Offroad-Express

Hi all

I'm looking at putting an Anderson connection out the back of my safari so that I can just plug it into a charger/maintainer so when it is left for a few weeks I don't have any problems starting etc.

I've had a look at chargers/maintainers and think that the Powertech MB3606 from Jaycar looks like it will do the job, Ctek seems very expensive.

http://www.jaycar.co.nz/productView.asp ... rm=KEYWORD

manual

http://www.jaycar.co.nz/products_upload ... manual.pdf

I'm not 100% on it and the wiring as I'm pretty ignorant to electrics. I was intending on connecting the positive to the left hand battery and the earth to the drivers right hand battery as it looks to have some 12v stuff happening...

So my questions are:-

1/. will this set up work that I'm thinking or am I way off the mark and will damage the 12v stuff?
or
2/. as the system is two batteries wired to be be 24v the charger won't be able to do it anyhow?
and if I'm way off what can be done?

Cheers
Will

Firstly that charger is a bit small for your batteries, It will be able to maintain them but it would struggle to charge them. Your charger should be 10% of the ah rating of your battery, assuming you have 2 NS70's (70amp hour) you would want a 7 amp charger.
To connect it you would connect it to the negative of the left hand battery as this is the one that is earthed to the body the positive goes to the positive on the right hand battery.
An anderson connector is slightly overkill for a maintenance charger and at that low amperage the voltage drop to the rear will be excessive. Personally I would pop the bonnet and connect directly to the batteries.

Just disconnect your batteries and they should last a couple of weeks no problem. Can then individually charge them with a normal 12v charger to.

Thanks guys

Thinking I will pull them both out (as not kept beside garage), charge them each fully and then look at maintaining them.

I'd actually run an anderson to each battery independently and use two smaller chargers*. You don't need much more than a couple of amps to maintain each battery, so anderson plug overkill a little, better with a two pin amphenol or similar IP rated plug that has a dust cap.

*Charging independently has the benefit of keeping your batteries balanced which generally extends their life.

You should get away with using your chassis for the negative connection so you only need to run cable from positive.

Chuck an inline fast fuse double your chargers rating though incase the cables are damaged and short to chassis.