I second what Frank has to say. I had the Hella relay installed, but the wire gauge was not up to par for my installation - if I ran the radio and a 150 watt load on the inverter at the same time the second battery actually drained with the relay closed, and even with the inverter off the second battery(an optima yellowtop) never really got a full charge it seemed. Many times I had to "help it along" by connecting them with jumper cables. I recently replace it with a common RV style battery solenoid (essentially the same concept) with 10 ga. Wire and a 30 amp circuit breaker. I'm hoping this will be better. Cheers, Jeff -----Original Message----- From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of Frank Condelli
Sorry but here goes the rebuttal. This system will not work properly with the OPTIMA yellow top battery choice. The 14 gauge wire charging the OPTIMA does not allow for sufficient charging on short duration trips and eventually you will drain your Optima. |
Please note - During the past 17 years of operation, several gigabytes of
Vanagon mail messages have been archived. Searching the entire collection
will take up to five minutes to complete. Please be patient!
Return to the archives @ gerry.vanagon.com
The vanagon mailing list archives are copyright (c) 1994-2011, and may not be reproduced without the express written permission of the list administrators. Posting messages to this mailing list grants a license to the mailing list administrators to reproduce the message in a compilation, either printed or electronic. All compilations will be not-for-profit, with any excess proceeds going to the Vanagon mailing list.
Any profits from list compilations go exclusively towards the management and operation of the Vanagon mailing list and vanagon mailing list web site.