Charging 2 "house 6 volt" batteries on Vehicle's alternator. Good/bad/possible?

[dwh]

Nice and clean, but OMFG! you are soooo close to those terminals. Man, that's gonna be one fine arc weld if there is a touchy-touchy accident.

I would so totally wrap those hold downs with 20 mil:

http://multimedia.3m.com/mws/mediaw...B4821evUqevTSevTSevTSeSSSSSS--&fn=70HDTDS.pdf

Using a "half lap wrap":

http://multimedia.3m.com/mws/mediawebserver?mwsId=SSSSSu7zK1fslxtUm8mZPY_Bev7qe17zHvTSevTSeSSSSSS--

 

[AUTO360]

This is the charger that I will mount under my bunk. Its a 35amp and will be powered by my Honda Gen. I bought the charger from batterystuff.com for $159. I will hook it up tomorrow once I get some more cable to wire it in.

 

[dwh]

And um...hydrogen rises. The vent needs to go up to let it out, not down.

And for those batteries, I think you need about 1.5" diameter (or larger) tubing to vent them properly - with an intake at the bottom of the box as well...

 

[AUTO360]

Hey DWH,

Yes, your right on the closeness, think I will wrap them a bit. That is the second hold down I made. The first one I did measurements but it still came out slightly crooked and I didn't like it. What I needed to do was tack weld it while on top of the battery to get it perfect.....BUT...I was thinking that even tacking something while sitting on top of a battery is bad idea so I put small dabs of JB Weld on it, let it dry, then I took it off and welded it. Much better the 2nd time around. I looked over the wire diagram in the post that your forwared to me last week...or 2 weeks ago. Anyway, got the solenoid and 80amp fuses installed. I think I hooked the wires on the solenoid backwards because today my battery light came on and when I got home my van wouldn't even start. I 'think"I just put the starter battery wires on the wrong side of the solenoid post. I'll recheck it tomorrow.

 

[AUTO360]

Ok, 10-4 on the hydrogen rising. Now, question is if I vent it going up, well, where do I route it too. I'd rather not cut a hole in my roof

 

[dwh]

Should be a good charger, but...um...103 bucks at NAWS...

http://www.solar-electric.com/pomax12vo35a.html

 

[AUTO360]

$103...hmm, think I might call batterystuff tomorrow and see why it was 1/3 more with them. maybe I can get some kind of refund, (holding breath).

 

[dwh]

Ok, 10-4 on the hydrogen rising. Now, question is if I vent it going up, well, where do I route it too. I'd rather not cut a hole in my roof

There's a bunch of ways to do it. Here's a couple of links:

http://www.oynot.com/battery-box-venting.html

http://www.bdbatteries.com/hydrogenventing.php

http://www.google.com/search?q=batt...F4mlrQG63oG4AQ&ved=0CIkBELAE&biw=1333&bih=620

 

[AUTO360]

dwh,

Ok, so I got this far but I had misunderstood a step. On my solenoid, on the small stud, I haven't run a wire to the Vans fuse box yet. I mistakenly thought it would go to my blue sea fuse box for my accessories. Anyway, after going back and rereading the thread you had posted I see what I did wrong. BUT.....since my solenoid only has 3 posts, do I need to also ground the solenoid since I have it mounted on wood(part of my bunk). In the pics you'll see that one cable is not hooked up to the solenoid....I just took it off momentarily.

 

[AUTO360]

I also put some silicon rubber tubing on my battery hold down to help protect it from contacting the terminals.

 

[AUTO360]

Also, if you look at the pic of my solenoid, the left side has my "house" batteries connection, and the right side has the positive connection coming from my starter batteries......I believe this is correct but I don't know how to check to make sure.

 

[dwh]

dwh,

Ok, so I got this far but I had misunderstood a step. On my solenoid, on the small stud, I haven't run a wire to the Vans fuse box yet. I mistakenly thought it would go to my blue sea fuse box for my accessories. Anyway, after going back and rereading the thread you had posted I see what I did wrong. BUT.....since my solenoid only has 3 posts, do I need to also ground the solenoid since I have it mounted on wood(part of my bunk). In the pics you'll see that one cable is not hooked up to the solenoid....I just took it off momentarily. View attachment 113564

 

[dwh]

View attachment 113566
I also put some silicon rubber tubing on my battery hold down to help protect it from contacting the terminals.

Looks good.

 

[dwh]

Also, if you look at the pic of my solenoid, the left side has my "house" batteries connection, and the right side has the positive connection coming from my starter batteries......I believe this is correct but I don't know how to check to make sure.

Nothing much to check. The solenoid is just a big switch turned on by a smaller switch. All it does is tie the two batteries/banks into a single bank when the small terminal to the electromagnet inside is energized by power from the ignition.

So yea, from the large terminals - one to chassis battery, one to house battery. Small terminal gets power feed from ignition and then ground the case and it's done.


EDIT: Um...notice I said, "from ignition". The wire to the small terminal should only be energized when the key is turned to ignition. I.e., when the engine is running, or about to be started. Otherwise, it should not have power so the solenoid is not energized.

 

[AUTO360]

Ok, should be good to go tomorrow. I got held up the past couple days because the battery light on the dash came on and then batteries were going dead......ended being a bad alternator, so I installed a new today. I'm glad it happened now instead of after I finished all the wiring because then I might have thought there was a problem on my wiring.
So, just to be clear one thing.....on the solenoid, it would seem to me that it matters what side the "house" connects to and what side the starter batteries connect to. Is this correct? There is nothing on the solenoid indicating anything that would help answer this question.
10-4 on finding an ignition wire. Hot with key on only.