Contact cleaner, also known as switch cleaner, is a term for a chemical, or a mixture of chemicals, intended to remove or prevent the build-up of oxides or other unwanted substances on the conductive surfaces of connectors, switches, and other electronic components with moving surface contacts, and thus reduce the contact resistance encountered. The use of contact cleaner can help to minimize the wetting current across a pair of contacts An example of a simple contact cleaner is isopropyl alcohol. Some contact cleaners are designed to evaporate completely and rapidly, leaving no residue. Others may contain lubricants. Lubricants themselves should not necessarily be used as contact cleaners, especially if they are designed to leave an unsuitable residue. However, appropriate lubricants may work well as contact cleaners. The green stuff is more than likely oxidation and corrosion on copper. It should clean some of it off. It might take some light scrubbing with a cotton swab or something else that you can get to it with. then use the CC
You won't find a spray-can product that will remove visible corrosion. Those are for removing oil, grease, light corrosion and dust/dirt mostly. That 'green' stuff is the copper/brass equivalent of rust and is generally just as hard to remove. You usually have to get in there and physically clean it out, by scraping, wire brush, media blasting. Sometimes the only real fix is to replace the connector and if the corrosion has 'wicked' into the wire, the wire also. I have seen limited success by using 'oxyclean' (yep, the stuff advertised on TV by cleaning a penny) by dipping the connector in the solution until clean but you have to be damn sure you get it all off after dipping or it'll keep 'cleaning' until the part or wire disappears. Rinse thoroughly with water then spray with WD40 to displace anything that's left. Most copper connectors are tinned to prevent this. OEM brass types are where you usually have this issue.
For potentiometers you really need to use a cleaner that has a lubricant in it. A straight contact cleaner will remove corrosion and dirt from a pot and eliminate the scratchy sound when you operate them, but they leave the pot dry and that will lead to wear of the carbon trail in the pot, and eventual failure. A cleaner with a lubricant will clean the pot, remove the scratchy sound and leave the a lubricant behind to prevent wear. Something like this: https://caig.com/product/deoxit-d5s-6/
After having purchased a universal 12 circuit harness, then reading through these many posts, I can't understand how my fuse panel can be powered by two 10 gauge wires (915,916) and be fused with a 50 amp fuse. If I understand this correctly, the continuous loads through this panel could be as low as 32 amps but could also be well over 60 amps. Does this sound right, or am I misunderstanding the loads? I have started wiring the alternator circuit. I used 4-gauge wire as alternator charge wire and ran this to the starter post and then into the kick panel area to a distribution block. I had intended to use a circuit breaker mounted near this block and then attach equal lengths of the 10-gauge fuse panel feeder wires to the load side of the breaker. Should I make changes to the wire size and go with just one larger feeder wire? Would 6-gauge wire be an option? How would I determine the size of the circuit breaker if I do stay with the two 10-gauge feeder wires? Would the two actually carry 60 amps? Thanks in advance for any help you can give me. Thank you, Crazy Steve, for giving so much of your time to help others to better understand such a difficult part of hot rod building.
It'll be right for those that have the connectors in the right configuration. As far as I know it isn't standardized, so just going by position of the connections without checking what each connection actually goes to could get you into trouble.
Fusing panel feeders is where I see the most mistakes. Was that 50A fuse furnished with the panel or 'suggested' by the vendor? In the HAMB era, certain circuits as OEM weren't fused. Not because they were too cheap (although that did slightly enter into it), but because one reason was these circuits were inherently 'safe', i.e., if they did fail, it would fail to 'open'. An overload occurs when the connected device starts drawing too much current but still works, even if poorly. A short circuit occurs under one of two conditions; one, the device fails and shorts to ground internally. Or two, the wire is damaged and shorts to ground. There can only be two reasons for the latter; one is poor install, failing to adequately route/protect the wire from physical damage. Or two, accident damage. The OEMs knew this. So the circuits that got fused were the ones that presented a short-circuit hazard, either device or accident caused. As the ignition and starter circuits are both located rather far inside the vehicle, if they sustain accident damage you've got bigger problems than just a short. Lighting is also inherently safe generally, but their location on the easily-crumpled corners means accident damage can be likely, so they get fused. Panel feeders were never fused on HAMB-era cars, although in the days before unified fuse panels they probably should have been. If you have a modern-style unified panel, all branch circuits are fused in the panel and if fused correctly, any issues won't be passed on the feeders. There aren't any circuits directly connected to them, and if they're sized adequately for the continuous connected load, the only hazard is short circuit and I talk about that above. So do they 'need' a fuse? Not really... You mention that you have two 'feeder' wires. Those should be the unswitched and switched sides of the panel. The switched one should go to the ignition switch, the switch will get the feed wire from the battery. And your idea of a single larger wire is good, separate the two at the terminal strip and if you to fuse them, do it there with individual fuses or circuit breakers for each. 30A if you can by calculated load, no more than 40 otherwise. I'd use breakers, much less chance of nuisance tripping.
It's a DC motor, obviously, 12v reversible. I don't know if it is brushless, permanent magnet, etc., not here with me at the moment. Does that make a difference? Found this online.
The problem I see with that is the switch is carrying the full load if the motor. Depending on the application that could over load the switch and cause it to fail. I would use relays to carry the load and use the toggle switch to trigger the relays.
It can make a difference. There're permanent magnet types, series-wound (typically used for OEM heater fan motors and older starters), I've even seen some that have two leads where both are + leads and one is forward and one reverse with the ground supplied through the housings. Nearly any motor can be reversed as long as it has at least two leads, but the switch configuration and wiring can vary. The switch shown is a reversing switch and not a common configuration. A 'standard' 2PDT w/center 'off' switch can be wired to operate like that but will have six terminals rather than four. Automotive reversing switches are used for power windows and tops so they're not hard to find, but styles are limited and you'll need to make sure they can carry the current involved. If any of that is an issue, you can use a 1PDT w/center off switch and two relays to do it. Your drawing is actually correct but the lack of detail threw me...
This stuff works real good! A friend on mine turned me on to this and I have used is many times to solve or at least fix problems! My friend calls it his “ miracle oil”! Try it! Bones
Crazy Steve, my aftermarket harness fuse panel uses one 10-gauge feeder wire from the starter post. A 50-amp maxi fuse is to be installed in this wire. A second 10-gauge feeder wire at the fuse panel is to be attached at the large alternator post. The harness manufacturer states to run another 10-gauge wire from the fuse block side of the maxi fuse to the alternator post if using an alternator with output larger than 65 amps. Mine is 105 amp. Rather than do this, I have run 4-gauge from the alternator. No maxi fuse used. Two 12-gauge wires are attached at the same buss bar as the two 10-gauge wires on the fuse panel. These are the B+ wires to the ignition switch. Would it not be better to run separate feeds, as in your example 3, to the fuse panel and the ignition switch? My concern is too much continuous load on the fuse panel and using two 10-gauge feeder wires rather than a single. There must be thousands of these harness kits out there, but I still want to be happy with my install. Thanks
This has been an awesome thread to date, thanks all. Learning a lot with a lot more to learn, speaking of which... I have a question pertaining to wiring up the dash, in particular gauges. Am I ok to join each gauge to each other for the power, earth and lights? That is, starting at the 1st gauge connecting the power, earth and gauge light power then making short loops to the next gauge and on and on across all the gauges. If not do I need something like this Power block?
Pretty much just a forgotten antique these days. Useful back when wire was still cloth-covered and there wasn't any size/use info printed on the insulation or if it became illegible. Last time I saw one in use was by the 'old guy' at a motor rewind shop and that was 30 years ago.
Buy one new at Amazon for $9 https://www.amazon.com/DGOL-Round-Stainless-Standard-Thickness/dp/B078WMSP2L Yes, people still use them. Mike
I want to upgrade this switch from 5A but not change the two mounting bosses. Do they get bigger with larger amps? Miss Radio Shack..
16A I don't know if the mounting holes are the same though, but it's a lead for you https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Honeywell/V15T16-CZ300A05?qs=8o38zr6eod8fGSfHY5oFnQ==
Here's a couple more to check out: https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Honeywell/V19T16-CZ300B05?qs=7MVldsJ5UaxiiIgwzozTSw== https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Honeywell/V19T16-EZ100B02?qs=7MVldsJ5UayzdHRJDpyBcg==
The Jalopy Journal
