rayra
Expedition Leader
So I was running around Santa Clarita the last few days during our flurry of regional fires, trying to get a first-hand appreciation of our danger (Rye fire was only a couple miles away, if the wind was different our neighborhood may well have been another Ventura).
I had a small peltier cooler plugged in, cold bottled water, helps get you thru a few roadblocks once in a while.
Anyway, got back home and left it plugged in. ~48hrs later I go to drive the vehicle and it's stone dead. Won't even respond to the alarm fobs. oops.
This is where the 200A combiner solenoid dual battery solution fell short. That solenoid is triggered by aux power from the factory wiring side of things, in my arrangement. The vehicle / starter battery only reading a paltry 3v+, the solenoid doesn't trip. My charged Aux / House battery sitting there doing me no good. So I had to crawl around and get to my cargo storage drawer platform top hatch to get to my jumper cables and self-jump. Which worked well enough. Ran my errands and put the starter battery on a battery charger when I got home.
So what do I replace the solenoid with so power flows automatically to the 'Starter battery' side of things. Doesn't an ACR do this? Or do I even want to do that? Had it been automatic, the cooler would have eventually drained both batteries. And as it was, the solenoid did what it ought, albeit in reverse, since the idea is run the Aux down and be able to start right up.
I don't really want to throw hundreds of dollars at the design solution. I am considering a couple other brute-simple solutions -
1) re-wire the vehicle interior 12v receptacles ('PowerPorts' in GM parlance) so they are powered from the Aux. I've yet to add a proper fuse block on that side of things, but will be shortly as part of adding a HAM radio / the next phase of electrical mods
2) only plug the small cooler into the vehicle's key-switched cig lighter port? But there are times when I WANT the cooler cooling when I'm away from the vehicle. And the 'PowerPorts' are always hot. And near term, I'm adding roof-mounted solar, which will feed the Aux. and the rear power systems I've added.
3) just add a dash-switched power circuit from the Aux to the solenoid energizer connection. From the comfort of the driver seat, flip a switch to energize the solenoid and connect the batteries. But IIRC the last time I did something like this with a small alligator-clip jumper lead from Aux to solenoid terminal, it backfed the factory aux power and popped its fuse. So maybe I need to put a diode on that line, at the solenoid terminal?
So is there a solution that will work as a charging combiner, a usage isolator, and a manual switched combiner when I stupidly repeat this failure? A solution that doesn't cost $400?
I had a small peltier cooler plugged in, cold bottled water, helps get you thru a few roadblocks once in a while.
Anyway, got back home and left it plugged in. ~48hrs later I go to drive the vehicle and it's stone dead. Won't even respond to the alarm fobs. oops.
This is where the 200A combiner solenoid dual battery solution fell short. That solenoid is triggered by aux power from the factory wiring side of things, in my arrangement. The vehicle / starter battery only reading a paltry 3v+, the solenoid doesn't trip. My charged Aux / House battery sitting there doing me no good. So I had to crawl around and get to my cargo storage drawer platform top hatch to get to my jumper cables and self-jump. Which worked well enough. Ran my errands and put the starter battery on a battery charger when I got home.
So what do I replace the solenoid with so power flows automatically to the 'Starter battery' side of things. Doesn't an ACR do this? Or do I even want to do that? Had it been automatic, the cooler would have eventually drained both batteries. And as it was, the solenoid did what it ought, albeit in reverse, since the idea is run the Aux down and be able to start right up.
I don't really want to throw hundreds of dollars at the design solution. I am considering a couple other brute-simple solutions -
1) re-wire the vehicle interior 12v receptacles ('PowerPorts' in GM parlance) so they are powered from the Aux. I've yet to add a proper fuse block on that side of things, but will be shortly as part of adding a HAM radio / the next phase of electrical mods
2) only plug the small cooler into the vehicle's key-switched cig lighter port? But there are times when I WANT the cooler cooling when I'm away from the vehicle. And the 'PowerPorts' are always hot. And near term, I'm adding roof-mounted solar, which will feed the Aux. and the rear power systems I've added.
3) just add a dash-switched power circuit from the Aux to the solenoid energizer connection. From the comfort of the driver seat, flip a switch to energize the solenoid and connect the batteries. But IIRC the last time I did something like this with a small alligator-clip jumper lead from Aux to solenoid terminal, it backfed the factory aux power and popped its fuse. So maybe I need to put a diode on that line, at the solenoid terminal?
So is there a solution that will work as a charging combiner, a usage isolator, and a manual switched combiner when I stupidly repeat this failure? A solution that doesn't cost $400?
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