Utility battery

[Zeusv8]

Hi peeps, I am going to do a fair bit of travelling in the truck this year and I'll need to run a Waeco in the back quite a lot and I'd like to keep it there for work too. It draws about 3.5 amps on 12v so is it necessary to fit a second battery?.I have a space where the AHC pump and reservoir was. I am not sure on how it would wire up with the existing battery so I'll probably use an auto sparks for the install. Thanks,James

 

[Steve Wright]

Hi peeps, I am going to do a fair bit of travelling in the truck this year and I'll need to run a Waeco in the back quite a lot and I'd like to keep it there for work too. It draws about 3.5 amps on 12v so is it necessary to fit a second battery?.I have a space where the AHC pump and reservoir was. I am not sure on how it would wire up with the existing battery so I'll probably use an auto sparks for the install. Thanks,James

Dead easy, all you need is a split relay system, so that it isolates the main battery when the engine is not running, but charges both when it is running.
There plenty of circuits and equipment on the net, the one I use is a voltage unit, that detect the voltage so as it goes above a certain voltage it switches and so allows the 2nd battery to take charge, but when it drops it opens the circuit and isolates the two battery's

This is the one I use:
http://www.towsure.com/product/SelfSwit ... tion_Relay

Radiotwo

 

[Andrew Brierley]

One thing to be very careful about with the Waeco is the voltage drop. The one I have (CF50) monitors the input voltage, and if it drops below a pre-set level (around 12.4v from memory) it decides to shut itself off to protect your battery.

My problem was a battery in the front and the fridge in the back. I ran fairly chunky 30A cable, but due to the distance involved it didn't take long for the voltage to drop below the pre-set level and the fridge kept switching itself off. It would only really be noticable when the engine hadn't been running for about 12 hours, but this will depend upon the health of your battery.

I had a long chat with the tech support guys at Waeco, and they recommended 6.5mm cable to avoid the voltage drop. Unfortunately this is pretty much the size of starter cable, so that's what I ended up running from the front to the back of the truck, and terminating in a small fuse block - which I then used to run the rest of the auxilliaries in the the back. I actually ran both +ve and -ve cables directly from the battery terminals to avoid any possible problems with the vehicle earth. The fridge has performed perfectly since.

If you run a leisure battery in the back, you won't experience this problem, but I also recommend fitting high quality cigar lighter sockets or Hella type sockets to avoid any voltage drop there. The cheap ones are likely to prove problematic.

 

[Zeusv8]

I have a factory fitted 12v socket in the back already so I was plugging into that! I meant to say that it's a 32 litre waeco coolbox as apposed to a stand alone Waeco caravan type fridge. Would you recommend I run a new 6.5 mm cable from the battery direct to this rear socket to help with the voltage drop off? Thanks for your input guys,James

 

[Andrew Brierley]

I have a factory fitted 12v socket in the back already so I was plugging into that! I meant to say that it's a 32 litre waeco coolbox as apposed to a stand alone Waeco caravan type fridge. Would you recommend I run a new 6.5 mm cable from the battery direct to this rear socket to help with the voltage drop off? Thanks for your input guys,James

I would suggest that you only run the thicker cable if you are experiencing the problem of the fridge shutting down. Different Waeco models probably have different sensors, so if it runs fine I would leave well alone. However, as your battery ages your might start to experience the problem, or also if you run other accessories from the same circuit/socket. The 6.5mm cable is stoopidly expensive.

 

[Zeusv8]

Ok thanks for the help,I'll try it first when I do the install and see how it runs. Cheers