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Post Info TOPIC: Help with Wiring Battery, Charger & Load
LLD


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Help with Wiring Battery, Charger & Load
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I wired my car generator (charger), battery & Waeco (load) as per fig 1 below to save long leads. It's a bit more complicate in reality as I have solar panels, a second battery and a second fridge but the bus-bar was intended to simplify things. However methinks that I should have everything connected at the battery level (fig 2). I made need two sets of bus-bars, one pair for input, one pair for output and each pair connected directly to the battery.

 

IMG_20180926_0001.jpg



-- Edited by LLD on Wednesday 26th of September 2018 06:37:04 PM

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Mike Harding


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Providing the cables and bus-bar are of sufficient size to minimise voltage drop it doesn't matter how you do it although the fewer connections in a circuit the better.



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dabbler


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I run everything though a dcdc charger then straight to battery bank, then use bus bars and fuse boxes to distribute load, although I have added an unused Anderson directly to battery bank in case I need a solar panel + regulator to bypass the dcdc charger.

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LLD


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dabbler wrote:

I run everything though a dcdc charger then straight to battery bank, then use bus bars and fuse boxes to distribute load, although I have added an unused Anderson directly to battery bank in case I need a solar panel + regulator to bypass the dcdc charger.

Thanks. This is what I am planning to do. Glad to see it works. Made up an Anderson lead today ready to forge ahead with my new wiring tomorrow. I was not getting full charge in one battery in my bank. Wire to bus-bar is probably not big enough the way Ive done it (as per Mikes reply).



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Aus-Kiwi


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Yes I have 35 mm off battery then 4 or so connections to keep wires flexible when pulling them out on tray . Tidied things up . Fitted voltage gauge at each end of batteries . The voltage was the same . Motor and deep cycle are in same tray , compartment VSR between them.

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T1 Terry


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LLD wrote:
dabbler wrote:

I run everything though a dcdc charger then straight to battery bank, then use bus bars and fuse boxes to distribute load, although I have added an unused Anderson directly to battery bank in case I need a solar panel + regulator to bypass the dcdc charger.

Thanks. This is what I am planning to do. Glad to see it works. Made up an Anderson lead today ready to forge ahead with my new wiring tomorrow. I was not getting full charge in one battery in my bank. Wire to bus-bar is probably not big enough the way Ive done it (as per Mikes reply).

 This is generally caused by a different problem, trying to hang a battery off another battery rather than making it part of the charging/discharging circuit.

There is a very good explanation here http://www.smartgauge.co.uk/batt_con.html save me trying to repeat it all. Many poo pooed this idea but I teated the ideas using multiple shunts to measure just how much each battery contributed or received and the numbers are fairly close. If you have more than 2 batteries the equal length cables to a single point works best, still not perfect but about as close as you will get with batteries in parallel. Really well crimped terminals using a hydraulic hex crimper and good clean contacts along with exactly the same length positive cables and same length negative cables is very important, even a slight difference will effect the resistance and have one battery not really being part of the team.

 

T1 Terry

 

T1 Terry



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swamp


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HI
Inputs
Outputs
2 separate circuits is far more organised .

Inputs charging devices
Outputs to fuse box

System protection
isolator in the neg cable connected to battery ALL NEGS
Low volt disconnect in the pos cable to battery ALL OUTPUTS to fuse box

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The Travelling Dillberries


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swamp wrote:

HI
Inputs
Outputs
2 separate circuits is far more organised .

Inputs charging devices
Outputs to fuse box

System protection
isolator in the neg cable connected to battery ALL NEGS
Low volt disconnect in the pos cable to battery ALL OUTPUTS to fuse box

 Why do you have the isolator in the negative cable in a system that is isolated from the frame?



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Chris & Sharyn.

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2015 VW Touareg V6 Air suspension, 2012 Jayco Sterling 21.
swamp


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HI
The way I understand is ,
Just isolating the 1st aux battery for during storage [isolator]
referring only to car altenator as charge device

Is the pic of starting batteries ,dunno maybe ??
Where is the mention of neg chassis earth ,must have missed that1 .

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LLD


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Swamp. Took your approach. Spent yesterday changing my setup from fig 1 to fig 2. Seperate line for input and output direct to/from battery in my Ute tub. My setup had just grown like topsy so when I re-did the wiring and redrew where all my components should be, I actually have a much cleaner setup.

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swamp


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Hi
What u do is if u have more wires than bolt/clamp space use a power stud [insulated bolt] mounted on the inner guard . They are available in 6-8-10mm some in single post but most common 8mm twin . The twin allows lotsa cables . Then just run a single cable to the batt terminal . All very neat . That single cable can be an isolater or low volt disconnect if u want .

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LLD


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My final setup.

Power Setup.jpg



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