schamran

Yeah, that is why I will probably buy 2 new ends, shorten the wires, and turn the front battery around.

Jim: That is some impressive knowledge. Is it bad that I am just running the two batteries direct like shown in my picture?

Unfortunately, as of yet, I haven't driven the truck more than a mile since the install, but later this week I will tell you guys what I think. I gotta get my 4X4 fixed between now and then. lol

Jim Lane

Also I would turn one of the batteries around so you could keep the interconnection cables from crossing each other, I understand why that you did it this way but I would do it just because it looks confusing, although you know how they are connected and I know how they are connected not everybody in the world is that smart, there is a good possibility somebody could connect them (+) to (-) and (-) to (+) and have a small explosion resulting in molten lead.

You could turn the front battery around and then reconnect the interconnecting cables by bending them into a semicircle (C) shape and have them each loop around your mounting bolt from opposite directions, I would also use some RED shrink tubing on the POS end of the cables.

Do you know that you have a Positive lug on the Negative terminal?



Other that that, your setup looks geat.

Jim

The_Head

Was this the one you went with?

http://www.ballisticfabrication.com/...x-_p_1705.html

maybe368

Jim, if I understand you correctly, then if 1 battery goes bad, you will then have to buy 2. It seems to me that an isolator is much cheaper that an Optima, just my opinion. As I said earlier, I have had 2 Optimas fail on me, 1 of them 20 miles deep in the desert in Mexico. I own 9 Optimas in various vehicles and still love them. in both cases they were replaced without cost, which would still cause one to have to buy 1 to keep them the same..Mark

MrExtreme

Wow, I only have 3 Yellow Tops, 2 in a custom box under my flat bed as accessory and 1 for starting, seperated by a 200 amp relay. There is enough weight on the front of this truck, that's why I put the extras under the bed.

What does a 20K inverter cost?

schamran

Thanks Jim. Yes that Lug was a goof on both my mechanic and myself. He sold me two positive lugs, and I put them both on my truck. I honestly didn't know there was a difference. lol I do plan on turning the front battery around because the wires cross and one rubs on the nut that holds the whole thing down. (at least it's the negative one) I also thought that it looked confusing, and that if someone hooked up a set of cables wrong there could be a very bad accident. I will try to get some new ends and some shrink tube this week. Should I worry about the two batteries hooked up this way? I already have about $420 stuck into this whole thing. lol

Jim Lane

Mark,
Well they should be to do it right, you want them to be matched close in age but depending on how good the remaining batteries is, I would at the least have it load tested but to do it right you should replace both of them at the same time because they are part of a set, being connected in parallel they will take on characteristics of each other as far as state of charge but if one should fail it will affect it as a unit.

The quality of the batteries are not as they should be, I have heard that the Optima batteries that you buy from outlets like Cosco or Wal-Mart are rejects and not as good as one that you would get from a distributor.

If my truck starts fine with 1 battery I would rather set up my batteries for redundancy and know that I always had a fully charged battery to start my truck with in the event my main battery did fail. This has started my truck many times at 4:00 A.M. when I would leave my lights on or emergency flashers on for 8-10 hours at a time, if the truck would not start all I would do is press a switch and it would start like I had just turned it off.

You could use a separator like I have or you could simply use a couple of solenoids and get the same results.

Even with a separator the 2 batteries are still connected in parallel when they are charging, Oh and I have a voltmeter for each battery.

Jim