4/17/2023 0 Comments Heavy duty battery isolator relay![]() While remembering to flick the solenoid switch is less risky than manually monitoring voltage with nothing at all, I'd rather not have to remember to do anything at all after a long days drive or a few drinks at camp. In my opinion a few extra bucks for an isolator is well worth it if you do a lot of camping and don't have the memory of an elephant. Both offer isolation capabilities as well as allowing self-jumping, without the heavy voltage drop penalty of an isolator. When I scrape together the coins to put together an aux battery system on my rig, I'm considering something like either the Blue Sea Systems ACR, or National Luna's Intelligent Solenoid. ![]() If you want to just throw a switch and have the truck fire up, you'll still need a solenoid of some flavor. The other thing to consider with an isolator is that you've got no self-jump capability aside from popping the hood and running cables. With an internally-regulated alt, however, you're kinda stuck. With an external VR, you can just hook the sense wire to one of the batteries, and it'll compensate by running the alt a little harder. That doesn't sound like tons, but depending on the battery, half a volt can be a significant chunk of the capacity of the battery. The amount of voltage drop varies, but it sounds to me like 0.5 to 0.7V is fairly typical. This isn't a big deal if you've got an external voltage regulator, but if your alt is internally-regulated, as most are these days, you'll wind up with your batteries slightly discharged. Typically as well, with an isolator, there's a small amount of voltage drop as part of the isolation process. I would go heavier than the 30A relays that are commonly found, but I am charging my camper through a 30 or 40A fuse right now, and I haven't blown it yet. If you're only looking to charge, and not to draw large amounts of power, a simple relay is really all you need. The starter solenoid is not made to be energized for long periods of time, and the windings may get really hot, which will kill it. ![]() This way the camper battery charges when the truck is running, but once I shut the truck off, it's on it's own.Īs for your Ford starter solenoid, it may work for a while, but what your really wanted is a slightly more expensive "Continuous duty" rated solenoid. The relay is only hot in "run", not in accy. I do this for my camper charge wire by using a 50A relay mounted under the hood. They will both charge, and you will pull off both batteries so long as the solenoid stays engaged. It will not allow you to ever pull power from both batteries at the same time.Ī solenoid is a electrically driven high amperage switch that simply connects the two batteries together when it is energized. At the same time, it does not connect the batteries together at all, so you can run either battery down without killing the other. A battery isolator generally takes the charge and splits it (wisely) between two batteries.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |