I'm planning on a doing a long trip soon and want to install a marine deep cycle battery and a 12v powerport for an ac/dc converter for charging various devices. I was thinking of using a marine dual battery switch so that I could keep both batteries charged. (06 Road King and TLE tub)
Has anyone done this??? or something similar?? Could this setup damage the HD alternator/regulator?
Hi,
I put a extra Battery in my sidecar as a back up battery, i have a Shadow 1100 and they have a T shaped Battery and I could see my self being stuck some place waiting for a special order battery plus I put a elc. lift chair in and wanted a separate battery to draw from.
I decided against a deep cycle for 2 reasons, (1) most are lead acid, instead I went with a AGM (adsorbed gas mat) battery, no fumes and no leaking acid, (2) size, deep cycle batteries are BIG, if you get on line and you can find a AGM battery that will fit the space you have and have the amp hours you need to do what you want to do.
I run a 10ga wire to the Pos. post and the Neg. to the frame of the sidecar, in the pos. wire I put a 60 amp relay from a big rig that's triggered by the head light, the headlight is off when starting so the relay is open but when running it completes the loop and will charge if it needs to, if the main batt goes south all I have to do is by pass the relay to be able to start the bike.
Hope this helps.
One more thing, it won't hurt your chargeing system, just charge the aux batt before hooking it up because hooking them together they can even themselves out, kinda like 2 glasses, one is full, the other isn't, put a tube between them at the bottom and you will have 2 half full/empty glasses.
I love my service free UPS batery, since then I have no trouble with acid losses and too low voltage.
It sounds like there are different aproaches for the same result.
Here my 2 cent:
When you use 2 bateries in paralell both should be of the same type and age.
In any other combination as in your case, better put them on two different circuits seperated by relay and/or diodes and alternate the charging system. Anyhow a batery is loaded very fast again. The 2. batery and its "fancy load" should not be able to draw too much on the bike's batery. Its nasty to walk through town and a Batery under the arm, just because you didn't switch off a load early enough. (Sweden 1982 at 33ºC and in leather...)
I may suggest to use an intelligent relay as Siemens Logo (2 analogue V inputs on the 12/24 volt unit) or Telemecanique Zelio or AB Pico, or Unitronics Jazz to supervise voltages, chargeing and fanncy features like theft alarm.
Good luck
Sven Peter Pan
