I have a couple projects on my list for this summer that I would like to go ahead and start on. I recently purchased a UWS low profile toolbox that I want do a couple mods to. First, I'm going to fab. a couple brackets and hang two 12" LED light bars on the lid with a switch for night use. And also, I want to mount my portable air compressor inside my toolbox, and run hard wires by the frame to the engine bay. That way, the only thing I have to remove from the toolbox is the hose when I'm using the compressor.

The help that I need is suggestions on how and where to properly run and connect the wiring for the lights and compressor. Before anything is started, I'm getting the inside of the toolbox rhino lined, and also purchasing a thick rubber mat to lay inside the toolbox to help dampen any noise or items moving.

So far, here are my plans for each:

For the LED light bars, since both together will only draw 0.42 A, I figured it would be ok to run the wires straight to the battery (in parallel) and connect them at the terminals and ground it in the toolbox.

For the compressor, I'm unsure of where to hard wire it into. The compressor will draw around 30 A when under full load. I'm thinking to I can wire it to the battery as well, since that is the standard connection point with the battery clamps. There will be no shortcuts taken when doing this install. It will be well thought out and planned before anything is attempted. As far as wiring path, don't worry about that. My main concern is including necessary items in circuit for proper operation.

I'm sorry for the long post, but any suggestions or comments will be appreciated.

 

Baf- There are numerous ways to skin the cat, but this is what I would suggest. I would go to an electronics store (if you have one in you area) and get a "married" cable. That is a cable that has the black and red wire fused together like a speaker wire. Get a minimum of 10 ga. and I would go 8 ga. if they have it. That will give you PLENTY of extra capacity for a safe load of about double what you say your max will be. You only need to run the one wire to the front, then connect them both (hot and ground DIRECTLY to the appropriate battery posts). You can use an inline heavy duty fuse holder, a circuit breaker or resettable breaker AT the battery. You can pull power for the 2 LED lights as well as the compressor ALL off of the hot IN the tool box. No reason at all to run separate wires. If you need to control the items separately (probably will) just do that in the tool box with switches or switch and relay on the compressor so that the switch isn't carrying the 30A load, let the relay do that. Be sure and split loom the cable all the way. That's a very simple way to do it. If you use a relay on the compressor because of the load, you can use a low capacity switch to operate the relay. I don't know where you live but if it were local for me, I'd be glad to give you most of what you need for the hook-up.