I just bought my second complete rig and with all the boogie lights and electrical acces. I was going to add a large car battery. A mechanic suggested to put it in line to the motorcycle battery. Has anyone tried this?
In Series or in Parallel depends on your requirements and how you plan on charging the second battery.
If you have added a whole bunch of stuff beyond what came stock, too much resistance can melt wires or damage your rectifier/regulator and then the stator, if you overload it's capacity for a long time......and those maxi-fuses don't always blow right away.
Shriners....God Bless them.....are prime candidates.....truck drivers too.
Add up all the goodies you put on and use watts law to determine if you are properly fused and correctly sized pertaining to wire gauge.
If your fuses and wiring are cool then measure your total resistance by starting your bike and running it around 2000 rpm and turning on everything you think you could possibly have on at once. Using a digital voltmeter/ammeter measure both voltage draw and output tests. Then determine if you even need another battery and/or upgraded charging system based on whether the charging system is keeping up with the draw.
If this sounds like Greek find someone who understands your charging system.
Why do you need motorcycle battery? Use only automotive.
Automotive or motorcycle.....doesn't matter....12v is 12v. CCA only matters when starting requirements call for it....like cammed high compression motors.
Thanks guys, I bought a $155 optima battery at sams and put in the right saddle bag of my 1988 goldwing and ran 4gauge wire with a fuse to my motorcycle battery. When i get a cutoff switch on the optima battery as i won't need it 80% of the time.It would be 100% a backup to jump myself or another bike or car...
