Help needed on Routing Batt cable into cargo area.

Sorry Zook, when I said “they” I meant whoever fitted the dual battery set up, have called what should have been the auxiliary battery, the starting battery.

Hope that clears it up.

Cheers.

Thanks for the advice I spoke to ARB in Perth and seemed to get the impression that that is how they install their Dual battery systems as well.

I think I need to talk to them again.

thanks

<span style="color:blue">yep.....makes sense now.....

it appears they have done it this way to avoid having to transfer the accessories over to the second battery.....

from what i understood....there is absolutely nothing running off the second battery....
it is purely to jumpstart the main when the accessories flatten it.....</span>

Yes that is it.

I remember after having it fitted I said to the guy can you show me where I put the terminals from the solar panel and he told me to use the original battery.

I said I thought they would go to the battery he had just installed but he said no the battery we install is of a smaller capacity than the original one so it is better to use the original one for accessories, then that will leave the installed battery to drive the cranking through the original battery

It made sense to me on that basis but I am an accountant https://www.aulro.com/afvb/

Good to see more healthy debate. I got the system finished at 1.00 am this morning, paked the car and headed off at 7 AM and am now sitting down 1000kms away working again !!!!!!!!!!!

The system is designed so I can use the fridge and computer only from the auxuillary battery. The Vehicle has its own battery and it has its own working ossues to deal with, I just want cold beer with dinner and ice-cream after while I am on the road working.

I bought the redarc isolator as I liked its voltage sensing cut out and recharge system. I did not know about the "smart start" feature it has until I took it out of the box but upon further examination it looks the goods. Hook it up the the aux battery via a switch so when you hit the ignition key at the same time it activates the solenoid to return power back down the line. All it seems to be is a cleverly placed extra bit of wire and good marketing but I might be wrong. Sure is a litte mor moring than shoving a shifter across the terminals and hitting the key..........

Anyway, happy I am and I will take pics when I get around to it.

As for the routing, whoever tried to persuade me to go up through the body along the loom is a considerate understanding nurturing type of person.....after a couple of hours pulling things apart I cave up and ran it alongside the wiring loom that runs on the top of the drivers side chassis rail and then in through the loom sleeve inside the tail light housing (***** of a job). Clipped it all up and we shall see how it goes. Given more time I will look for any potential rub points and armour as required.

Owen, I warned you it would be a big job but it is the only way to make the high current cabling safe.

Hi tombraider, yes I was trying to be polite for harryw sake because, as both you and zook have pointed out, ARB have taken him for a ride and the installation they have done totally defeats the purpose of fitting a second battery.

Harryw, I’ve never heard of a second battery set up like that and I’ve been in the game for 30 years. If ARB are doing this as a standard procedure than they need a good kicking but I think if you contacted their head office and asked how it should be done, don’t tell them you already have it installed, just see what they have to say.

BTW what did they supply you with and how much did they charge you.

Cheers

Don't have the details in front of me but it was about $680, I will see if I can locate the invoice.

regards

Just spoke to ARB and enquired about getting a dual battery fitted and they quoted me $712.

I asked if the accessories would be wired to the new battery and the reply was they could be but they tended not to do that, if I wanted it it would cost another $75 approx.

When I pushed as to why all accessories weren't rewired automatically to the new battery to leave the original battery to crank the engine the answer was that the radio drew such little power it wouldn't make any difference so that is why they left them where they were.

I seems pretty well entrenched ARB policy as I spoke to the Perth Head Office but the work was originally done in Broome.

Broome do a number of installs for Telstra who run Engels and other devices and to counteract this a trip switch for the relay is installed in the dash board it seems they see no problem in doing the install that way.

From a "dumb" users point of view I feel disappointed that I wasn't told at the outset the Engel would take the power level so low as to fail to operate the relay and I would have jump the car to start the engine.

Not to mention the pain of having to reset the radio and not being able to open the car doors.

It seems the way they go about doesn't provide the solution you think you are getting.

I have dealt with them for a number of aftermarket products, including wiring an outlet for the engel, and will talk the manager when he returns from leave next week.

Hi again harryw, the answer they gave you is a total crock of ****e.

For a starter, fridges, because of the power they need, should be powered by a deep cycle battery because as the name implies, they can be deep cycled or deep discharged and recharged, thats why people install them.

Whereas, your cranking battery is NOT designed to be used in a deep discharge situation. They are very quickly damaged by such discharges and I would lay money that you have already seriously shortened your cranking battery’s life span.

To put it in simple terms, this is the very reason for fitting a auxiliary battery and the accessories are powered from the auxiliary battery so not to over work the cranking battery.

Further to that set up, it’s pretty ridiculers flattening the cranking battery and then connecting a supposedly good battery to a dead battery and hoping it will start the vehicle especially in your case where the second battery is smaller than the main battery.

I’ve had a couple of trade customers ring me with orders today and I run your set up by them and neither had ever heard of such a set up.

You unfortunately have already paid for your installation but to save yourself a considerable amount of money and inconvenience in the not to distant future, I still recommend that you seek the advice of a professional installer and not rely of the info given to you by people who are quite obviously nothing more than salesmen, and not very knowledgeable ones at that.

Sorry for your problems and I find it pretty disgusting that a large company like ARB would resort to deceiving their customers in this manor. :twisted:

Cheers

Hi Drivesafe

Just got back from ARB Perth and the car will be rewired to the correct sequence at no cost to myself, in that the engel will go to the deep cycle battery together with some of the accessories as deemed appropriate.

The Workshop manager, formerly an auto electrician, looked at the install and said this is not how it should have been done and spent 30 minutes explaining why it was wrong and advised the housekeeping needed to be done with deep cycle batteries if they are not being used regularly.

I now understand more about the way it is supposed to work and his advice was as far as I could tell pretty much identical to what you had said in previous posts.

He also made the point that he always checks with the customer what the objective of having the dual battery system fitted is and invairibly goes through with the customer post install telling them what they need to do and when to do it to ensure the system is kept to its optimum efficiency.

I feel a lot happier now and retract the following comments:

I asked if the accessories would be wired to the new battery and the reply was they could be but they tended not to do that, if I wanted it it would cost another $75 approx.

When I pushed as to why all accessories weren't rewired automatically to the new battery to leave the original battery to crank the engine the answer was that the radio drew such little power it wouldn't make any difference so that is why they left them where they were.

I seems pretty well entrenched ARB policy as I spoke to the Perth Head Office but the work was originally done in Broome.

Not that the comments were not said just the source was a sales person not the person who I should have got the information from, ARB should however try and ensure the customer is not given information by unqualified people.

Thanks for you advice and also the comments from the other posters which helped me get a resolution to the poor job that was originally done by an ARB affiliate.

best regards