Offroad Trailblazers and Envoys

Home-Made Secondary Battery Setup

Any special projects involving a decent amount of fab work (bumpers, sliders, roof racks, etc)

by AA1PR » Sat Nov 29, 2014 11:53 pm

nice clean install

however my fear is venting of the battery, I've heard terrible things about the fumes
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by djthumper » Sun Nov 30, 2014 4:36 am

I have an AGM battery back there.
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by TBYODA » Sun Nov 30, 2014 11:35 pm

AA1PR wrote:nice clean install

however my fear is venting of the battery, I've heard terrible things about the fumes

Aren't today's batteries sealed?
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by AA1PR » Mon Dec 01, 2014 8:25 am

TBYODA wrote:
AA1PR wrote:nice clean install

however my fear is venting of the battery, I've heard terrible things about the fumes

Aren't today's batteries sealed?


one would hope so
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by Trail X » Mon Dec 01, 2014 9:38 pm

I've never had an issue, it is not an AGM, but I don't recall if its sealed. I think it is, its a marine battery.
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by Shdwdrgn » Fri May 15, 2015 12:32 pm

I was going through old threads yesterday and this one caught my eye. Having a dual-battery setup for the inverter would actually be pretty handy, and it just so happens I've been working with different small computer chips lately, including the ATtiny85.

I'm curious if there's still any interest in a delayed-timer board? I think I could put these together for around $15 in parts (including the changes below), so how does that price compare to other available solutions?

If I were to make these, there would be some changes...
    The 7805 is horrible inefficient, and it converts all that wasted energy directly into heat. I can get a nice DC-DC converter with a fixed 5V output that will work reliably with an input between 6.5V and 26V.
    I would use a small rotary switch to provide an easily-adjustable timer between 0-7 minutes
    An LED could be added to blink while the timer is waiting, then go on solid. This could be helpful for troubleshooting?
    Output would go through a transistor rated for 1A, which should be more than enough to drive the relay.

With all that, there is still one more available pin free on the chip. This could be used as a secondary input trigger, or to drive another output. I could use it as another line for the rotary switch, and allow timing between 0-15 minutes. If used as another output, it could be set to 1/2 or double the timing of the main output, or it could be set up to trigger X minutes after the main output turns on. The nice thing about programmable chips is that it's so easy to change what is being done.

Any thoughts on this?
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by v7guy » Fri May 15, 2015 1:13 pm

I'd be mildly interested, but I don't see this as a common mod at all.
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by Shdwdrgn » Fri May 15, 2015 3:41 pm

Yeah I agree, probably nothing worth ordering a set of circuit boards for. If I get around to building one, maybe the best bet would be doing a write-up and posting the code so others can build the same thing. You can get the computer board for about $3 on ebay which has a USB port to program it... the only difficult part is soldering the parts together, and installing the software on your desktop needed to program the chip.
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by Trail X » Sat May 16, 2015 1:38 pm

You mentioned secondary inputs, makes sense. The only thing I wish I could do is trigger mine to turn on manually on demand, because no matter what, I have to wait 5 minutes for mine to operate. A momentary switch to allow you to trigger it on early would be helpful I think, if not used often.
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by Shdwdrgn » Sat May 16, 2015 8:30 pm

That's actually a really good idea... and the momentary switch could even be set to turn it on and off.

If < 5 minutes; toggle between on/waiting/off
if > 5 minutes; toggle between on/off

Add another transistor, and the LED line could also run a 12V light in the momentary switch so you have a visual on the dash.
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by Trail X » Mon May 18, 2015 9:51 am

Yeah, my indicator light is in my control switch, but it really is just a switch position indicator, not a charging state indicator.
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by Reyansh02 » Fri Jun 28, 2024 11:25 am

Trail X wrote:The FET isn't really a relay, you're right, but for explanations-sake, it's a close likeness... at least to an ME.
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