Combine truck to camper charge capability with winch feed?

[ripperj]

I just got a nice winch with receiver cradle and front and rear wiring kits. The wiring kits are 2 gauge wire with Anderson 175? Amp Connectors. I still don't have truck to camper charge capability (I can get 2-3 days off grid with 2 six v 224 ah AGM s) and currently rely on just shore power at home. The plan is to install 200 watts of solar.

I was going to install the winch power in a normal manner, with front and rear connectors wired right to the truck battery, but got to thinking that I could use the wire and connectors to provide truck to camper charge capability ( thru a Blue Sea isolator) and then run the winch off the campers AGMs

Any reason not to do this?

Thanks
Keith


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[DiploStrat]

Depends

Depends on your batteries and other factors.

Normally, a winch runs primarily on a battery(s) with back up from the alternator(s).

Sooooo,

-- Which is larger, your starter battery or your camper battery? (In my case, the latter is larger by a factor of at least four.)

-- Which has the better connection to your alternator? I.e., are your cables, relay, other isolator, etc. capable of handling winch loads, say 500A?

Traditionally, especially on smaller, Jeep type vehicles, the winch is connected to the starter battery because:

-- It may be larger,

-- It is better connected to the alternator, and,

-- It is closer to a front mounted winch.

But, on a larger vehicle, say, one ton or larger, the reverse may be true. My suggestion would be to get as much battery on line as you possibly can, but I defer to the opinions of those with more winching experience.

Edited to add: My current vehicle has two, 14,000 lb. winches, both wired to the camper battery bank of 600Ah. The alternator can contribute 50A at 28v, through a 100A 24v to 12v converter/transformer/equalizer.

 

[john61ct]

If House bank is big and robust, can run the winch **intermittently** without a dino juice charge source running. Put your high-amp shore charger + genny on if running extensively, don't let SoC drop below 50%.

Most setups alt goes to Starter batt, only pull off that (or combined) while alt or shore charger is delivering high amps.
For the latter carry a fully charged jump starter pack as well.

 

[rayra]

I've done something like it with my Aux power module in the back of my Sub. Aux battery is in the factory location under the hood. I've run 1/0 to the rear as a main bus and will soon have the same sort of hitch carrier winch setup, with Anderson's SB350 connectors. I used the same connector as the interface from that bus to my 'power module' in my storage platform / drawer setup. I have a marine-style rotary cutoff in that rear box. Right now the 1000W inverter depends from it, for no particular reason other than preventing the inverter from being bumped on. The primary intend reason for the cutoff was to kill power to the rear winch connector (not yet installed) when not in active use.

The useful details start on page 3

http://forum.expeditionportal.com/t...-seeking-inputs-on-my-inputs-and-ouputs/page3


I'm real busy right now with home renovation commitments, but my next Sub project is the solar charge controller integration in that power module. And I'm still considering adding the SLA batteries too. They're only $72 for (4) of them, totalling 42Ah. Almost equivalent to a third vehicle battery. I'd like to add them so they are charged by both the vehicle and the solar, but have them isolated so they only provide juice to the array of smaller power ports. Use the Aux for the larger inverter and winching, use the wheelchair SLAs for smaller power demands. Have the Starter battery do only factory vehicle stuff. And have a lot of redundancy options.

Anyway, my point of all that is that your main cabling for rear winching operations can serve as your bus for a lot of other things.

 

[ripperj]

Thanks for all the detailed replies. The camper batteries are 224 amp/hr Full River AGM. I need to buy a new start battery, whatever the biggest Interstate that will fit( I have real good local Interstate support)

Rayra summed up pretty well what I was thinking( but didn’t post)
Wire is wire, both heavy and expensive and takes time to protect and run the length of a vehicle- so you might as well use for as many things as possible, while minimizing compromises



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[RoyJ]

Thanks for all the detailed replies. The camper batteries are 224 amp/hr Full River AGM. I need to buy a new start battery, whatever the biggest Interstate that will fit( I have real good local Interstate support)

Rayra summed up pretty well what I was thinking( but didn’t post)
Wire is wire, both heavy and expensive and takes time to protect and run the length of a vehicle- so you might as well use for as many things as possible, while minimizing compromises

Your plan totally works; in fact, I'm doing something similar.

Your main cable running from the front to the rear would act as the "bus". During charging, the alternator simply brings the bus voltage up to its regulated point (say 14.4V). The camper and starting battery would simultaneously draw their required current to charge, which depends on their own state of charge.

When a large load like a winch exceeds the alternator's output, the bus voltage goes down (to say 11.5V). Whichever battery has lower internal resistance, which in this case could be your larger AGM house batt., will supply more amperage to the bus. Together the two batt (plus alternator if enigine is on) will supply the total current draw of the winch.

A 12V lead acid circuitry can be amazingly simple!

 

[ripperj]

Any reason why I shouldn’t connect the alternator feed (thru Blue Sea isolator and fuse) to the output of my inverter/charger(which is essentially camper AGM battery bus, but easier to get to)
I was going to eventually put my solar controller output there too??


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[ripperj]

You mean a second chassis to negative connection on the rear of the truck? I was thinking of that, but seems like I might get weird ground loop currents??


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[ripperj]

Thanks and good point. The OEM battery wires are pretty small. I will look and see what kind of troubles I would get in either upgrading the OEM or running a parallel alternator to start battery connection



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[ripperj]

Making some progress, out of the 3 hours I got into it, two were trying to cut the factory harness apart to get both slack in the positive( that’s not getting upgraded this go around, it’s buried) and get the frame negative free so I can upgrade it

Lots of small wires along with the bigger battery wires pita


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[ripperj]

Any reason not to run another ( leaving factory wire) big fat wire from alternator output to battery positive. It looks like the factory wire leaves the alternator and goes somewhere besides straight to battery. I’m afraid to screw with it much, real hard to get to


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[DiploStrat]

I would not wire up a loop, but this discusses the situation: http://www.smartgauge.co.uk/alt_how.html

... And why you might want to reroute your wires.

 

[ripperj]

Thanks for the reply. From a practical standpoint ripping the harness apart and replacing all the positives off the alternator isn’t going to happen. It’s a ‘12 Ram 2500 and there are a lot of hard to get to wires. If I can find a accurate wiring diagram could determ both ends off the stock wires and abandon them, and then run big wires outside the factory harness in loom and tape.

So not wanting to create a permanent loop, can I hook the new alternator wire to the house battery side of the isolator, then there is only a loop when parallel.

Or should I just use the crappy OEM alternator wires?

I did read the link a couple times. I’m very familiar with resistance across batteries , bus work and breaker contacts. I didn’t see anything about issues with a loop.

Of the two wires going to my positive, one goes straight to the fuse box.

Can I leave the stock battery feed off and use my new big wire to the battery and then feed the fuse box like OEM??


Edit. More research needed

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[DiploStrat]

...
So not wanting to create a permanent loop, can I hook the new alternator wire to the house battery side of the isolator, then there is only a loop when parallel.

I'm not sure. I would ask dwh as he is a good source on practical wiring issues. Basically, as long as you build a proper positive bus, and assure proper ground returns, again with no loops, you should be fine. Not being familiar with the RAM, I cannot offer practical advice.

I was lucky, my Chevrolet was wired: alternator>starter battery>starter. Made it easy to come off the starter battery to run to the camper battery bank.

 

[ripperj]

I pmd DWH.



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