Adam Stanley Posted October 26, 2010 Share Posted October 26, 2010 I will be lighting one of my fire dept.'s engines this year for the christmas parade. I already have the CTB16PC controller. I was wanting to use one of the channels to operate the emergency lighting (12v) that is already on the truck but keep the other 15 channels for 120v led christmas lights. The truck has 50w halogen rotator's though and am not sure of the total amp draw yet. The only truck we have that has an led light bar will not be able to be taken out of service for the parade. I believe there are a total of 9 50w halogen bulbs with 12v electric motors to spin the reflector and i think 6 strobes and am not sure of the watts or amps that the strobes use. The emergency lights all have there own 12v switch with one master switch. I was thinking that i could just use the truck for the power source and leave all the switches on but the master and use some type of 120v to 12v relay hooked to the controller to turn on the master switch or can i use a standard transformer like the ones for charging laptops? Please let me know what I can do. Thanks in advance for any input. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anthony in Houston Posted October 26, 2010 Share Posted October 26, 2010 Depends on how your truck is wired, how it runs through the load manager and what kind of electrical system you have.Best thing for you to do is leave the truck lighting and wiring alone especially if you dont know what you are doing. You can turn on the emergency lights with your switches when you need them.Not trying to talk you down on this but if you damage your load manager you will risk loosing all you emergency lighting. If you connect into the wrong place you can back feed into important circuits for your pump engaged system and risk NOT being able to go into pump gear when needed.You have not provided the make, year and model of truck you have and very few people here know how fire trucks are wired so unless you trust the person you are getting the info from I would not tap into your trucks wiring.I do know what I am talking about I have been in the emergency vehicle repair service for over 30 years.Stick with the easy way and flip your emergency master on and make the lights go blinky blinky the way they were designed.Anthony Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam Stanley Posted October 26, 2010 Author Share Posted October 26, 2010 Well didn't think i would throw in all the details but here we go....The truck is actually a 2002 KME pumper/Tanker 2000gal tank 1000gpm pump 4500 watt generator. It's the basic stock model, our chief has never been one to buy anything nice, just as cheap as he can go. The electrical system is standerd hard wired. There is no load manager. I'm actually the engineer at the dept. and have an automotive background (yes i went to college for it) so i think i'm ok with this truck's 12v system. Yes i gave up being a mechanic to be a FF/Medic so i don't have 30yrs but i know i'm not going to screw anything up. I'm the one that installed the headlight and tailight flashers on this truck and the additional strobes. But that was in 2002 so i can't remember exactly what watt strobe's we went with. Not that i can't find out.But as for my original question, what i'm trying to do is not having to dig in to the trucks each individual wire for each light (ie strobe, light bar, flashers) and leave all that intact. I will probably double check that each circuit is isolated (already know they are) and just switch on the main. So what i will need is way to Plug in to one channel on the lor controller and relay the 12v main. I could supply like i said before with the standard transformer but this isn't what i really want to do. So is there a 120v operated relay that would fit this application? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Donald Puryear Posted October 27, 2010 Share Posted October 27, 2010 I use RIB relays (relay in a box) They work well with LOR. If your master switch operates a main relay to control power to the switch bank then this will relay will work fine. Take 12 volts to the relays n-o contacts and then the common wire to the input terminal of the main relay Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam Stanley Posted October 27, 2010 Author Share Posted October 27, 2010 Did a google search on them, Thanks! These look great. Which model do you use for a 120v ac trigger and the 12v dc input/output? Also what amp rating should i get? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iresq Posted October 27, 2010 Share Posted October 27, 2010 You can get these at radio shack. http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2049721&numProdsPerPage=60110 from LOR to trigger the relay.We also have a similar 2003 KME PT. http://cscvfc.org/apparatus.shtmOurs has a load manager. We have had nothing but electrical problems with this apparatus including an electrical fire caused by KME failing to proper insulate the low voltage panel from water intrusion. The control panel is located next to and beneath the tank overflow (in the pump operator's compartment). If you overfill the tank (which happens frequently) water would run into the control box! KME - Keep Maintenance Employed LOLBeing as your Chief is cheap (having been a Chief for too many years, I chuckle) how happy is he going to be if something goes wrong? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam Stanley Posted October 27, 2010 Author Share Posted October 27, 2010 LOL sorry about the cheap chief thing, but i can actually see where he's coming from. He would rather spend the money on the bigger tank and pump then having a 6 person cab and all the other fancy bells and whistles. Not having fire hydrants outside of the city means a completely different way of fighting fire. We have 22,000 gallons of water on wheels between all of our trucks and our mutual aid. Ok well i pulled of the switch plate tonight and looked over the wires while i was up doing some scba maintenance and the main switch powers the individual switches then the switches power there own individual relays. So 12vdc goes from battery distribution block, fuse, switch triggers relay and fused 12v goes through the input/output side, to light (ie light bar, flashers, ect, ect). So I'm sorry but that's about as basic as it gets. My problem wasn't really with knowing how to wire it in but more about figuring out what type of relay to use and figuring out how to convert from the different amounts of watts and converting it to amps between the different voltages (12vdc, 120v ac). But after reading some stuff in these forums and some other stuff i googled i think i have the conversions down now. I also have a nice fluke meter so i'll borrow an amp clamp for it and power everything up and make sure i know what the amp readings are before i buy anything. But with the way its wired i really don't think the main switch is any where near 10amps. But i'll check just to be safe. Thanks for the info!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts