Thread: Traxide dual battery system

What do people mean by very low use?

My 3 litre regularly sits for around three days without being used as don't use it for work and shopping errands. When it goes out it is rarely for a very short trip, no issues with the battery so far but it's only 6 months old.

I'll be getting a Traxide installed very soon, just for peace of mind and so I can run an Engel and Versalite when I do go away for trips.

I didn't know the Traxide used power when the car is off, and hope it won't be an issue if I go away and leave it for a week or ten days. Another battery should be a good thing, right?

Hi Folks and there is always going to be a problem with the cranking battery in any vehicle that is not driven regularly and/or for only short periods when it is driven.

There is no way around the problem short of using an auxiliary mode of charging, like solar or a battery charger.

This is not a Land Rover specific problem, it’s quite common in many makes.

With the old SC80 isolators, which have only just been replaced with a more energy efficient version, the old SC80s draw about 0.26 of an amp until the common voltage of the two batteries drops to 12.0v.

This means that if your batteries are fully charged, it would take around 300 hour or 12.5 days before the SC80 discharged the batteries down to 12.0v, at which point the SC80 would turn off and then only draw about 0.008 amps ( 8 ma ).

At 12.0v you still have heaps of reserve capacity in your cranking battery to be able to start your vehicle.

The new SC80 isolators now only draw 0.16 amps which means you will get close to twenty days before the batteries reach 12.0v or 15 days if you also have the BG-25 installed.

If your batteries are not fully charged, which is going to be the case if you don’t drive often enough and/or long enough, then you have to make allowances for your driving habits.

Plus there is a knock on effecting in that because if the cranking battery is never fully charged, it very quickly starts to loose the capacity to be fully charge, no matter how you try to charge it.

But there is a flip side to the scenario in that because the SC80 keeps the batteries connected and the fact the Optima is a fast charging battery, even short drives will allow you to put enough charge in the auxiliary battery for it to be able to raise the charged state of your cranking battery a bit when the motor is turned off.

But infrequent driving will still eventually cause your cranking battery’s charging capacity to diminish, even with the SC80 install, it will just take longer for the effects to become a problem.

Fitting a solar panel dramatically improves the charged state of your batteries if you don’t do enough driving to keep your batteries in a good charged state, no matter what set up you have.

For longer idle time, you could put an isolation switch between the taxidermist controller and the black earth wire going to the chassis terminal, thus stopping the controller from sucking 260ma from the system. When you need it, switch on.

Has anyone tested current drain of vehicle while idle and locked? I wonder if the LR have a hibernation mode which is activated after long periods of no activity?

Regards

Gerald

Originally Posted by JamesH

What do people mean by very low use?

My 3 litre regularly sits for around three days without being used as don't use it for work and shopping errands. When it goes out it is rarely for a very short trip, no issues with the battery so far but it's only 6 months old.

I'll be getting a Traxide installed very soon, just for peace of mind and so I can run an Engel and Versalite when I do go away for trips.

I didn't know the Traxide used power when the car is off, and hope it won't be an issue if I go away and leave it for a week or ten days. Another battery should be a good thing, right?

Once the battery starts to get a bit older, you will have to watch how you are using it. I found once the battery was over 2 years old, even cold weather caused issues with low vehicle use. Once we changed the battery , everything was ok.

Sorry to dig this up but I do feel the need to comment.

I have an SC80 and twin Supercharge All-rounders (105ah each). My P38 sits for weeks at a time and I've never had a problem. What I did was fit a toggle switch off the earth on the SC80 which allows me to turn off the SC80 and hence does not link the batteries. Weeks on end and I can still start it every time.

I also put a few 50amp circuit breakers and an Anderson plug on my setup so I can physically disconnect the two for peace of mind or if I need to remove the aux battery for some reason.

Cheers
Keithy

I can also plug solar power in to my aux battery when it is disconnected from the main via the Anderson plug.

Oh and a tip: If you have a solar panel on the roof to trickle charge the battery, it won;t work while in the garage...

Originally Posted by VladTepes

Oh and a tip: If you have a solar panel on the roof to trickle charge the battery, it won;t work while in the garage...

Unless you fit a skylight