Last week I left my LED lights on in the back of my new box truck and the battery went dead. The El D is tied in so the machine wouldn't start. I used my battery booster/jumper and started it and ran it for about a half an hour but as soon as I unhooked the booster it died out again. With truck mounts do you have to charge the battery fully first then start it so it will keep a full charge then??
I believe so Rob, I don't think that the TM have any alternator or generator that will recharge the battery, like in a car. You could tie in your battery from your truck to start and run your system and it would also recharge after driving and thus have a fully charged battery all the time.
Leaving the booster on for that long is not really a good idea. All you really need is 12.6 volts in the battery to start the engine. Once the engine starts you need to raise your rpm's on the truckmount and disconnect the booster.
If you left the booster connected for a long time the voltage regulator is gone use a voltmeter on the battery have the unit running it will show 13 to 14.6 volts / the lights easy fix install a door switch security type and wire them through a relay so the only way the lights will work is with the doors open
just wire it up like a regular car switch...no relay needed..........when you close the door and the switch depresses you are breaking the ground to the light...light goes out.....open the door and the switch pops out and you complete the ground.....light comes on.....hot wire straight to the lights...ground wire to door switch on box....the big key is to make sure the switch is grounded.....
I used to work as a Car stereo & Security for 25 years the relay is a must your LED system may require a higher amperage the relay will help with surge and you can still use the switch you already have but is up to you.
There are pros and cons to haveing the lights powered by the truck. And pros and cons to having it powered by the truckmount.
very true...if possible the TM should stay as independent as possible....all the lights and frills should be tied into the truck......
This is a simple one Rob.... Your el diablo is different than mine in the sense that mine has a 60 amp alternator and a power inverter for the charging and the burner. Yours has the generator which only powers the burner. Your motor has a built in charging coil (my honda's is not used because of the alternator) the hondas coil produces 20 amps. Your Kohler is probably the same. When you are running the lights and most importantly that power consuming fresh water pump and or you APO you are not having much if any extra amps for the charging/maintaining of the battery. My thoughts would be to run a small battery charger(like a trickle or something) off of you 120v generator. That should help boost your battery. A word of caution some chargers don't like the power put out by some of the cheaper generators out there. You should try a cheapo $29.99 15 amp battery maintainer to start off with.
No charging system is designed to charge the battery much beyond a trickle. The batteries themselves are not made to be cycled, only maintained. I would have left the truck running as it should easily produce enough juice to run the unit. For the sake of the battery, charging it up first would have been ideal. I really prefer the two battery system. As the Performer has a real alternator, I can jump off the truck or vice versa in a dead battery situation. For example, Performers use the front panel light bulb (the one behind the red lens) as an connection in the charging system. One day that bulb had burned out, which is impossible to tell in the day light at a glance. The machine of course died. It was obviously an electrical issue as the machine was turning over slowly. I started the van, ran jumper cables from it to the machine battery and finished the job. Even if I had known about the bulb (thanks Jon Don) it still would have meant a run to a store and I still would have been over taxing the TM alternator by forcing it to charge a dead battery with the machine pulling power off of it.
I believe according to kohler that the engine has a 20 or 25 amp charging circuit which should charge a dead battery in a short time.
