Best way to wire secondary battery

Pipsta

I'm just about to add a stereo system to my cart. The passengers almost expect music now on these shuttle carts where 6 months ago most were surprised they had it at all.

I have the 8 passenger and will put a secondary battery under the passenger seat, the second bench back, not in the engine compartment. My concern is the best way to wire the battery to charge off the generator. If this is even a good idea at all.

If it will kill generators quickly I will not wire it into the system but just pull and overnight charge the secondary no problem. Although if it won't really effect the gen or volt reg I don't see why I couldn't wire it into the system. My first instinct is to run a battery cable directly to the same solenoid post as the primary battery is going to. Is this a good idea?

If I'm just running a 50x4 watt head unit powering 4 40 watt outdoor speakers mounted on dash and engine compartment body with no subwoofs at first do I even need a secondary battery, yet? Keeping in mind I will be running at night and have all the lights on continually. I will be adding 1 10" subs in each of the empty bench seats, that's two in total, eventually but it might not happen for another week or two. I will likely be powering each with 750 to 1000 watts each having it's own amp on the side of the sub box. I know then I'll need the secondary battery but if I can get away for a week or two without hooking up the second battery then it would give me a chance to build out the trays of the benches nicely. Not to mention put off another $125-150 worth of expense until after I have another week or two to earn.

Should I instead get an isolator and run both batteries through it after it's powered from that solenoid post? What input does anyone have that they have done themselves and can help guide me. I'm hoping the gurus who have helped me get through my running issues also have wisdom in the accessory arena as well.

I want to rock!

BGW

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invalidsession

If I were you Pip, i'd be posting this in the "Design Centre" forum.

Chris.

Pipsta

I took a look in that forum after you mentioned it and I still think this is the place I'm looking for cart specific insight on secondary battery wiring or if I even need it right away given the system.

I'm not asking about fabrication on anything or design of system. Just strictly club car gas cart insight on the wiring. But thanks for the heads up on the forum there I'm looking at all the cool set ups used.

Mine has to be tucked away as best as possible or the people will mess with it. It's like dealing with kids....drunken dumbazz kids....

Pipsta

I've been reading all the threads/posts in that forum and from the info gathered there I think I'm safe to hook up a head unit with no extra battery needed but once I go to subs and the added lighting I'll need one.

Still haven't found anything on whether or not it's safe or suitable to tie in the secondary battery into the club car gas cart charging system. Either by relay, isolator or any other method. Guy talks about his boat charging the extra battery through relay but that's not a club car gas golf cart and it's quirky weak generator....lol

Still reading though!

DOOmsman

The problem with just hooking a battery in parallel is the regulator will read the strongest battery and cut out before the weaker of the two is charged. It can be lived with if you pay attention and balance the load.

Pipsta

I always thought that the charge of two batteries running in parallel would equalize or even out between the two anyway since they are in the same circuit. So the voltage regulator would be topping off the whole circuit and both would be kept up in the good range. As long as one battery isn't 'bad' and not able to hold it's charge there wouldn't be a circuit drain. Am I correct in this understanding?

BLACK DEATH

I would just run it in parallel when you put in the subs. Same as they do on diesel vehicles and thats what we used to do with our car stereo systems. We used to run a battery isolator but if you do not have a high output alt, one battery will not get charged as much as the other as it charged one battery at a time unless now it can do both at the same time. Also get the biggest battery you can find, one with a lot of reserve capacity as this will be a key to less drain on ur gen. I bought the biggest deep cycles from Sears back in the days and never had a problem and I had around 2k watts with 8 - 15" subs

Eric_H_E

would it be possible to put another automotive type alternater on the engine to charge your stereo battery and run accessories without killing your starting battery. IE 2 seperate charging systems, one for starter and one for stereo + extras

crash12888

Yep, a single wire GM style alt has a built in regulator and could be mounted in line with the starter/gen belt and run all three.
Before I did all that, I would search around and see what the charging output of the stock generator is, you might have all you need there, I just don't know what it is but generators have been charging vehicles for years with no problems.

If you find it has the charging amps to charge both, I would wire the two batteries in parallel with a 12V cart (continous duty) solenoid in the pos. cable between the two batteries.
Then wire that solenoid in parallel with your cart solenoid so that when you are running it is charging both, when you are stopped you are only drawing from the aux battery and will not drain your starting battery.

I did this with the Pontoon boat after we installed the fridge and ran the battery down.
(but we had cold beer!)

lockman1

This may be a stupid suggestion... But, speaking of boats...
Why not use a dual battery switch like some larger boats have?

You can use, and charge both batteries individually or together if you want!
Batt A - cart
Batt B - stereo
When Batt B runs low, run the cart, turn the switch from batt A to batt B and charge it while riding?

Yes/No?