Quote:
Originally Posted by betasniper
The time almost died, I probably shut the engine down 50 times in that trip alone. So that means I just need to trickle charge every night to keep it healthy? I have to park on the street so it would be a bit difficult to charge at night because I don't know if the Extension cord will stretch across the street and the battery charger is an old, big kind that only has a time dial. Not a "smart" charger.
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I'm not sure how long your commute is, but 50 starts will definitely take a LOT of battery power. I should also add, that if you intend to do this for a long period of time you may have to prematurely replace the starter. Starters are designed to live for a certain number of starts, and you're putting about 50 times more cycles on it than "normal". Vehicles with auto start/stop systems have special starters designed to handle the increased number of cycles. I'm not saying flat out that you shouln't do what you're doing, I'm just saying be aware of the probable results.
With regard to the charging, you might be able to swap batteries, so you can charge one near the house rather than in the car. That being said, you'd probably want to go with deep cycle for that. Plus that sounds like a lot of battery handling that probably won't be much fun.
[WARNING: Diesel_Dave is far from an expert in modifying electrical systems]
Another thought that occured to me is that you might want to look into putting in a larger alternator. If you had one that was sized so it can charge your battery more quickly then it might be able to keep up. Others will have to give you some tips on exactly how to do this. I'm not sure whether it's just as simple as getting a larger one and making the belt fit, or if there's mods that need to be made to the electrical side of the system. However, my thinking is that if you have an alternator that has twice the output you can keep the battery charged with the engine on half as often. You might also be able to accomplish the same result my putting a smaller pulley on the alternator so it spins faster, but I'm not sure if you'd have to work about overspeeding the alternator when your revs are high.
[End warning]