D710 Lugable - Kenwood D710 "Lugable Go kit" for a Infiniti G35-S

Index:

• Goals
• Radio Selection: Kenwood D710 vs. Yaeso FT-350
• Why does this have batteries?
• Parts List
• G35 Antenna mount
• G35 Antenna
• Cable Routing
• Radio crate assembly
• Looking at the final Radio crate assembly pictures
• R710 Head mounting
• Post-installation Tuning
• Conclusion

This project had a few goals:

Radio Selection: Kenwood TM-D710 vs. Yaesu FT-350R

What's up with the batteries?

• Battery type: There are three main battery types that we could pick from: Submerged or Flooded, SLA/AGM, and SLA/GEL. Submerged or flooded batteries are your classic liquid lead-acid battery but they aren't recommended for this setup as they can spill and they vent hydrogen gas when charging. The next type is SLA/GEL or Sealed Lead Acid / GEL batteries. By being sealed, they recombine the hydrogen gas when being charged so they don't vent hydrogen gas (as often but they still do it.. read on). The acid in the battery is also GELled so they can't spill but if you don't use a proper charger and use it properly, the batteries can create hydrogen gas pockets against the lead plates which both never dissapate (reduces the battery life/performance) and they can be more prone to vent hydrogen gas. Because of sensitive charger requirements and the possible gas pocket issue, SLA/GEL batteries aren't recommended and many places no longer carry them. Finally, there are SLA/AGM or Sealed Lead-Acid/Absorbed Glass Mat batteries. These batteries put the acid in a mat material that is sandwiched between the lead plates. These batteries are more tolerant of improper charging, won't create gas pockets, etc. Within SLA/AGM class of batteries, there are standard and deep-cycle types. Standard batteries are cheaper but recommend to only discharge them to 50% of their capacity before being recharged or they will have shorter overall lifetimes. Deep Cycle batteries are designed to be run down lower and survive deeper discharge cycles. If you only plan on using the radio in the car and don't really plan on using it for ARES/RACES activations without power to recharge it at the 50% mark, a standard SLA/AGM battery will be fine. If you're willing to pay a little more, I recommend to purchase LARGEST SLA/AGM deep-cycle battery that makes sense for your runtime requirements. I also recommend to pay attention to the vendor's specs and pick a battery with low internal resistance (highest mega-OHM value) for a longer overall shelf life. I selected a Tempest TD26-12 Deep Cycle SLA/AGM battery (see ERRATA for the change in my original battery selection). Don't take my word for all this battery stuff, check out this Excellent Battery FAQ from Windsun.com.

• Charging/Isolation: To properly charge the SLA batteries, you need to have a 12v DC charger that supports your specific battery type. There are dumb chargers that can only provide the 100% charging voltage all the time which will fry your batteries fairly quickly. Think of wallwarts used to charge Black and Decker BustBusters, etc. Is those dumb chargers than make those appliance's batteries die so quickly!. Next, there are good 3-stage chargers and excellent 4-stage chargers. I recommend you read Tempest's high-level charger details for the differences and the above Battery FAQ page has a good section on charger info as well. The West Mountain PG40S charger in this design is both a 4-stage charger and also a battery isoloation device. It knows how to charge SLA batteries (your car's alternator does NOT) and it also will isolate your radio's batteries from the car's batteries so you don't deplete the car battery if operating the radio when the car isn't running. NOTE: The similar but cheaper West Mountain ISOPWR device is ONLY an isolator device. It does not offer any charging abilities!

• Source Voltage: The Infinti G35 provides 14.45v into the cigarette lighter socket just after the car is started until it's starting battery is fully charged. After that point, the car's alternator drops down and only provides ~12.8v. Then consdier that this will be going through the PG40S unit which drops the voltage down (at least) another 0.3 volts which leaves us at 12.5v! This low voltage won't work as standard SLA/AGM batteries want a charging voltage of ~14.5v! There is only one solution to this problem and that's to add in DC-DC power supply/booster such the TG Electronics N8XJK Booster used in this design. This unit will get us the required 14.5v @ 25A at the cost of addition input current (and $$). NOTE: There is a big daddy version of this TGE booster that supports a fully 40A but it's significantly more expensive. If the additional current is important to you, get that unit.

• Over Discharing: There is the issue about overdepleting batteries which will permantently harm them and reduces their operating lifetime. You have to look at your specific battery's detailed spec sheet but standard SLA/AGM batteries recommend to never discharge them past 50%. You can find this rating on the battery spec sheet as DOD or Depth of Depletion. Deep Cycle batteries are designed to have a longer life through very deep discharges. If don't plan on running your rig without the car running most of the time, you're probably fine and don't need anything else. If you DO plan on running you radio for extended amounts of time without an external power source (the car's alternator, solar power during an ARES/RACES activation, etc.), you might consider getting a low voltages disconnection. TG Electroncs has the ABD-1 Battery Disconnect which is designed to work with their above Battery Booster product where it will disconnect the battery at a user configured low voltage point. That's pretty nice though it does take an additional 200mA of power to keep the power relay activated (even more power drain). There are alternative devices out there that also include OVER-voltage protection in addition to the under-voltage checks like the WestMountain PowerGuard. I think is a VERY valuable feature and might be a better option to the TGE unit! I'm personally holding off on this last purcase for now as it's another chunk of change. If you can afford it now, I recommend you buy one of these type of devices.

Parts list:

G35 Antenna mount:

As you would imagine, many people think that antennas are ugly, unsightly, etc. I agree to a point but it depends on the specific antenna you select. Personally, I think some of them can look pretty cool! Then again, I'm biased. Hi Hi. For example, I saw an Inifiniti G35 coupe with something similar to a Comet EM-5M mount installed on the top-middle of the trunk lid right next to the rear-view window glass. With his mount and the placement of it, no doubt he would get the best ground reflection compared to my chosen location but 1) I personally thought it looked pretty bad and 2) when he wanted to open the trunk, he'd need to remove the attenna first! No thanks! I personally chose the Comet HD-5M kit which uses the low profile RS-840 mount and comes with a PL-239 connector and some thin, low-loss coax to easily pass by the trunk seal. You might be asking why I chose a heavy duty mount. There is NO way I want this mount to fall off and be flapping around in the wind on the freeway! Imagine the damage that would cause. Skimping on the mount is a bad idea if you ask me!

Properly installing the antenna mount:

• Make sure that your chosen trunk-lid edge area is as strait as possible. The G35 is full of curve edges and using a strait section will give you the most secure mount surface possible

• Very throughly wash AND wax the area where you are going to place the antenna mount first! Also clean and wax the fender side as the mount will be touching that other side too.

• Put the mount where you want it, make sure the edge of the trunk lid is 100% against the mount, and without inserting the included little aluminum plate, very lightly screw in the hex set screws until they start making marks on the underneath park of the trunk lid's paint. Now back out the set screws and take the mount completely off for now.

• Next, take the mount, center the included small aluminum strip, and tighten down the hex screws until they make marks in the aluminum. Back out the hex screws and look at the aluminum plate. See the two inner marks? Good. Now, back out of the hex nuts out of the mount and gauge the diameter of that screw. What you now need to do is get a drill with the proper drill bit and drill out those two inner set screw marks. Make sure you align the holes in the middle part of the metal as possible. I recommend you use a set of clamps on both sides of the metal strip so it doesn't move around as you drillit. Once you're done, make sure that set screw you removed can pass through the aluminum plate. Once it does, make sure to screw the set-screw back into the mount.

• Here is where your pretty G35 starts to really become yours as you have to start scratching it up! Remember those set screw marks you made on the underside of the trunk lid? Take a !!utility knife!! and for the two inner set screw marks, scrape away all the paint until only bare metal is showing where those set screws would touch the metal! That's right, I cut through the puffy paint covered foam on my car and created two little square sections of bare steel though I did remove as little surrounding paint as possible. Why did I do this? Since I don't have a mag mount with it's capacitive coupling to a large metal surface, it was recommended to me that I need a SOLID ground point for all lip-style antenna mounts to get a good SWR reading! Trust me, this is important and it's really recommended you do it. You'll never see it anyway!

• With the paint removed on the underside of the trunk lid, carefully slide the mount onto the selected area of the trunk lid. Next, slide in the alumunum plate and line up the inner set-screws. Now go ahead and lightly tighten up the inner set-screws and then the outer ones. The inner ones are going to go in a LOT more as they will be passing through the aluminum plate and it the steel trunk lid. The outter ones will take a bit of light turning as they will have to compress the painted foam lip (that's present on my car at least). Keep tightening the inner and then outer set screws until you're happy with the strength of the mount.
  • NOTE: Be careful when screwing in the inner set-screws. You have to find a balance of making sure they make GOOD contact with the steel trunk lid without too much pressure to pimple up the trunk lid! Fortunately for you, I'm warning you now as I did apply too much pressure on one of my screws. It's not bad and it's not like you'll see it through the mount but if you sell the car, the buyer might spot that very minor blemish!

• For the end of this initial step, I recommend you rotate around the PL-239 connector's coax to be facing the rear of the car. This should minimize any water trying to work itself into the heat-shrink tubing when driving in the rain. Tighten down the coax connector with a thin hub wrench. Next, tighten the big top hex nut on the RS-940 mount so the antenna mount is completely solid. More on this in a bit.
  • NOTE: On the above picture, you'll notice that the plastic sheet that protects the paint from the mount is squishing out. This happened after one very hot day. Things are still working fine but I need to contact Comet to ask them if that's expected!

• If you closely look at the now screwed on mount, there are two angle adjustments. The bottom large hex nut controls rotation and the lateral large hex nut controls angle. I didn't find I needed to mess with the rotation adjustment but from the Comet factory, it was a bit loose. I recommend you tighten that up now. We will need to change the angle adjustment in a moment.

• If you look at this picture, see how I used several black wire twist ties (from the D710 box) to route the thin coax from the attenna to stay along the back of the trunk lid. What I did is loop the wire ties behind the plastic gromits that hold the plastic felt facade in place. Works well! I also recommend to use a low-tack tape like 3M painters tape to make sure the coax doesn't move near the trunk's rubber seal. You'll also notice I used two small zip ties to keep the thin coax cable in place. One is to hold the cable to the aluminum strip and the other is to prevent the first zip tie from sliding back. Finally, notice the little strip of tan moleskin on the end-tab of the RS-840 mount on the above picture? That's to avoid any scratches to the fender side of the trunk area! I recommend you completely cover that end tab with mole skin but cut off any excess so you don't see it when the trunk is closed. More on this in a moment.

• Next I found that the tab of the Comet RS-840 mount that's on the far side from the set screws that we just covered in mole skin seems to point DOWN just a bit. With that metal bent down like that, it makes closing the trunk hard as it creates a lot of upward pressure and this will very quickly scratch the contact area on the fender area. That's not even including the fact that the trunk won't seal very well, etc. To fix this, I first very carefully screwed on the SBB-224 antenna (make sure to get the threading right.. don't cross thread it!!). Next, I got a VERY heavy duty vice-grip wrench and covered it's top and bottom teeth in several layers of duct tape to avoid any scratching of the RS-840 mount. I then firmly clamped the vicegrip wrench on the middle-end part of protruding tab of metal on the RS-840 mount, very tightly held the base of the SBB-224 antenna, and with equal amounts of force on the SBB antenna vs. the vicegrip wrench, I slightly bent up the tab of the mount so it reduced the downward pressure that was going to be applied to the far fender. The biggest issue here is you DO NOT WANT TO BEND THE TRUNK LID via the force being applied to the antenna mount. BE CAREFUL HERE. At this point, you'll have to close the trunk and re-check your adjustments until you're happy. If the mole skin paint protector was damaged in this process, replace it with a new strip.

• Now that the tab is bent up, again, make sure the mount's bottom hex set screws are still tight. For me, the screws did loosen up a little.

• Ok, remeber how we tightened up the lateral hex bolt on the RS-840 mount that controls the angle of the antenna? Well, let's see how lucky you are. Very slowly, open the trunk and as opens up, watch were the tip of the antenna is going! You'll notice two things: 1) the 2007 G35's trunk lid opens WAY too far in my opinion (have you ever got water dripping into your trunk by how the trunk lid sheens water? Unfortunate on Infiniti designers part! Lame!) and 2) depending the antenna angle you left it at, the tip might want to either hit the roof of the car, scrape down the passenger side of the car, or be off to the side of the side passender window!

  First, loosen up the large HEX bolt just enough to be able to move the antenna to be fairly vertical when the trunk is closed. Now again slowly open the trunk and finely adjust the angle so that the tip of the antenna wants to just start touching the top of the rear passenger side window when mostly open. That's my personal preference where to put my antenna angle but you might want to angle it out even more just in case the antenna does want to touch/scratch the side of the car. So go ahead and tighten up the mount's large angle HEX bolt but also pay attention that the coax connector doesn't hit the bottom hex nut

• To mitigate the trunk lid from opening up too far and both having the tip of the antenna scratch the side of the car (and avoid getting rain runoff into the trunk), I constructed two loops of non-streching nylon twine (was the stuff given out for free when buying a Christmas tree at Home Depot) around each of the two trunk lid struts. If you look at these pictures, you'll also notice some bits of 4-connector phone wire looped and twisted at the top of the trunk bracket. This wire is to soften the edge of the trunk bracket's edge to avoid cutting the nylon twine. I used a small ziptie to make sure it doesn't come undone. You'll have to play around with the twine loop length until you find where the trunk will ONLY open so far to the point where the tip of the SBB-224 antenna will NOT touch the car at all. Once you find the right knot point, I recommend to tape up that knot area with say black electrical tape to make sure it doesn't come undone. Here is where loop limit stops the trunk lid. One thing to note is that in the very first picture of this section, you can actually move where the twine routes around the trunk brackets, etc. Different positions will give you more or less slack to change the open trunk angle. All personal preference as long as it doesn't scratch the paint right?
  • WARNING: The nylon twine will strech a bit over time, will get longer on hot days, and be very careful when other people opening your trunk! They people will be unaware of the twine loops and will try to FORCE the trunk all the way open. I've had to replace my twine loops a few times! Fortunately they didn't scratch the side of the car's paint!!

• That's it, the antenna and it's mounting stage is complete!

G35 Antenna:

1. Max installed height that would still let me drive into the garage without hitting the antenna [very important you measure that for car, your tires, etc.]

2. Antenna performance: My first "mobile" radio in the car was actually a Kenwood TH-F6A triband 2m/220/440 HT. Because I had that HT before the D710, I chose the Comet SBB-224 triband antenna (36" with 2m @ 2.15dBi:1/4 wave :: 220 @ 3.5dBi:5/8 wave :: 440 @ 6.0dBi:5/8 wave x2) for that specific HT radio. On hind sight, the selection of the triband antenna wasn't the best idea as the Kenwood D710 is only a dual band radio and most DUAL-band antennas have significantly better gain than triband antennas and if you can support a longer antenna, you can almost double the gain numbers! Oh well. At least I can still use the TH-F6A in the car on all bands though the coax connection is all in the trunk!

Next, the Comet lip-mount and Comet 2m/220/440 mobile antenna. I just wish the D710 had 220Mhz support too due to all the PavePAWS issues here in the Bay Area!! Oh well. That's one place where the Yaesu FT-350 radio would be nice. Some 220 power is better than none!
• Here is a closer look of the Comet antenna mount, etc.

• I recommemd that you also rotate around the very small hex nuts that are on the antenna's midsection to be point towards the REAR of the car. That might help avoid forcing all the rain water into these holes when drive on the freeway.

Cable Routing:

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• VERY IMPORTANT: I highly recommend you label each of the cable ends in the trunk area. It's very easy to forget which RJ45 cable goes where, should the audio cable go to port A or port B, etc.

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• From the trunk side, I routed all the wires going to the cabin area UP through the top felt/plastic covering and back out to make things more pretty and tidy. Here is a bit of a close-up.

• Coming into the cabin from the trunk, you can see the cable routing from the trunk

• To get these various wires under the rear seat, I used a small plastic stick, taped one wire at a time to the end of it and from the back of the knee side of the seat, I pushed the rod until I could fetch the end near the hole where the seat belts come up. Repeat that process for each cable.
  
  

  Above, you are looking at the end of the center console back to the middle of the rear seat. Of the two cable bundles going to the trunk, you can only see 1" section of each wire bundle. This is just below the rear seats and above the carpet. If you look closely, from left to right, you can see the MIC cable, the HEAD cable, the audio cable on one side and then the power cable run on the other side. This was intentional to give a little separation if there was going to by any DC noise issues.

  
  

  Above, you can see the only holes I drilled into the center console using the 1/2 drill bit . The cables from the trunk come into here under the carpet, then I tucked the wires under the side of the center console's plastic, and then routed the wires up and into it (was a pain but it was worth it.

  BEWARE: When trying to route the cables from the trunk into the center console, there is a metal bracket just behind the ash tray on the rear of the center console. On my G35, that metal has VERY SHARP edges. Try to avoid cutting yo your hands as much as I did!.

  Above, you can see the following:

  • the RCA connector side of the 6' stereo RCA to 1/8" male plug cable. The audio cable goes in't a set of RCA barrel connectors, into the Radio Shack audio isolator and into the G35's AUX audio input. [UPDATE picture with Radio Shack audio isolation unit] Great HAM audio eh?
    • Why the audio isolator? I found that I would get a light alternator whine into the radio's audio. I also found that when the PS40S would be on high charge, it would create all kinds of weird audio into the stereo!

  • the MIC cable going into a RJ45 barrel and then into the D710's MIC
  • the DC power cable being terminated into power pole connectors

  • a custom cigarette to power pole adapter I made w/ a 10A fuse
    • I recommend you make this adapter with the 10 gauge Zip wire and then cut off any excess wire and crimp on a set of power poles

      WARNING: the cigarette adapter I bought only has a single connector to the ground side and even after adding a bit of electrical tape around the circumference of the adapter, the ground connection STILL pretty poor. I recommend you look for a solder-style cigarette adapter that has 2+ connectors on it. If you find one, please email me!

    • I also recommend that if you can either find it pre-made into the kit or do it youself, add an LED on to the adapter to identify when it's actually getting power. I've found WAY too many times where the adapter wasn't giving power to the trunk!!
  • The R710 control head cable does not come up and into the center console. It stays on the side of the passenger front seat and to go into an RJ45 barrel adapter

R710 Head mounting

Another requirement for this setup is to be able to remove the R710 head for theft prevention. I needed it to be easily removed but have the head in a position that I can use the radio without distracting my while driving.

• I though thtat using the cigarette lighter area would be a good place to mount the R710 head
  

  I figured out a slick and cheap (as in free) trick for this environment by taking the D710's included mounting plate that's intended to permanently screw down the R710 to some surface. Flip the mount over and screw it into the usual backing plate the snaps into the back of the radio's head. With that done, it just slides in nicely between the dash door and the ash tray! No screws!

• Here is a look of the flipped bracket just before being being slid in. Two thing here 1) you might want to tape the lips of each on of those mounting bracket "fingers" because under that plastic is adhesive and that might be a nightmare to get out if it peals off when your inserting it. 2) This ask tray has a rubber gasket right behind the door lid. The trick here is to get the bracket just under that rubber gasket. You'll get good at it after a while but remember, you'll leave the bracket in place and only be removing the head FROM the bracket when needed.

• To avoid scratching the metal dash right behind the R710 head, I stuck bit of rubber left over from those little rubber feet kits. See it stuck on the "Kenwood" word? Works great!

• Finally, to keep the viewing angle of the R710 head up, I tuck in a piece of black foam just under the bracket. That tilts the display up so you can better read it and 2) firms the whole thing up so it's solid. No movement yet easily removed!

• All that is left is connecting the GreenLight Labs unit and tucking it into the nearby seat.
  One thing to note: I used the original GreenLIght Labs 3" RJ45 cable included with the GPS receiver to go between the the GPS receiver and the RJ45 barrel that then connects to the long RJ45 cable back to the D710 radio. Why? Every time I get out of the car, I remove the R710 head and GPS receiver. That's a lot of connects/disconnects and eventually, the little plastic tab on the that little 3" cable's RJ45 connector will break. I rather have that short / cheap cable break than the long cable which would require me to re-run that long RJ45 cable. NO THANKS!

• Notice that the side of the GPS receiver with the imprinted writing is facing the FRONT of the car. The rear side has the connection to the R710's head and the associated GPS 3.5mm jack. Also notice the included D710's filter chokes on the GreenLight Labs's 24" extension cable. With a little extra slack here, I do a single loop of the cable bundle, and tuck all of that between the center console and the passenger seat. No GPS receptions problems with being tucked along the side of the passenger seat. Works GREAT!

To remove the head, you would power off the R710, un-wedge the black foam, unclip the R710 from the mounting bracket but DO NOT pull out the bracket itself, undo the single RJ45 going from the HEAD cable into the D710-GPS unit, and your done. Simple stuff!

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Radio Crate Assembly:

The primary reason for the use of a plastic crate is because it fit perfectly into the little corner of the trunk. I really didn't want to scrifice a lot of trunk space for this project. The Crate and Barrel unit fit perfectly!

Here is an older shot of the bare plastic crate, the West Mountain Powergate PG40S, and the old TR12-12 (12volt 12aH) batteries

BAD NEWS: Update on using a plastic crate:
• Now that I've had the crate in the car held in with a tight bungie over the summer, guess what? The crate slowly deformed and is twisting! Maybe the bungie is too tight (it is VERY tight) but more likely is the general fact that plastic and sunlight heat don't mix. If you can find a metal (not wood) crate that will fit the way you like it, go that route. The crate is still working for me but when I've removed it from the car a few times, it's getting worse! If you find something that works better, PLEASE EMAIL ME ABOUT IT!
• On top of the crate is a piece of plywood that goes from the edge of the left and right edged of the sides and from the rear edge to the front edge of where the hand hole is. This board is the mounting point for the radio itself as well as it reenforces the platic crate. Each of the six lag bolts w/ one large washer each goes into a properly spaced and drilled holes in the top board that align up with the D710 radio's mounting bracket. On the other side of the plywood, there is about 12 washers per bolt that goes between the wood and blue crate to fill the space between the board and the recessed plastic of the crate itself. These washers keeps things flat and minimize any plastic pulling up and ripping towards the board as the bolts are tighten up. On the inside of the crate (after the washers and then the crate plastic), the D710 mounting bracket is next. These six bolts are used to ensure the strongest mounting with the least amount of vibration for the radio. On the other side of the D710 metal bracket is a small 1/4" washer and then a tightened 1/4" nut per lag bolt. All excess lag bolt metal were cut off with a Dremel tool.
  • Important Note: Make sure that you remove the radio from the bracket before attempting to assemble all this and ESPECIALLY when cutting the lag bolts. The bolt cutting stage makes a huge mess, throws fine metal particulate every where, etc. Make sure to use eye protection at this stage and very throughly clean up the crate once you're done with this stage!! Metal particulate + Radio = BAD JUJU!

• Assuming the crate is all clean, take the radio and connect the short 6 to 12" CAT3 or better Ethernet cable to the front R710 head jack on the front of the radio itself. Now mount the radio to the radio bracket that's already bolted into the crate with the included screws from Kenwood. Route the other end of this RJ45 cable through one of the slats on the left-side of the crate and label it: "To R710 head". Connect one of the RJ45 couplers to the other end of this short Ethernet cable and we'll connect this up later.
  • I bet you're wondering, why this extension cable? When you screw in the D710 radio to the bracket, there is almost no space between the radio and the crate and there is NO way to easily connect and disconnect the radio head cable if you need to remove the crate. By using this extension cable, it's EASY!

• To hold the batteries, I cut small slits in the back of the plastic crate to allow for the velcro-like strapping hold the HORIZONTAL axis of the batteries. There is another velcro strap holding the batteries down on the vertical axis as well.

• You'll also notice a top velcro strap going across the top board. This is to minimize any UPWARD vibrations on the radio. This strap also holds the excess coax from the antenna mount kit. I DO NOT RECOMMEND you cut this coax cable to size as the excess can be good to connect to other radios outside the car if need be. Also consider that coax shouldn't ever be cut to EVEN intervals of the operating frequency. If you do that, you can get very bad standing waves on the coax! There are also little velcro pieces being used to hold down the crate's handles to minimize any plastic on plastic rattling.

• In the middle of the crate shown above is a wooden shelf. This board holds the PG40S on the left, the TG Electronics PowerBooster on the right, and routes the wires to the batteries.
  • I need to add a picture of this but in the rear center of the board, I drilled a 1" hole to route the various cables to the lower battery.

  • Before mounting the West Mountain PG40S: You need to set the jumper for the proper battery type. The default setting is for Flooded/GEL style batteries. If you followed my recommendation and went with AGM batteries, you need to take off the PG40S's cover, find jumper J1, and short out the two pins for J1. This will let the battery output terminals exceed 13.8 volts. Re-assemble the PG40s and screw it down to the left side of the board using short tapered wood screws.

  • Next, you need to remove the INNER-most 40A fuse from the PG40S leaving only the outer-most fuse. This limits the battery charging rate to 4A. If you have a larger battery, it might support higher currents but remember, the TG Electronics PowerBooster will be compensating the lower input voltage by taking more current. Then there is the fact that the cigarrete lighter jack on the 2007 G35 is only rated for 15A at an INTERMITTANT use. Not long term sustained. I rather put some safety margin here!!

  • The next item is the TG Electronics PowerBooster. The SuperBooster (40A) unit is strange as it has a fan at the top so, to permanently install it, you'd need to drill out another 1" hole in the shelf and then mount the unit upside down. I specifically bought the 30A unit which doesn't have a fan and I confirmed with the manufacturer that even in a trunk that can get pretty hot, the 30A unit should be fine. With that said, the 40A unit with the fan will give you better cooling at a 22% percent premium. Not worth it to me but maybe the extra 10A is for you. Anyway, I did NOT permanently mount my TGE unit for a few reasons: 1) This unit is very useful for other ARES/RACES uses and I only need it when charging the batteries from the car. In an emergency, I can easily see it being deployed elsewhere while my radio is running off batteries. 2) Adjusting the voltage on this unit will be a pain if it's mounted. To keep the TGE unit stationary, I used a metal twist tie and just tied one corner of the TGE unit to the plastic crate. The TGE unit's rubber feet do the rest. In the future, I might install some long standoffs into the shelf, screw in some threaded bolt material that would just protrude over the edge of the four corners of the unit and use some butterfly nuts to offer a quick method to remove the unit.

• Ok, so with the two devices on the board, carefully use the 1.5" wood deck screws and secure the shelf in the middle of the crate

• Ok, getting close! Time to cable things up!
  • Take the DC power cable coming from the cigarette ligher connection and crimp on some Power Pole connectors on both sides. Make sure you get the polarity right for the red vs. black connectors.
  • Turn on the car to ACC. and use the volt meter to confirm the proper polarity on the PowerPole connectors! Turn off the car when you're done.
    • Take this cigarette power cable connection and connect it into the INPUT of the TGE PowerBooster. I recommend to use a bit of that blue 3M tape and tape the connectors together just to make sure they don't pull apart. Leave the excess DC power cable length out to the outside left side of the crate for now
  • Take the OUTPUT of the TGE Booster and connect it to the PS jack on the PowerGate PG40S. Pull the excess DC power cable to the outside left side of the crate for now
  • Next, make up a 6" power cable with power pole connectors on both sides
    • Use the Ohm meter to confirm the good connection and proper polarity on the PowerPole connectors!
  • Take this new power cable and connect one end into the BAT terminal on the PG40S
  • Route the other end of this power cable through the hole in the middle shelf towards the battery area and connect it to one of the four available connections on the PS-4 power splitter
  • Crimp together the proper battery power cable with the right battery connectors on one end, short as possible length of the 10 gauge ZIP power wire, a 40A fuse on the positive wire, more ZIP wire and PowerPole connectors on the other end
    • Use the volt meter to confirm the proper polarity on the PowerPole connectors!
  • Plug this new battery power cable into another one of the available connections on the PS-4 power splitter
  • Crimp on PowerPole connectors to the end of the D710's fixed double fused power cord, connect one end to the D710 and route the other PowerPole end through the rear hole in the crate's shelf
  • Neatly fold up the excess D710 power cable and use a small velcro strap to keep it together
  • Connect the D710 radio power cable it to one of the available connections on the PS-4 power splitter
  • Install the included PS-4 restrainer clips on the PS4 spliter to make sure that neither sides of the PowerPole connectors don't pull out

  • Route the Microphone RJ45 cable through one of the gaps on the side of the crate and connect it to the MIC port on the side of the D710 radio
  • Route the 1/8" stereo audio jack through one of the gaps on the side of the crate and connect it to Port A on the back of the D710 radio
  • Connect the R710 head cable to the Ethernet coupler cable that goes to the front HEAD port on the D710 radio
  • Cleanly loop up the remaining thin coax routed from the SBB-224 antenna along the trunk lid, down the middle of the trunk area on top of the radio crate. Stuff this loop under the Velcro strapping on the top of the crate [see above]
  • Connect and firmly screw on the antenna's SO-239 coax connector onto the D710 PL-239 antenna connector

• The next step is to create several velcro straps. I recommend a few short ones to individually hold together the excess RJ45 MIC cable, the RJ45 HEAD cables, excess cabin DC power cable, etc. I then recommend two ~8" straps (or whatever is long enough) to support weaving through the back left area of the crate's plastic gaps and then to be used to tie up all those excess cables to the crate's side. That keeps things all nice and clean!

• To hold the crate in place, I removed one of the left plastic retainer gromits that holds the black felt/plastic facade to the rear passenger fender well. In it's place, I hooked in one side of the short 2' bungie cord. I then pushed the crate back into the front corner of the trunk, swung the bungie cord around, and hooked the other side to the top right anchor used for the trunk's cargo net.

That's it and the crate installation is DONE!

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Looking at the final Radio crate assembly pictures:

• All the major radio parts: radio, R710, etc. all layed out
• The West Mountain PowerGate PG40S and 12v-12aH batteries all layed out

• The Original D710 crate lugable at an angle (w/o the TGE unit)

  
  Here is the lugable installed in the G35's trunk

• The lugable installed in the G35 trunk - zoomed in -- Notice that the various cables go towards the ski port that goes into the car's cabin. More about that in a moment

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Post installation tuning:

Ok, assuming that everything is assembled up, it's time to turn it on.. SLOWLY.

• First, I recommend you that your SLA batteries are fully charged up before you start using your radio. I hope you read this doc from end to end and started charging them FIRST!
• Read the D710 docs on how to at least change the power level and change frequencies
• Disconnect the PowerPoles going from the cigarette adapter DC cable into the TGE Booster box
• Temporarily remove the D710 mic from the center console and connect it directly to the D710 in the trunk
• Disconnect the SO-239 coax cable going from the radio to the antenna and insert the SWR meter
• Start the car, back it out of the garage and into the driveway or street, put it in neutral, and let it idle for a while (recharges the starting battery)
• Confirm with the voltmeter that you're getting the expected voltage and polarity at the end of the DC power cable in the trunk
• Disconnect the PowerPole cable coming from the OUT of the TGE Booster product
• Reconnect the PowerPoles going from the cigarette adapter DC cable into the TGE Booster box
• Measure the voltage coming out of the TGE Powerbooster and adjust it to 14.8v. (14.8v - ~0.3 (drop from PG40S = 14.5 for the AGM batteries)
• Take the Watts Up volt/amp meter and put it in-line between the PG40S's BAT terminal and the PS4 power splitter going to the batteries
• Reconnect the PowerPole cable coming from the OUT of the TGE Booster product back into the PWR PowerPole connection on the PG40S
• Make sure that on the West Mountain PG40S, the green "PW" power light The red "PK" peak or the yellow "FL" float light might not be lit as it depends on the state of the connected batteries
• Look at the WattsUp meter and confirm that it's showing about 13.5v @ 4.00A. These numbers can vary depending on the state of charge on the batteries BUT it should NEVER exceed 4A of charge into the batteries. That's what the FUSE configuration on the PG40S sets.
• Ok, turn on the D710 radio, change it's output to LOW power and change the VFO to a less commonly used 2m simplex frequencym say 147.585
• Lower the trunk lid as much as possible while still being able to see the SWR meter
• Using the MIC, start transmitting and make sure the 2m SWR is ok. If it's way off, you have to fix it first. If it's good, change to less used 440m simplex frequency like 446.500 and again check the SWR.
• Repeat the above steps for medium and high power. I also recommend you do other tests from the top to the bottom of each band to make sure the SWR across the band is ok. If not, there is some room to tune the COmet SBB-224 antenna if need be.

Alright, your rig sounds like it's initially working well! Now, we need to make some mechanical tests.

• Take the small hex wrench and again check the antenna mount
• Carefully tuck the SWR meter back into say the cargo net without kinking the coax and close the trunk
• Hop in the car and get on the freeway a bit. Get off the freeway, pull over, and check the mount AGAIN
• Redo the SWR checks

Ok, return home.

For the final step, the car needs to have been running a while and the starter battery is fully recharged. Why? We need to adjust the voltage output of the TG Electronics Booster to 14.5v for SLA/AGM batteries!

• Turn off the radio
• Remove the SWR meter and firmly reconnect the coax to the D710 radio
• Undoing the wire twist tie, pull out the TGE unit so you can reach it's output voltage pot
• Take the volt meter and measure the voltage at BAT terminal of the PG-40S.
• Adjust the TGE unit until it's output is 14.5v - the proper setting for SLA/AGM batteries
• Reconnect the batteries to the PG40S's BAT terminal and put the TGE unit back in place

That's IT! It's installed.. your now able to get on the AIR! You're DONE...no, not really. Now you have to program your radio for the local repeaters, your APRS callsign and SSID of -9, etc. All fun stuff though! Don't forget to backup your programed radio with Kenwood's free programing software (windows only though).

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Conclusion:

This project did take some time to both initially figure out how and tune it as I learned what didn't work but I love the results. The radio runs well, none of the wires get even a hint of warmth due to electrical resistance, you can't see any of the wire runs, etc.

So get on the air and find me on N6NFI, K6LRG, or APRS as KI6ZHD-9!

73s!
--KI6ZHD-9

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Errata:

• 09/16/10 - Added some recommendations on cigarette adapter kits (don't buy the one I bought!)
  - Added an additional step to set the TGE unit to 14.8v and doing some voltage and current tests with the WattsUp meter!
  - Updated the notes that the TGE Booster 30A unit does NOT have a fan. Only the 40A unit has a fan which is unfortunate but that's ok for this design per the manufacturer

• 09/12/10 - Extensive additions to this document! - Added more details about the TG Electronics unit and why it's required.
  - Changed the design from two 12-12 batteries to one 26-12 deep cycle battery. Having multiple batteries complicates the design and if one battery fails due to a bad cell, it will damage the other battery.
  - Changed the battery fuses to 40A from 10A as there is evidently a decent power drop due to small fuses. This is still OK since if the battery is shorted, it's peak current is still 180A which will quickly blow the fuse. What's ironic here is the Kenwood D710 still ships with the very old barrel-style fuses which are also attributed to high resistance!
  - Added an additional recommendation for a TG Electronics ABD-1 low-voltage disconnection unit to protect the battery from over discharging.
  - Added a note that the West Mountain ISOPwr unit is not suitable here as it doesn't offer a charger circuit
  - Added additional information on the antenna mount and installation
  - Added additional audio isolation
  - Added more things to the parts list to be more complete
  - Added more updated pictures

• 08/08/10 - Added initial start for the TG Electronics PowerBooster unit; Added links to the D710 initialization source code; added an index