The UK/IERE Land Rover Owner Daily Digest

Send Submissions uk-lro@Land-Rover.Team.Net

Date: Sun, 21 Apr 1996 12:16:05 +0100
From: Stephen Firth <steve@firthcom.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Split charging.

CJ Betton asks:

I have a second battery fitted in the box under the front passenger seat on
a SIII 109. I rigged up the relay myself using pieces in my electronics
parts box, so I have an RS octal base relay fitted high up on the bulkhead
(next to the coil). I have, for reasons of laziness, wired this in a
non-standard way. The only options for charge are AUX disconnected, AUX and
MAIN connected in parallel. I wired the relay using a rocker switch so that
one press off the switch when on the move latches the relay on, when the
ignition is turned off, the supply to the relay coil is interrupted and the
relay reverts to AUX off.

I did this because the AUX battery is used to provide power for a fridge,
and I don't want the fridge to flatten both batteries when I leave it on
all night on the car ferry.

>How much do they cost?

In this case, a few pence since the relay was stripped from an old circuit
board.

> Are they easy to fit?

Simple if you are used to vehicle rewiring.

>If I go the split charge route, should I buy a leasure type (deep
>cycle?) battery for the second ( stereo system)  battery? Or am I better off
>fitting a larger battery instead?

I'd go for the leisure battery, except for one problem I tried four
different makes and all of them are too tall for the battery compartment.
The posts short out on the galvanised lid. I took a tape measure to all the
batteries at the local shop and bought the highest capacity unit that would
just fit into the box, a 75AH battery intended for an Allegro I think. It
works fine and gives about 24h of fridge running when fully charged.

The AUX battery is wired to two cigar lighter sockets, one on the dash
which I use to charge my phone and another fitted into the top of the box
over the rear N/S light cluster. There's just enough room to do this and
it's a very handy place to put the fridge. The AUX battery is earthed to
the aluminium body of the box and the supply is routed using 35A cable.

In an emergency, I have started the vehicle by running a jumper lead fromt
he +ve pole of the AUX battery to the +ve pole of the MAIN battery - but
don't under any cirumstances attempt to start with the AUX battery switched
on via the relay. The relay will melt.

Finally have a look at one of the boat magazines, most boats use a two
battery system and there are a number of manufacturers making electronic
split charge systems which divert power to the battery most in need of
charging. There is also a kit available from Maplin and I intend to give
this a try later this year.

------------------------------

  END OF LAND ROVER OWNER DIGEST 
 Input:  messages 1 lines 75 [forwarded 7 whitespace 16]
 Output: lines 112 [content 38  forwarded 7 (cut  0) whitespace 16]

Additional Information:

In addition so subscribing and unsubscribing, the Frequently Asked
Questions (FAQ) file and the last month of daily digests may be retrieved
(by mail) from majordomo@Land-Rover.Team.Net

Useful commands for this are 'index uk-lro-digest' which returns a list of
files available, as well as 'get lro-digest <filename>', etc.

UK/EIRE World Wide Web Sites start at 
         http://www.Land-Rover.Team.Net/~majordom/lr/pages.html
(shadow) http://www.OpenMarket.com/personal/caloccia/lr/pages.html

ARC:			http://www.apricot.co.uk/rel3/directory/rrr/arc.html
Scottish LROC:		http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~kiz/SLROC/
Range Rover Register:	http://www.apricot.co.uk/rel3/directory/rrr/index.html
Glamorgan Off-Road C:	http://theo.sihe.ac.uk/~bird/Home.html

If Major Domo barfs at something, and you're convinced he should have 
understood what you sent him, contact majordomo-owner@Land-Rover.Team.Net

  -B