Battery upgrade

I've given some thought to a 15 watt solar panel on the roof with the waterproof battery tender. I ran a similar setup on my boat.... Or would this be a waist of time and money on a Rhino?

don't know if the solar can take the pounding an stay together

Yea. That's my great luck ill wake up to a puddle of rhino in my shop. Lmao.

Thanks steveS for all the great info. I can wire just about anything basic but don't know why it works lol. Great guys on this BAD AZZ SITE!!!!!!!

My stator burned at 9 months old. Just like Steve said, burnted at coils bad coating. After that I added a second batt. Nothing fancy, small batt to run radio, and winch. The fellow at Battery Outlet said it would run the winch fine. I wooried cause its small. Probably 8" long 6" high and 3"wide. I installed a separator also. The one Steve says not to. He's right though, just didn't have the money for the other, twice the price. I cut the charge wire from the regulator and to the separator it went. I split the batts and the loads. Factory only does what it was designed to. Anything extra is wired to 2nd batt. I always have it hooked to a Battery Tender, to keep both Batts like new. I know its not the best set up, but what I could do at the time. But it works, for 3 yrs now no problems.
Steve would you give your explaintion of the dual regulator. If I remember correctly you did it on rf. I liked that system better than the 1315 isolator.

Workhorserhino wrote:

...........Steve would you give your explaintion of the dual regulator. If I remember correctly you did it on rf. I liked that system better than the 1315 isolator.

Ummm, yeah sure. I had completely forgotten about that alternative, and that is what I have been running for at least 5 years or so. Sheepish Grin.....

How that goes, is that you use another stock or aftermarket Rhino rectifier/regulator. You just parallel connect the 3 white wires going to the existing rectifier into the second rectifier. The output wire of the second unit is hooked into your aux battery through a 30 Amp fuse or circuit breaker. The ground wire from the second rectifier goes to the chassis. The aux battery ground cable goes to the chassis (or maybe better yet, to the same grounding point on the engine case as the stock battery), using 6 gauge size cable (same as the stock battery setup). You may want to put in a 100 Amp battery disconnect switch between the aux battery and the starter motor positive terminal, using 6 gauge cable again. This will allow you to use the aux battery to crank the engine over, completely independently of the stock starter circuit, by simply sticking in the switch 'key' and twisting it.

This does not lighten the load on the stator, as it sees both batteries, just as it would if they were parallel connected. From what I have observed, it does not seem to be an overload that kills the stator, but rather just the luck of the draw..... Or, perhaps, defects in the manufacturing and/or design. It does offer a waterproof setup, just as good as the stock setup, for those amateur submariners that want to scare the fish.

What fish, in their right mind, wouldn't be frightened by a brightly colored Hippo sized creature thrashing around in the water with them?

If you have not read the ground improvement article that I posted, you will want to do this no matter what. https://hotrodrhinoforums.forumotion.com/t1104-improve-your-grounding

For the 'start jumper switch', I used a HarborFreight item similar to this: http://www.harborfreight.com/heavy-duty-battery-cutoff-switch-66789.html This newer one seems to have a permanent knob, rather than a removable key. Marine stores sell this kind of thing as well, just a bit more money.

Thank you Steve, This is probably the best system for dual batts. Just solder and heat shrink all connections.

Workhorserhino wrote:

Thank you Steve, This is probably the best system for dual batts. Just solder and heat shrink all connections.

I do agree. It has worked for me for quite some time now, but there is only the single one in captivity, so no guarantees

I put some pics together of my installation, should anyone want to try this out for themselves. These may give someone some ideas to start with. Enjoy.

Man...this is good info....thanks

Wow, very nice job on that set up. Clean and well laid out.

SteveS wrote:

Batteries can fail in all sorts of ways. One of those ways is to develop a shorted cell, which is not the most common failure mode. So it does not happen very often, but.... The healthy battery in the paralleled set then feeds all that it can into this shorted cell and that bad cell (or cells) gets very hot. Many hundreds of Amps can flow through the circuit until the good battery is depleted.

Actually I was just going to eliminate the small one and extend the cables.

soarkrebel wrote:

SteveS wrote:

Batteries can fail in all sorts of ways. One of those ways is to develop a shorted cell, which is not the most common failure mode. So it does not happen very often, but.... The healthy battery in the paralleled set then feeds all that it can into this shorted cell and that bad cell (or cells) gets very hot. Many hundreds of Amps can flow through the circuit until the good battery is depleted.

Actually I was just going to eliminate the small one and extend the cables.

That certainly eliminates the possibility of a shorted cell misadventure.

SteveS wrote:

soarkrebel wrote:

SteveS wrote:

Batteries can fail in all sorts of ways. One of those ways is to develop a shorted cell, which is not the most common failure mode. So it does not happen very often, but.... The healthy battery in the paralleled set then feeds all that it can into this shorted cell and that bad cell (or cells) gets very hot. Many hundreds of Amps can flow through the circuit until the good battery is depleted.

Actually I was just going to eliminate the small one and extend the cables.

That certainly eliminates the possibility of a shorted cell misadventure.

I have already tested with a bigger battery with my winch and what a difference. I have been working on it tonight and some LED cab lights...hopefully I can be done soon.

I had a red top optima given to me. I plan to install it under my seat and do away with the stock battery. Im going to install a buss bar in the original battery box to keep all my wiring ran to that point.

Hopefully it works out well. I think I may start keeping a battery tender on it to help with charging.