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Battery tender and disconnect switch

J

jtcawrse

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Ronmar said:
For maintenance, it doesn’t have to be a fancy equalizer. A basic 2-5A unit is $25-$35. A basic maintainer/float charger, about the same. Even a small unregulated panel will work, the battery mass will regulate the output of a small panel, as it simply doesn’t have the energy to override/overcharge the battery.
one small step of refinement would be a simple buck converter to adjust the output. I use a 15W panel someone was giving/throwing away, a $5 buck converter set to 13.2V and I think it was $21 balancer… keeps the batts within .2V of each other… I hooked it to the 0-12V battery as that is where the 12V vampire on mine used to be… the equalizer fed the other battery. Saw an interesting equalizer on Amazon today, had a pair of digital voltmeters built in to observe the balance.
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@Ronmar are you saying I can buy just one of these $25 12v 5A solar maintainers and attach it to all the batteries and that’s really all I need? Or do I need 2, 1 for each bank of batteries?

Like this one? ECO-WORTHY 12 Volt 5 Watt Solar Trickle Charger for 12V Batteries Portable Power Solar Panel Battery Charger Maintainer for Car Boat Marine Motorcycles Truck
 
R

Ronmar

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What Berzerker said, plus a 12 or 24v maintenance charger, either plug in or solar to provide the make-up/maintenance energy.

Battery balance in parallel batteries, since they are tied together, is purely a factor of internal resistance and battery chemistry.

Basically one battery will be electrically larger or smaller than the other. They will charge and discharge at different rates which will increase the difference between them over time. Since they are always connected, a larger battery will constantly feed the smaller battery. Since most people dont take the time to charge, load test and match batteries they are tying together in parallel, and probably dont have a truckload of batteries to choose from to pair a matched set, this is yet another good reason to drop to just 2 batteries in series... that is afterall what this is, puttinf two batts in parallel to make a bigger 12v batt. The truck sure doesnt need 4. If you absolutly are convinced you gotta have more battery, get 2 larger batteries in series... you are still stressing the hell.out of the alt though if they get discharged.

Batteries in series can also experience imbalance issues for the same reasons, BUT ONLY WHILE CHARGING AND DISCHARGING. Like in parallel, mismatched batteries will overcharge one and undercharge the other which will shorten their life. The good thing about series batts is that those imbalances can be compensated for using a balancer. This will extend their life. By keeping them at nearly the same float level, and help compensate for charge imbalances/electrical size differences.

With a balancer in place, it does not matter where you apply power, 12v on 0-12, or 12-24 or 24v across both series batteries. The balancer will try and keep the two 12v batteries within .1-.2v of each other.

I had a small solar 12v float charger hooked to my 0-12 battery because that was where the vampire load is on the A0 trucks. The balancer kept the 12-24 battery floated within .1-.2v of the 0-12 battery voltage.

The only real issue you can run into is if you apply a large 12v load with the balancer connected. It will attempt to compensate for the imbalance this causes, by shifting 12-24 energy to that loaded 0-12 battery.

It is simple enough to wire the balancer and charger to a multi pin plug so all the battery connections are hard wired and all you do is plug in the charger+balancer when you park the truck...
 
J

jtcawrse

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So I noticed that my truck has a 12v cigarette lighter outlet installed in the cab.

Is that normal?

Could I just plug one of the solar maintainers into that?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
R

Ronmar

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BERZERKER888 said:
as a side note... Amazon's item description does not specify if the battery equilizer is waterproof....thus why it's "mounted" under the battery box cover..
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Did the documentation say anything about how much power that equalizer consumes? The meters are cool, but if they are on full time they have to consume something. And like I said above when the 12v side is loaded, like engine off headlights on, the balancer will probably be passing it’s max capacity(5A maybe?) untill the load is removed or the engine is started and the alternator regulator provides balance…

How are your connections? With 28.2 at the alt/batteries, I would hope the dash voltmeter would be at least over 27V if not closer to 27.5V(1/2-3/4V diode loss). Any of the leads or connections carrying cab power with a weak connection would drop additional voltage. Or it could just be the meter:)
 
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