Old Goats corner, Jackalopee kit update

[phoenix2013]

The Kenworth 680 project has moved to another shop, which should improve it's standing in the scheduling que. You should be able to follow its progress. In the meantime the Old Goat got "persuaded" to install these two.

 

Being old, or really old changes one's mindset. It is driven by aches, pains, general weakness, compromised mobility, laziness, etc. If one can't avoid the task one seeks ways to make it "less tasking". Wiring the two seven wire cables is what it is and there are good instructions in the manual how to make it "less tasking". Wiring the remaining six circuits of power and brake controller has been a  bit of a wild, wild west of crawling under the truck, through the truck, into the engine compartment, under the dash, in the battery compartment. A wild west battle with Indians winning. Having the truck in front of oneself contemplating the battle was good for "inspiration". What if we reduced the six wires to two?

Two harnesses that is. Having the truck in front was was also good at establishing that one needed to be 20 feet long and the other 8 feet long. The 20 foot harness has three wires for power, brake lights and brake controller.

It has 15 feet of protective loom with 6-8 inches of wire exposed at the Jackalopee and about 4 feet exposed in the engine compartment. The 8 foot harness has 3 wires, two for +12V and one for ground.

It has 4 feet of protective loom with about 12 inches of exposed wires in the battery compartment and  about 3 feet exposed in the engine compartment. I was a little surprised by the length of wires required but this is a big truck with a full size sleeper.

The 6-8 inches of wires in the 20 foot harness get wired in the Jackaloppee, the loomed portion goes down to the left rail, gets tie wrapped to other harnesses there

and the loom and the wires exit in the vicinity of the firewall.

More on what we do there later.

The short harness in the battery compartment. The 12 inches of the exposed wires start and are terminated there.

Cut the two black wires to about 3 inches long and terminate these with two yellow 3/8" ring terminals. Terminate full 12 inch white wire with a blue 3/8" ring terminal. White goes on the ground stud, black wires go on the +12V stud. I would suggest to insulate the yellow terminals (temporarily) and not install these on the +12V stud until you deal with the other ends of those wires and terminate those on fuses by the firewall. You can see how I mounted the fuses in the picture above. The black wires are terminated with #10 ring terminals and go to fuse bottoms (brass terminals). The white wire goes through the firewall into the cab to provide ground to the brake controller.

Ok that's enough for tonight, tomorrow we will continue wiring and manufacturing kits.

 

Edited February 3 by phoenix2013

[rickeieio]

Oh great teacher, one of your lesser students spotted where you tried to trick us.  You intentionally routed the wires going into the Jackalopee so that water will travel down the wires into the box, even though in the past you've stressed that we should not do that.  Clever of you to try to trick us......

[mike5511]

4 hours ago, rickeieio said:

Oh great teacher, one of your lesser students spotted where you tried to trick us.  You intentionally routed the wires going into the Jackalopee so that water will travel down the wires into the box, even though in the past you've stressed that we should not do that.  Clever of you to try to trick us......

😲...........🤔

[phoenix2013]

What a clever group of padawans. Indeed, a dark force of water incursion would disturb the lifeforce in the Jackalopee sphere. The Master has siliconed that dastardly cable end where it enters that sphere. But I am so proud that I taught you well, that you have absorbed the wisdom and that you share it with other Jackalopians.

[rickeieio]

So, a little dab of silicone, in theory, will keep the guts of the Jackalopee dry, but look at the other end of that cable, where it plugs into the truck outlet.  Running the cable under, rather than over, could prevent TWO potential disasters, and look better to boot.

And I get it, it's more difficult to run the cable under and secure it.  Been there on a 680.  But remember, in the end you'll be graded on neatness by the panel of critics.

[phoenix2013]

Indeed you are a Master Rickeieio  I defer. I must point out the ageism and it's factors I described at the top, this had to be one of the results.

[rickeieio]

Here's how we did it.

And I'm no master.  I just paid attention in class.  But I understand the age thing.  While I'm of lesser seniority that your self, I'm getting there.  I admire the fact that you're still doing it, even if you do need a bit of adult supervision from time to time.

Edited February 3 by rickeieio

[phoenix2013]

Here a quick and dirty way mounting the two resettable breakers under the hood and in the area where you need to be.

Used couple of tie wraps which were already there and added couple more.

[phoenix2013]

7 minutes ago, rickeieio said:

Here's how we did it.

And I'm no master.  I just paid attention in class.  But I understand the age thing.  While I'm of lesser seniority that your self, I'm getting there.  I admire the fact that you're still doing it, even if you do need a bit of adult supervision from time to time.

 

Well, I spotted that the internal wiring in your Jackalopee is in this class.

Truly Masterful

[rickeieio]

Don't credit me with the wiring:

 

[phoenix2013]

Ah, the truth shall set you free!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Danfreda1]

Rick always has that camera when Susan is working 

[rickeieio]

26 minutes ago, Danfreda1 said:

Rick always has that camera when Susan is working 

Funny part was that Henry posted the new Jackalopee instructions showing what length to trim/strip all the wires the day after she did ours.  But she did a pretty dang neat job.

[DanZemke]

Nice compliment!  She may even decide to keep you. :-)

Edited February 4 by DanZemke

[rickeieio]

2 hours ago, DanZemke said:

Nice compliment!  She may even decide to keep you. 🙂

She can't afford to ditch me now.  She's got nearly 55 years invested in training me.  We started dating when she was 14 and I was 15.  We hope to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary in Alaska this summer.

[phoenix2013]

I know all about that training regimen. This summer it will be 55th anniversary, preceded by 3 year courtship. I think that those extended courtships prepare you for the extended training.

But let's bring it to the subject at hand, "the new" Jackalopee wiring. I did another truck couple days back (more on that later), it was a Volvo this time. I mounted the resettable breakers in the same fashion on the vertical harness tie wrapping these in place, it works well and easy. Couple of pointers here.

On resettable breakers the brass terminal is the input (from the batteries). So if you mount these vertically put the brass stud on the bottom to meet the harness coming up.

Here's the whole thing by the firewall.

You can see where the two looms stop about three inches above that horizontal tube and why do you need 4 feet of wires here. The two black wires from the battery harness are tied about foot up and get cut to reach the bottoms of the breakers. However, the full four feet of white wire continues up through the firewall into the cab. The four feet of the red wire and the blue wire from the long harness continue up through the firewall into the cab. The black wire in the long harness gets cut and attached to the top of the 40A breaker. The piece you cut off attaches to the top of the 20A breaker and joins the other three wires through the firewall into the cab. So, everything is connected an you are about to make the brake controller very happy, it's eagerly waiting to meet black & white, red & blue wires. Here's the view inside the cab.

You can see the happy four marriages of the Jackalopee harnesses to the brake controller harness.

[phoenix2013]

Since I like this approach  I needed to come up with a rudimentary  "manufacturing process" to make the harnesses. It starts with "Wiring Center", wires, cable and loom.

Grab red, black and blue, tape the three ends together and hook it up to the garage door.

Stretch it, cut at 20 feet, tape the ends, hook it up to the cart.

Tape the bundle at 4-5 feet intervals.

Coil the harness on a jig. Jig components courtesy of Hobby Lobby. Rotation mechanism, old beat up rotating stool.

Twist tie the harness on the jig, remove from jig, add four instruction tags with hardware.

Hardware being the ring terminals, female push-ons, barrels, etc., shown in the picture and stapled in a little baggie to each tag. The eight foot harness is done the same way and there a jigs for that harness and for the 15 feet and 4 feet looms.

 

Edited February 5 by phoenix2013

[phoenix2013]

So what comes with the latest version of the Jackalopee kit? It is packaged in the Large size Post Office Priority box for 2-3 days shipping anywhere in the USA. There are two layers in the box. The bottom layer has the Jackalopee, DOT plug for the semi, RV socket, RV socket bracket with hardware, 20 feet of the seven wire RV cable and the crimp connectors for connecting the seven wire cables inside the Jackalopee.

The top layer has the 16 page Jackalopee manual, 2 page Cliff note and 4 page kit installation manual containing what has been talked about above in this thread.  It has the 20 foot long harness, the 8 foot long harness. It has 15 feet of loom for the long harness and 4 feet of loom for the short harness. There are tags identifying all the wires with hardware needed for those wires. There is also a 20 Amp resettable breaker and a 40 Amp resettable breaker, each with an insulating rubber boot.

 

[mike5511]

Pretty nice!

[phoenix2013]

I mentioned I did another truck recently, interesting story. I got a phone call from a guy in Miami who purchased just the Jackalopee recently, he also bought a DirecLink brake controller, installed it, nothing works. Can he and his buddy bring the truck up and have me look at it. Sure, bring it up, it's only about 100 miles. It's a Volvo they are converting. I got my trusty 12V test light out when they showed up and this is the interesting part. They were two Russians, an older guy, obviously he has been here for a while, his English was perfect and a younger guy probably early 30s, has been in this country for two years. His English was at the two year level, pretty good, wanted to talk a lot, practice it and asked a lot of questions about everything. The older guy mentioned that Pavel was a big shot in Russia, I asked what he was doing there and he said he ran state owned construction company building state owned facilities. My father did exactly the same thing when we lived in communist Poland. Once we got into details it was obvious that this was his job there. I did not pry but there is a pretty good coincidence. It was about two years ago that sophisticated Russians of military age, over half a million of them, decided that Vladimir's Ukrainian "adventure" was to be avoided at all costs. And state enterprises were ordered to identify and "supply" a specific number of their employees for the "adventure". Back to the Volvo. They did not buy a kit and Pavel did the wiring. Half of it worked, the part where you wire the 7 wire cables, the remaining "harness" (?) looked like it came out of Moscow apartment and nothing worked. I attempted little troubleshooting, then decided on a better option. Out came the kit with two premade harnesses, I have stock of them. The Jackalopee was mounted in the rear compartment and it took the Russians about ten minutes to run the harnesses, under the floor mat and under the truck to the firewall. The older Russian gently gathered the Moscow apartment style wiring bundle and handed it to me, I gently deposited it into a cardboard box in the garage (next to the trash barrel). Next I tie wrapped and wired the two breakers

 

in the same manner you see here and the question became where to go from here with the four wires for the brake controller. After bit of poking we found that Volvo's pass through area with grommets is hidden under truck harnesses in the upper right corner of the firewall. About two hours work (for three guys)😀😀😀

Edited February 11 by phoenix2013

[Parrformance]

👍 

[mike5511]

I wish I could remember the details of my install.😳 

[phoenix2013]

Old Goat is going to get philosophical on you guys. Very good friend of mine and a colleague in an organization we run (he's the Prez, I'm the VP), was 911'd to the  hospital this morning and they are moving him to the hospice later today. Stage four COPD, full oxygen, 14 drugs, etc. I've been spending more time with him lately in the anticipation of the inevitable. The philosophical part comes from witnessing something like this and the age, mine being eight decades. I remember that for the first six decades I thought nothing off to undertake tasks/projects that would take years (airplane restoration - 3 years, house restoration and upgrade -30 years). Now I look for things I can finish in days, weeks, or months at most. And I am very selective about things I undertake, are they truly essential to my existence for my remaining time? Spending time with Don brought out another reflection, like,  "why is he writing and signing checks?  I have the authority and so does the accountant, all he had to do was to sign them". What a waste of precious time he has.

Yesterday I had maybe half a dozen conversations with a Jackalopee owner. Bought a kit at the Rally, was fine for about 2,000 miles, melted a wire and funked up the board. He bought an older kit (you get individual wires and you run them throughout the truck) not the one with harnesses. He's an electrician, he knows that melted wire means a solid short between power and ground, or power and chassis. He will need a new board but before he installs it he better finds out where the short is, or the new board will cook as well. So most of the conversations we had were about the stages of troubleshooting, etc. Finally, I posed the question, "obviously the wiring is no good, someplace, what value knowing what that someplace is, or where it is worth, timewise". "Junk the whole friggin' thing and replace it with nice new harnesses, install the new board and be done" This is what he's getting.

I've installed scores of Jackalopees over the years (my younger years), few examples of the "starting points"

I can guarantee you that the folks who created these, or had these created for them, were at awe with themselves for making things light up and blink. I had less than zero interest in studying their approach, or cleverness to make it happen. Total time sink, throw it in the trash and start fresh.

 

 

Edited February 17 by phoenix2013

[mike5511]

Sorry to hear about your friend.🙏

[phoenix2013]

4 hours ago, mike5511 said:

Sorry to hear about your friend.🙏

I appreciate your thoughts and prayers, Don had a bit of an uptick, he caught a flu which they are treating now. It is particularly hard when a person nearing the end is a great individual and an incredible talent. We've been close friends since my move to Florida. We are involved with the Jazz and Blues Society of Fort Pierce and I produce the Milestones Newsletter for the Society, check out the link below and the great people who are part of it.

https://www.jazzsociety.org/uploads/docs/blocks/458/milestones-2022-03-spring-1.pdf

The article I wrote on the "Future is here", touches on some things I mentioned above on being productive with one's time and talents.

My friend's name is Don Bestor Jr. he's a Berklee educated pianist, check out what the Senior did?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Bestor