Basic battery charging
Submitted: Friday, Jul 02, 2010 at 20:04
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troopy1
Hi all!
I have a '99 75 series troop which I've had for two years now, it came with an auxiliary battery which I think is wired up to accessories. I've installed a redarc isolator SBl12 and wired up a work light at the back of my tradie rack to the auxiliary battery.
My query is this:
After a decent drive allowing my cranking battery to be fully charged (14.2v reading in UHF wired to cranking battery), the engine is off and key out of ignition. I can turn my rear work light on and it will stay on for a minute or two until the solenoid kicks in isolating the cranking battery I presume. When this happens, my rear work light loses power until I turn my ignition onto accessories.
My voltage meter (in UHF) reads 12.2v now which is I think the limit the isolator will kick over at.
Is it a safe bet to assume the rear work light is only draining/consuming power from my auxiliary battery now? I'm obviously not the most technically minded person but is there any way the cranking battery can be at risk of losing more voltage as they both have the ignition accessories in common?
Reply By: Battery Value Pty Ltd - Friday, Jul 02, 2010 at 21:02
Friday, Jul 02, 2010 at 21:02
Hello troopy1,
without actually having seen your setup (wiring a battery via acc looks weird to me).
A more down to earth setup has the two batteries in parallel, with an isolation switch in the positive cross connector.
Anyway, here's what you can do:
buy/borrow a voltmeter and check the voltage of your starter battery while the ignition is off and the worklight is on.
The voltage on your starter battery should remain stable, while the auxiliary's voltage should slowly drop.
Best regards, Peter
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