More juice.

[Snowboy]

Looking for idea's on getting more juice (electrical juice) out of my truck for the plow. My truck is not set up with factory plow package. I do have the camper packadge and towing ans some other stuff.

Is putting in a bigger alternator any good?

Adding another battery a much larger on at that.

I know this has been tossed around before here.
Now do you wire the batteries in sequence if they are the same size batteries, but if they are not the same size you wouldn’t.


Dave.

[Pelican]

Twelve volt batteries get wired in parallel regardless of their size, 2 six volt batteries would be wired in series.

Adding a larger capacity alternator and dual batteries are always a plus when you are lacking electrical power.

[Snowboy]

Pelican,

I've heard that there isn’t much more room to install a bigger alternator in the GM's. How many more amps go I gain by going with the H.O. alt that’s on the GM plow prep trucks? Does that make much of a difference?

If I add another battery it would have to be the same size as the current one in the truck now?

Diesel truck are not wired in sequence are they? My friend has a ford 550 and he thought that there was a isolator in there somewhere.

If the batteries are tied together and one is newer and one older would they not charge differently? How do you regulate the charge the batteries get? If I install a large battery in the box of the truck and keep the small on under the hood don’t I need to isolate them?

Dave.

[Pelican]

To keep the batteries charged independently, you would need an isolator between them. This prevents one from discharging the other in the cases you have touched on. With this in place the batteries don't necessarily have to be the same size or age. I've replaced a battery on a dual battery truck due to a damaged case without replacing the other and experienced no problems.

I'm not familiar with the specifics on room available or alternator output ratings of GM products. The first step would be to determine what your existing alternator is capable of and go from there. Whether or not a high output alternator will help you can only be determined by your electrical demand.

You can free up some amperage by switching halogen and incandescent lighting to LED. I did this with my F-350 and freed up enough amps to avoid a larger alternator.

[Snowboy]

Easy for you to do because you've got a work body. I cant put in 4" lights. I can buy the crappy APC stuff thats made in china for cheap and sold here for a small fortune. They dont light up the tailight very good.

I heard of some folks doing the extreme but mainly for looks. LED in the whole entire interior of the truck.

Dave.

[Pelican]

Take a look at Super Bright LEDs (http://www.superbrightleds.com/), They've got replacement bulbs for 1157, 1156, 3157 and 3156 along with marker lamp bulbs. You can outfit any vehicle with them. I used them to replace my markers and tailights, they seem to have a high quality product.

[Pickering Snow]

Dave


More Juice start with figuring out your stock alt iam sure its a 105 amp and the plow package units are near 140 if i remember right the alt will fit in the bracket. Batterys your truck can take two 78 series batterys no problem modify your left side to accept the second wire parallel. A isolater is used on motorhomes and campers to seperate the coach battery from the engine battery so you dont really want one. Has far has running two differ aged batterys that doesnt ness create a problem if the older one load test ok.

Biggy here like Steve said watch your lighting system LED lights and low watt bulbs , nothing preferably with a rotator motor they draw alot of juice. Another cheap mod is run heavy battery cables 2gage at min but i like to run 00 cables , last thing watch your plow habits limit your blade movement when plowing resist happy hands , use the snow to help lift blade at piles and limit angling all of these things would keep you moving in a multi hour storm.

[Snowboy]

Ok thanks for the help guys. I am going to look into the suggested modifications.

2 questions still.

1.)
When you talk about battery cables you mean the new cables should be 00 not the ones that are going to the current stock battery.

2.)
How do I measure the current load on my system. I am pretty sure I have the 105 amp alt as well.

Thanks,
Dave.

[Pickering Snow]

I would personally would upgrade all of the cables but yes use 00 for your cables to second battery.

Has far has checking amp draw i use diff stuff i have a fluke , and a otc perception that have hand held clamp on inductive amp meters you really need to spend some money if you want a quality tester and thats not real practical Dave for a few times of use but thats up to you. Did you exper problems last year or are you just doing good preperation? Some decent Fluke meters sears sells and Ferrett also has some decent meters that are affordable.

If you want a fast way of finding out about the amps of your old alt call your GM dealer parts dept and give them your vin they can tell you what it is , its hard to read the scribing on some of the new alts and it would save you pulling it to check.

If you did the duel batterys and watched your lights on the truck you could probley get by with the 105amp unit .

I practice what i preach i run a 91 F-150 with a 90 amp alt and duel batterys 00 cable and a single LED beacon and watch plow use and i get threw mulity hour storms so i know it can be done.

[jt5019]

The replacement LED bulbs for 1157, 1156, 3157 etc Do these work well? is it any better than the normal brake lights?

[Snowboy]

Thanks Fred,

Well I am doing a bit of both. The problem I had last year was my plow lights were on and well as the trucks main beams. I was unable to shut them off if you remember me posting last year about that problem. This year I hope to correct that. I will no longer be using Halogen low beams. Currently installing a set of Acura HID projector made by some company in Japan called Stanley. The HID system won’t be running during plowing. Too bright and not good for the ballast's considering they are $300 a set on eBay.

I think this year not having the low beams on will free up some juice but I still want more. Any exterior warning systems on the truck are LED except for the star strobe. I do a few residential and that’s where the power consumption is used up allot and at low speeds. Im fairly new to plowing so I guess I tend to be a little trigger happy. I let the snow push the plow up when stacking and try to minimize turning the plow while on the ground or with a full load of snow in the front of it.

I think i can findsome who has the proper tools to measure the current power consumption with out the plow on and then later with the plow on.


Dave.

[wyldman]

I wouldn't be too concerned measuring everything,as the main component which draws all the juice (the plow) is intermittant.It all depends on how much you use it.Stay away from the controls,and it will keep the draw to a minimum.

Add a second battery,and you will be fine with the stock alternator if your easy on the plow.

[John DiMartino]

Add 2nd battery in parrellel,take it from there.It will help a lot.Also run lo temp fluid in the plow if you dont already have it,that makes a huge difference.Check salvage yards for the 130amp plow prep alt,sometimes you can find them pretty cheap with no core,bolt it on,and keep your stocker under the seat w tools to change it,and an old belt.

[Snowboy]

I wouldn't be too concerned measuring everything,as the main component which draws all the juice (the plow) is intermittant.It all depends on how much you use it.Stay away from the controls,and it will keep the draw to a minimum.

Add a second battery,and you will be fine with the stock alternator if your easy on the plow.


Chris,
What were we talkin about last year about battries for my truck? You were saying something about haveing a battery in the bed of the truck and use anderson connector so i can take it out in summer.

Have to learn to let go of the stick but in residential you cant really. I faired ok last year fine but this year i think another battery should be added for safety.

Dave.

[wyldman]

Chris,
What were we talkin about last year about battries for my truck? You were saying something about haveing a battery in the bed of the truck and use anderson connector so i can take it out in summer.

Have to learn to let go of the stick but in residential you cant really. I faired ok last year fine but this year i think another battery should be added for safety.

Dave.

That is an easy solution to add a second battery without any major work.It can easily be removed if needed.

[BWhite]

Being efficent in moving the plow as little as possible really helps . When I know I will be moving the front and back plow frequently I need to go sans headlights and blower motor then all will be fine.

[Snowboy]

That is an easy solution to add a second battery without any major work.It can easily be removed if needed.

Chris,

I can also add a much larger battery as well that way? Like the one's the Diesel dump trucks or school bus's have that are close to 20" in size and are usualy mouted outside the engine bay.

One of these would give me more reserve then the size that’s in the truck right now?

Bill,
This winter i should hopefully be less trigger happy.

Dave.

[wyldman]

You can add something larger,but I like to match what is under the hood.Two larger group 78 batteries will do the trick.Using unmatched batteries can cause problems.

[Pelican]

If an isolator is placed between the two batteries, what problems are caused? I would think that a larger reserve would be better in this case. Of course the larger battery will require a longer period of time to be recharged, but this could be worked out with separate regulators, no? One of our fire engines has a smaller light truck battery installed to power the radios while the large truck batteries run the rest of the truck and we've experienced no problems with it. The truck has been in service since 1991.

Another fireman who was in Fire Police installed a large battery in his truck bed to run his traffic warning lights while on scene so he could shut his truck down. He had done this for a number of years without it causing him any problems.

[bud16415]

Snowplows are a bit different application than what most people want a dual battery set up for I think. People with campers and things like the fire truck etc. want the second battery for a separate function. And they draw from the one battery sometimes when the system is not charging. The isolator allows the main battery to stay charged for starting while the other one can be drawn down. Then when charging starts it allows both to take a charge. With the heavy draw down during plowing what you are really trying to do is make one large battery out of two and let each share the load. When wired this way I think they should be matched and of the same age and type so that during times of rest the stronger battery is not trying to equalize with the weaker one. its not a matter of size as they say but of voltage difference. All 12 volt batteries are really made up of cells or “batteries” wired in series internally each cell is something like 1.5 volts. When you put the two batteries in parallel you get double the available amps plus twice the length of time to draw down.
I have wondered if anyone ran a isolator set up and say had the isolated battery somehow set up for lights and the other for the plow. I don’t know how that would work out or why but if someone has this set up it would be interesting to see how it worked.

[Pelican]

I've always been taught that electricity is very similar to water in the way that it flows. It will take the path of least resistance if given the chance. My thought is that the current will charge the battery that most needs it, that is the low battery would be receptive to flowing current.

I've often heard that running two different size batteries will cause problems, but I've never heard these problems identified, and my curiosity is getting the best of me. In the theory I've learned in electricity, it really shouldn't matter during operation, but could be a problem while the vehicle is shut off as you've mentioned Bud. I've learned since my post that an isolator will consume some of the available current, so perhaps it's not a good idea in this application. What we do at the fire department is use master switches on the trucks that mechanically separate the batteries from each other when the truck is off.

If one were to set up a truck with a large truck battery to run the plow and leave the stock battery to carry truck operations, he'd be guaranteed the truck would still function even if he had depleted the plow battery, leaving the engine available to recharge the plow battery.

Ideally, I would simply install the optional second battery tray available in the diesel trucks and run the biggest battery that will physically fit the tray. Snowboy expressed interest in putting a battery in the bed and my suggestion there would be to use the biggest battery you can find since there's not a space limitation. You can through a battery disconnect on the hot terminal for when the truck is shut down.

By the way Bud, I'm pretty sure there are 2 volts per cell, my Dad taught me that you count the caps and multiply by 2 to determine the volts the battery has.

[bud16415]

Steve
Right you are car batteries are 2 volts per cell. I think I was thinking of dry cell batteries at 1.5 and ni-cad’s are little less I think

You are right about it flowing like water volts is the water pressure amps is the gallons per minute and resistance or ohms is the size of the pipe. If you want to think of it like that. You have to think of each of the two batteries as pressure tanks and say one tank is a lower pressure than the other the water will flow between them to equalize. The alt is a pump and all these lights are little leaks in the pipes and the plow pump is a big leak. The pump can’t keep up with all the leaks so it takes what it needs extra from the tanks until it can catch up and put some back in.

My truck is a 2000 with original battery and I have been thinking don’t wait for it to die this winter and have been kicking around a new battery or batteries. I know there is a larger battery that’s used in construction equipment I’m not sure of the size for some reason 37 sticks in my mind. It’s like one and a half the length of a large truck battery. I was thinking of seeing if one of those could be shoehorned in someplace. Do you or anyone else know what that size is called and what the specs are on something like that. In my case I think that would work out perfect as I don’t really think I need two batteries but when running the reverse lights and the 4 headlights a few hours I could use a little more than I got.

Has anyone used one of these? And any ideas on if one could fit?

[wyldman]

Group 31 is the size your thinking of,but it will take a fair bit of work to get it in there.You will need to widen the battery tray area,and create a new holddown system.

For most GM trucks,they come stock with a group 75 battery.Upgrading to a group 78 (even a group 34 will bolt in on some trucks) is pretty easy,and no modifications involved.It has pretty much similar CCA specs as the group 31,just less reserve capacity.Add a second factory battery tray,and add another group 78 on the other side.

Using two dual terminal batteries makes it a snap,and is great for adding accessories.Leave the first battery connected up like stock.Run a 0 gauge positive battery cable between the batteries using the top posts.Add a 0 gauge ground to the engine block from the second battery.You can now use the side terminals on the second battery to connect any accessories.Makes it nice for boosting to,as you have easy access to the top terminals on either battery.Running a ground between the two batteries is optional,but never hurts.

The Interstate MTP series batteries are one of the best out there.I'm pretty sure Jerre is an Interstate dealer. :D

[bud16415]

Here is a nice chart if you want to know what might fit your spot.

http://www.rtpnet.org/~teaa/bcigroup.html

[finnegan]

if you really want reserve power wire up 2 6volt golfcart batteries in series to get 12volts that will have the most reserve possible ( had 6 batteries on my boat for lots of inverter power) 2 starting batts and 4 for house batts....

[jt5019]

With the LED bulbs for the tail/signal lights on a pickup truck is it better to go with the narrow angle or the wide angle?


It says The wide angle(approx 100 degree beam)will light up more area but are dimmer than the narrow angle.The Narrow angle(approx 15 degree) will light up a smaller area but is brighter.