DeMented Toys $500 Excellent Adventure Trailer Build

[DeMented Toys]

Oh.... AND I did chop, bob, and lower the bike... And its still 2 inches too tall.



But it looks pretty mean now! Its lighter and at around 90 horsepower, it can get from point A to B in a hurry.

It was so much fun I have another one under construction in my garage too. But, back o the trailer build!

 

[DeMented Toys]

Who knows battery lingo? I picked up 8 sealed batteries to power my trailer. They say 12V 38Ah on them.

Are these 38 amp hour batteries? Do they need to be hooked up all positive to positive and all negative to negative or another way? I'm going to have solar as a backup charger, and will have a 12V charger that can plug into shore power or into my generator.

 

[Mashurst]

If you hook positive to positive and negative to negative (called parallel) you do not change the voltage only the capacity so 8x38Ah would give you one big 304Ah battery at 12v nominal. This is typically what you would want unless you were trying to run say a 24v system or something.

 

[Titanpat57]

Love that "old school" look....nice!

 

[Toyotero]

Who know battery lingo? I picked up 8 sealed batteries to power my trailer. They say 12V 38Ah on them.

Are these 38 amp hour batteries? Do they need to be hooked up all positive to positive and all negative to negative or another way? I'm going to have solar as a backup charger, and will have a 12V charger that can plug into shore power or into my generator.

12V 38Ah mean 38 amp hour (rated for pulling 12v 1 amp power for 38 hours, 2 for 19, etc before they are kaput and need a recharge).

How you wire them up depends on what you want... higher voltage or higher amperage.

Considering that you have a 12V charger and presumably 12V devices, you'll want to keep the voltage at 12V, so you should wire them in parallel.

This is a good tutorial as to wiring them up http://www.freesunpower.com/battery_diagrams.php

 

[DeMented Toys]

Here are my batteries. Yes, I'm going to run a 12 volt system. I think it will keep it simple. I have a 12V charger and a 12V solar charge controller. http://i596.photobucket.com/albums/tt42/DementedToys/Adventure Trailer Build/da58568c.jpg
http://i596.photobucket.com/albums/tt42/DementedToys/Adventure Trailer Build/896e3259.jpg
http://i596.photobucket.com/albums/tt42/DementedToys/Adventure Trailer Build/413b3540.jpg

 

[DeMented Toys]

Anyone know what nominal capacity and float voltage are? How do I figure out total amp hours?

 

[skersfan]

add the total on the batteries. 38 times the number of batteries.

Be sure you get a good tight connection, anything loose will kill the batteries. Check them after every run. I have thousands of the damned things and setting in boxes on top of mountains they come loose. Makes no sense but it happens. If you have a tester, test them regularly, with that many in a system, one dies, it will kill the others quickly and you will not notice it until too late.

I would highly recommend the Morningstar Digital 15 controller. It will tell you charge level, solar amps if you are using a solar panel and the draw, it also has a color code for state of battery. Around a 125 bucks on line and is by far the best controller in that price range, way more than enough for a trailer system.

 

[DeMented Toys]

It's been awhile and my trailer project had to be pushed aside. It's been pulling duty as a regular old trailer. But...it's time it reached its full over landing potential. I got out this past weekend to check ground clearances. Good to go!

 

[007JKX]

I want this

 

[DeMented Toys]

It could definitely use a paint job at some point! I've always been for function/performance over beauty though. . Today I'm pulling up the floor to build battery boxes between the frame rails. I'll post pics soon.

 

[DeMented Toys]

I ripped out the 3/4" plywood floor. I'm going to build boxes to put the batteries under the new floor between the frame rails in front if the axle.

I'm trying to decide whether to make the boxes out of metal or marine plywood. Plywood would be faster and easier than using metal and as long as it is sealed I'm thinking it should last a long time. Hmmm...

 

[Mark Harley]

Make the boxes out of plywood then fiberglass or epoxy over them to seal out the elements.
Bed liner would work well too.

 

[DeMented Toys]

Plywood it is. I lined the frame rails with pressure treated wood. I'll screw my treated plywood boxes to that

 

[DeMented Toys]

Boxes are in, batteries in place. Now I just need to figure out what size wire to link the batteries together with.