[orange4boy]

Originally Posted by justme1969

Effect: Routine deep cycle charging cause death of batt and nearly left me at stop light 1x

All the doohickies we pay for have a best case purpose not purfect for eco modding but turning a switch on and off 50 times in 20 miles sucks in my opinion. just be glad for our solid state electronics.

You should only use deep cycle batteries for an alternator delete. Normal car batteries will die very quickly under deep cycle conditions and have a much lower capacity. Don't let them go below 11.5V under load. Two would be better for longer commutes. Charge them separately with good quality automatic chargers so they do not become unbalanced. With this set up you will not have to switch on your alternator at all.

If your electric fans come on too much leave a hole in your air dam. It's better than the electrical losses from fans which draw a lot of current.

Keep it simple. All this alternator switching on and off to get a tiny amount of charging is pretty futile.

So during the drive the alternator kicks in and out much like an air conditioner compressor, cycling the battery.

You could then replace the starter battery with a deep cycle one and have an alternator which automatically disconnects from the engine when you are driving and when it is safe to run from battery power while driving.

This should give you a 40-50 mile range on a deep cycle battery with the huge bonus of 10% fuel efficiency savings and the peace of mind of a system you don't have to worry about constantly.

Whoa there cowboy. If you think that draining a deep cycle and then recharging it during your drive is efficient you need to check your calculations. This could only work if you have two batteries. One that you drive until it's discharged and one that you switch to when the other is discharged. Charging you battery while driving is incredibly inefficient. You saved 10% discharging and now charging, you will be adding 30% and possibly much more.