-Circuit Kit, you only have one POWERCELL in the system. This means that you have only one pair of outputs controlling your turn signals. You cannot control 1-filament turn signals directly from a single POWERCELL. If you did, your front turn signals would both turn on when you stepped on the brake pedal.

To wire 1-filament turn signals with our 10-Circuit Kit, you need to add a Trailer Light Converter to your wiring harness. These are simple controllers that replicate what we are doing in software for the 1-filament turn signals. This schematic shows you how to wire in a trailer light converter to a 10-Circuit Kit.

Picture of wiring diagram showing how to use a trailer converter with the Infinitybox 10-Circuit Kit.

There are lots of different companies that make trailer converters. Our customers have recommended these two options.

Tow Ready 119130

Hopkins 48895

Contact us if you have any questions about wiring your turn signals. You can download the application note in PDF format by clicking this link.

Picture of wiring diagram showing how to wire the Detroit Speed RS Headlight Cover Motors with the Infinitybox System.

Detroit Speed Headlight Door Kit

March 11, 2016/0 Comments/in Wiring /by admin

Our Infinitybox system can be used to wire practically anything in your restoration, pro-touring car or race car. Here’s another great example. Kyle Tucker’s team at Detroit Speed, Inc. have a long history of innovation. They sell a wide array of products for muscle cars from the mid-1960’s into the early 1980’s. One of their most popular products to our customers is their Electric RS Headlight Door Kit. This lets you replace the vacuum actuated headlight door mechanism on your 1968 or 1969 Camaro RS. You can get more information on the kit here.

The Detroit Speed Headlight Door Kit gives you everything that you’d need to replace the mechanisms to open and close the headlight doors. It is well engineered and comes with a great set of instructions. You can download them here. This kit is easy to install and even easier to wire when you are using our Infinitybox 10 or 20-Circuit Harness Kit.

The Detroit Speed Headlight Door Kit needs to get a signal when the parking lights are on and when the headlights are on. Depending on which lights are on, the kit will open and close the headlight doors. With a traditional wiring harness, you would need to run wires from the headlight switch on the dash all the way forward to the headlights. With the Infinitybox system, power for the lights and the Headlight Door Kit comes locally from the POWERCELL mounted in the front of the car. The following diagram shows how you connect your front POWERCELL to the connector on the Detroit Speed Headlight Door Kit. Essentially, you splice off the parking light and head light output wires from the front POWERCELL and connect these wires to the parking light and headlight terminal on their controller. Remember, that this is coming from the POWERCELL not the MASTERCELL.

Picture of wiring diagram showing how to wire the Detroit Speed RS Headlight Cover Motors with the Infinitybox System.

The Detroit Speed Headlight Door Kit needs to get a constant power feed from the battery. You can connect this directly to the battery or use one of our POWERPLUGs to get fused battery power locally from the POWERCELL.

You can download a PDF of this wiring diagram by clicking this link. If you have any questions about wiring the Detroit Speed Electric RS Headlight Door Kit or any other wiring questions, give our team a call.

Example of a General Motors Ignition Switch

GM Ignition Switch

November 19, 2015/0 Comments/in Wiring /by admin

Wiring any switch into the Infinitybox system is really easy. You just have to remember that the MASTERCELL input wire needs to get connected to ground to turn something on. In most cases, you can simply connect the MASTERCELL input to one side of the switch and ground the other. When you close the switch, the MASTERCELL input gets connected to ground and the output turns on. This blog post is going to cover wiring the GM Ignition Switch with our Infinitybox system.

With most OEM switches and the original switches that are in your car, you can connect the battery feed from the switch to ground. Then you connect the MASTERCELL input wire to the terminal on the switch that powered the original function. Here’s a good example for a GM Ignition Switch. This GM Ignition Switch was used in most Chevrolet and Pontiac cars from 1969 through 1994.

Picture of a wiring diagram showing how to connect Infinitybox MASTERCELL inputs to the GM Ignition Switch

You connect the original battery feeds for the GM ignition switch to ground. You then connect the MASTERCELL input wires for the ignition and starter to their respective terminals on the switch. When you turn the key to the ignition position, the switch connects the MASTERCELL input wire for the ignition to the ground through the battery terminal. This sends a signal to the POWERCELL to turn on the ignition output. The same thing happens when you turn the key to the starter position. We created a simple wiring diagram showing you how to wire this GM ignition switch.

You can download a copy of this wiring diagram by clicking this link.

You can contact our technical support team with more questions at this link.

Digi-Tails

September 28, 2015/0 Comments/in Wiring /by admin

Our Infinitybox system is designed to control about anything electrical in your car, truck or custom vehicle. Here’s an example of wiring tail lights manufactured by Digi-Tails.

Digi-Tails makes a very broad range of LED tail light assemblies for a full range of vehicles. If you’re building it, they probably have a kit for your car. This includes Mustangs, Camaros, Tri-Fives, MOPAR and most anything else. They make traditional and sequential kits. You can check out their full product line here.

Wiring their kits with your 10-Circuit or 20-Harness from Infinitybox couldn’t be simpler. The bottom line is you wire their assemblies just like you would wire the traditional tail lights that came with your car. They have a wire for the parking lights, the left turn signal and the right turn signal. You connect those wires to the same outputs on the rear POWERCELL. Connect your MASTERCELL input wires to the turn signal stalk and the brake pedal and you’re ready to go.

Digi-Tails tries to match the original wiring colors in the OEM harness to their wiring. Depending on the kit you have from them, the wires for the turn signals and running lights may be a different color. Here’s how you want to match your POWERCELL output wires to their wires.

Their Driver Side Tail Lights or Driver Side Turn Signal should connect to the LEFT TURN SIGNAL from your rear POWERCELL. In most Infinitybox kits, this is the brown wire but always check your configuration sheet.
Their Passenger Side Tail Lights or Passenger Side Turn Signal should connect to the RIGHT TURN SIGNAL from your rear POWERCELL. In most Infinitybox kits, this is the violet wire but always check your configuration sheet.
Their Running Lights wire should connect to the PARKING LIGHT output from your rear POWERCELL. In most Infinitybox kits, this is the yellow wire but always check your configuration sheet.

The only real difference when wiring a Digi-Tails tail light panel is that they need a constant 12-volt power feed to power the electronics on their LED board. In most of their kits this is the orange wire going to each tail light assembly. Check their manual for the specifics of your kit. You can easily do this with one of our POWERPLUG 12-volt accessories. This simply plugs into one of the unused power ports on your rear POWERCELL. It has an integrated fuse holder to properly protect the wire against getting shorted to ground. In this case, we’d recommend fusing that wire with a 5-amp fuse. You can learn more about the POWERPLUG at this link.

When using the Digi-Tails tail lights, you want to use the MASTERCELL inputs for 1-filament. By doing this, you are setting the system to manage the turn-signals and the brake lights together on the same outputs. This link will take you to an older blog post that talks about our different turn signal options.

Here is a simple diagram that shows you how to connect the outputs from your rear POWERCELL to any of the Digi-Tails tail light kits.

Picture of a wiring diagram showing how to wire Digi-Tails Sequential Lights with Infinitybox

You can download a copy of this diagram by clicking this link.

Contact our technical support group if you have questions about wiring your Digi-Tails with our Infinitybox system.

High-Beams

September 21, 2015/1 Comment/in Wiring /by admin

Here’s another cool feature that is built into our 10 and 20-Circuit Harness Kits. We give you a very simple way to toggle between your headlights and high-beams.

In most cases, you have a separate input for your headlights and a separate input for your high-beams. When the headlight input is grounded through the switch, the headlights turn on. When the high-beam input is grounded, the high-beams turn on. This link will take you to one of the most common headlight switches and a wiring diagram showing you how to connect it to your MASTERCELL inputs.

In some cases, the car may have a momentary switch as part of the steering column that is supposed to control the headlights and high-beams. There are lots of kits out there that manage this but they are unnecessary with our 10 and 20-Circuit Kits. We build that functionality in to the kits. You simply need a momentary button to control your high-beams.

If you look at your configuration sheet, you’ll see an input that is called “Alternating Headlight Toggle”. It does something pretty simple. The input is designed to connect to a momentary switch. The other side of the momentary switch should connect to ground.

If your headlights are on and you press and release this momentary switch, the headlights will turn off and your high-beams will turn on. If you press and release the momentary switch again, the high-beams will turn off and your headlights will turn on. Essentially, this switch will allow you to toggle between your headlights and high-beams.

Now, if you headlights are off and you press the switch, the high-beams will turn on. This is for a flash-to-pass function. Again, this is built into the system. No external controllers or relays are required.

If you are using a newer OEM steering column, there is usually a switch that closes when you pull back on the turn-signal stalk. You’d connect one side of this switch to the Alternating Headlight Toggle input on the MASTERCELL then ground the other side.

Both IDIDIT and Flaming River make great aftermarket columns. They both have upgrade options that put a momentary button on the end of the turn-signal stalk. You can connect that button to the Alternating Headlight Toggle input and get the same function. You do not need their relay controllers to do this.

This link will take you to the Dimmer Switch option from IDIDIT.

This link will take you to the dimmer switch kit from Flaming River. You do not need their relay and harness kit.

Contact our technical support team if you have questions about wiring your headlights and high-beams.

Picture of the Infinitybox MASTERCELL inSIGHT Screen

Error Log

September 16, 2015/0 Comments/in Wiring /by admin

There are lots of things that set our Infinitybox wiring system apart from traditional harnesses. Our troubleshooting and diagnostics is probably one of the most significant features that we offer. The system will tell you where there are problems in the wiring harness, with no tools required.

One of the more significant features that is built into every one of our systems is our Error Log. This is an advanced troubleshooting tool that can help to identify problems with a system installed in any vehicle. The system actively monitors key parameters in the wiring harness. If these go out of their expected range, the MASTERCELL stores these errors and has the capability to display them back for problem solving.

Let’s start with a deeper dive into how the system works. When you turn on a switch, the MASTERCELL sees the input get grounded. It sends a signal to the POWERCELL to turn on an output. Before the POWERCELL can turn on that output, it needs to check to make sure that everything is safe to do so. There are three critical parameters that the POWERCELLs check before they can turn on an output: the primary battery voltage, the charge pump voltage and the POWERCELL temperature. The POWERCELL is continuously monitoring these values and making decision on what to do with them.

The primary battery voltage is an easy one. The voltage that the POWERCELL is fed from the battery has to be in a specific range. A charged battery should be at about 12.8 volts. When the engine is running and the alternator is charging, that voltage should be between 13.8 to 14.2 volts. The Infinitybox system has internal high and low limits that it watches for the primary battery voltage. The system can operate down to 6.5 volts and up to 19.0 volts. If the measured voltage goes outside of these limits, the POWERCELL will shut the outputs off for safety. In general, your system should be operating between 12.2 and 14.2 volts. If you’re outside of that, you have a battery or charging issue.

The next one is charge pump voltage. This is an internal measurement that we take to assess the health of the POWERCELL. A charge pump is exactly what it sounds like. We have circuitry on the board that pumps up a charge and stores it. This stored charge is used to turn the MOSFETs on. We don’t use relays on the POWERCELL, we use solid-state MOSFETs. These can do a lot more than a relay but they need to be turned on a specific way. That’s what the charge pump does. We monitor the charge pump voltage and display it as part of the POWERCELL statistics. Depending on the software version, some systems will display CP Volts. Other systems may display CP Delta. If your system shows CP volts, this number should be above 22-volts. If your system shows CP Delta, it should be above 12.0. Again, this in an internal measurement that we use to assess the health of the POWERCELL.

The last measurement that we take is board temperature. Each board has a small temperature sensor mounted on it. This lets the processor monitor the temperature on the printed circuit board. This temperature is a combination of the heat generated on the board and the heat from the environment that the POWERCELL is mounted in. All of the components on the POWERCELL boards are rated to 125 degrees Celsius (257 degrees Fahrenheit). If the board temperature measured by the processor approaches this 125 C limit, it shuts the outputs down for safety.

So lets look at the error log. If a POWERCELL records an error, it sends it to the MASTERCELL which stores it in a list. The MASTERCELL stores 8 errors. New errors that are recorded push the oldest errors out of this list. The MASTERCELL reports the Uptime when the error was recorded, the cell that reported it and the outputs associated with it. The uptime is a clock that starts when the system is powered up. You can see this when it is running normally. This is not a real-time clock because it does not continue to run when the system is shut down.

To get to the error log, you first remove the clear cover from the MASTERCELL. Then you press and release the HOME and SCROLL DOWN buttons under the screen. Hold them together for one second then let them go. The MASTERCELL will display any errors that it has stored. If you want to stop the error log process at any time, simply press and hold the HOME button for 5 seconds.

Our technical support team can learn a lot about your electrical system by looking at the events recorded in the error log. It is usually easiest for you just to record a video of the error log running with your smart phone and send that to our team. We can analyze it for you.

By looking at the events in the error log, we can identify problems with your grounds, your battery, your charging system and how you have the system installed in your car. Check out this video to learn more.

Contact our technical support team if you have any questions about our error log, our diagnostics, our troubleshooting capabilities or any other questions related to our Infinitybox wiring system.

Training inLINK

September 15, 2015/1 Comment/in Wiring /by admin

inLINK is one of our most popular accessories for our 10 and 20-Circuit Harness Kits. It gets you a very easy way to add an alarm, security and a vehicle immobilizer to your car. You can either purchase inLINK with your kit up front or you can add at any time down the road. If you add it down the road, you are going to have to follow these instructions for training inLINK. This is a simple process that pairs the remote key fob to the radio in the MASTERCELL.

We use a secure and encrypted system to protect the communication between the key fob and the MASTERCELL. It uses a 64-bit, rolling code encryption scheme. That means that every time you press a button on the fob, it changes the secret password. There are billions of combinations of passwords that make hacking into the transmission practically impossible.

Each of the key fobs included with the inLINK kit has to be trained to the MASTERCELL. If you order inLINK with your 10 or 20-Circuit Harness Kit, we pre-install it and train it for you. If you order this separately, you need to install the radio board and train the key fobs.

This link will show you how to install the inLINK radio board in your MASTERCELL.

Here are the steps to train your key fobs to your MASTERCELL.

Remove the cover on the MASTERCELL.
Press and release the “TRAIN” button on the MASTERCELL. You will get a message that will read “To Learn… press any button 2 times”.
Press the lock button on the key fob once, wait one second and press the lock button on the key fob again. After a few seconds, you will get a message on the screen that reads “Learn Command Accepted”. You may also get a message that reads “Existing Transmitter Overwritten”. In either case, the MASTERCELL and key fob are paired.
Repeat this process for the second key fob.

Contact our technical support team with any questions about pairing your inLINK key fobs to the MASTERCELL.

Battery Disconnect

September 15, 2015/1 Comment/in Wiring /by admin

Here’s another good question we got from a customer.

“I normally install in a battery disconnect switch when I wire a car. When I install inRESERVE, do I need to wire in a separate battery disconnect switch?”

The answer is “no”. Just like all of our other products, our products are versatile and serve multiple functions. inRESERVE is our active battery management system. It works in conjunction with our 10 or 20-Circuit Harness Kits to actively protect your battery from drain. There are lots of things in your car that are pulling current from the battery when the car sits idle. The ECU pulls power, the audio system pulls power and our Infinitybox hardware pulls power while the car is sitting.

Before we get into the details of inRESERVE, there are a few things that you can do to maintain the health of your battery and to make sure that you always have a good charge.

First, we always recommend leaving the battery on a maintenance or trickle charger. Good ones are made by CTEK, Optima or Battery Tender.

From there, we always recommend adding a disconnect switch between the battery and the electrical loads in your car. That way you can manually kill all of the power demand from your battery when the car is sitting idle. This is a thing where there are lots of good products out there and lots of bad ones. The disconnect switches that we recommend are made by Littelfuse or Pollak. This is one of our favorites.

There are a few important warnings about wiring in disconnect switches. First, you do not want to run your starter motor through the disconnect. With the exception of a few switches, most are not designed to handle the current surge from when you crank the engine. You want to leave the main feed from the battery to the starter motor uninterrupted. Second, you never want to interrupt the feed from the alternator to the battery. This can lead to a situation called a load dump and it can cause significant damage to the electrical systems in your car. This link will get you more information.

Our inRESERVE Active Battery Management System combines a disconnect switch with the intelligence of our Infinitybox system. Click on this video to learn more about the specifics.

The Infinitybox system is always monitoring the battery voltage in your car. If the voltage gets too low, a POWERCELL output pulses the special solenoid included in the inRESERVE kit and disconnects all of the draw from the battery. To do this a few conditions need to be met. First, the ignition must be off. We don’t want inRESERVE shutting down power with the ignition on. Second, the battery voltage must drop below 12.2 volts. For most battery chemistries, this is less that 10% stored energy. Lastly, the voltage needs to stay below 12.2 volts for more than 15 minutes. We do this so that momentary sags in battery voltage will not trigger inRESERVE.

inRESERVE does two very important things by actively disconnecting the battery when the voltage gets low. First, it always leaves enough of a charge in the battery so that you can crank the engine and get it started again. Second, it never lets the battery voltage get too low. Deep cycling of a battery will damage it and will shorten its life.

This link will take you to the wiring diagram for the inRESERVE system.

You will note that there is a manual reset button that is included with the inRESERVE kit. inRESERVE actively kills power to the system by sending a signal to a special solenoid. After it does its job, the Infinitybox system is asleep. You need to manually reset the system by pressing a reset button. This button must be placed in a location that can be accessed when the battery is disconnected, which means somewhere on the outside of the car if you have power locks or poppers. We usually recommend installing the button under a fender for easy access.

This same manual reset button can be used to manually disconnect the battery, which is the answer to the question asked at the beginning of this post. You can press this button to manually disconnect the battery and press it again to reengage the battery, just like a typical battery disconnect switch. Adding inRESERVE to your system eliminates the need for a manual battery disconnect switch.

There are a few last things to consider when wiring in inRESERVE.

You must not run the starter motor current through this solenoid. That must run directly between the battery and the starter motor.
You must not run the alternator feed through the inRESERVE solenoid. The electrical path from the alternator to the battery must not be interrupted.
The solenoid included with the inRESERVE kit is a special solenoid. It is not like a typical starter solenoid. It has a special latching mechanism in it. A momentary pulse to the coil will latch it open. Another momentary pulse will latch it closed. Follow the wiring diagram carefully when wiring it. Also, you may not substitute other solenoids. They will not work correctly.

Please give our technical support guys a call if you have any questions about wiring a Battery Disconnect into your car.

Picture of the Infinitybox 3-Way CAN Cable

Harness Connectors

September 9, 2015/0 Comments/in Wiring /by admin

Our Infinitybox 10 and 20-Circuit Kits, plus our Express Racing Kits come with universal harnesses that connect to our MASTERCELLs, POWERCELLs and inMOTION Cells. We chose the Aptiv family of connector systems for all of our harnesses. They are cost effective, they are easy to work with, they don’t require expensive tools and they are easy to get through distributors. Most importantly, they are proven in the field.

Sometimes customers make changes to their harnesses. Sometimes they damage them and need to repair them. Sometimes a customer just wants to build their own custom harnesses using the right connectors for the job. We get asked a lot about the part numbers for these connectors so we just put them up in our Resources Section. There is a new heading called Connector Components. That has a complete bill of material for all of the harness connectors used in our system. You can also get these documents at these links below.

Here is the document for the MASTERCELL.

Here is the document for the POWERCELL.

Here is the document for the inMOTION Cell.

We also get asked where you can buy these harness connectors. You can get them from many different sources. We prefer Mouser or Waytek Wire.

Give our technical support team a call if you have any questions about how to work with these connector parts.

Wiring an LED

September 4, 2015/0 Comments/in Wiring /by admin

We got another great question from a customer today. This one came in through our Facebook page.

“I’m going to be running LED headlamps and taillights on my Infinitybox-equipped car. Can you write-up a blog on the changes I’ll need to make in my wiring?”

Here are the changes that you need to make when wiring an LED light with the Infinitybox system: absolutely nothing.

Our POWERCELLs turn things on and off including fans, ECU’s, pumps and lights. Lights come in basically two flavors: incandescent and LED. Incandescent lights were the original creation of Thomas Edison. Up until a few years ago, they were used for all of the lights in cars including headlights, running lights, interior lights, brake lights and turn signals.

The trend in automotive lighting is towards LEDs or light emitting diodes. This link will take you to a Wikipedia page talking about how they work. LED’s have two main advantages of incandescent light bulbs. First, they have no filaments or fragile parts so they last a long time. Second, they are much more efficient than incandescent bulbs. This means that they consume much less current to get the same level of brightness.

To go back to the question, you can connect an LED light in the place of an incandescent bulb and it will work correctly when connected to an Infinitybox POWERCELL. The other question that we usually get related to LED’s is “do I need a load resistor when using LED turn signals?”. The answer again is “no”.

Traditional turn signal flashers work by drawing current through a heating element within the flasher. The flashers are expecting a certain amount of current being drawn by an incandescent bulb. When you change to LEDs with a traditional turn signal flasher, you needed to add a load resistor that draws current through the circuit. This compensates for the reduced current flowing through the LED.

With the Infinitybox system, you don’t need the load resistor to get your turn signals to work correctly. We do the flashing of the turn signals and 4-ways through the processor on the POWERCELL. The flashing does not depend on the amount of current flowing to the bulb. To the POWERCELL, there is no difference between an incandescent bulb or an LED light.

To round out this question, there is one thing that you may need to do when wiring an LED into your Infinitybox system. As we mentioned above, LEDs are much more efficient than their incandescent cousins. It takes very little current to turn them on. LEDs from different manufacturers are more or less efficient, depending on the materials that they may use.

Our POWERCELLs leak a very small amount of current out of the outputs. We use this as part of our diagnostic system. Depending on the efficiency of the LED, this diagnostic current may make the LED’s glow dimly when the light is off. To eliminate this, you can simply connect a 10K (10,000 ohm) resistor between the POWERCELL output wire and ground. An 1/8 Watt resistor or larger will be fine. This picture shows you how to wire this in.

Picture of wiring diagram showing how to wire a bypass resistor with LED lights

This bypass resistor shunts the diagnostic current through the resistor around the LED. You can pick up a 10K resistor on-line.

You can download a PDF of this wiring diagram by clicking this link.

Please give our technical support team a call if you have questions about this post.