Precedent Access. rewiring advice needed

[SaltLifeCC]

Sorry for the several, related, recent posts, but I'm not sure I quite have the answer to my question yet.

I have a light kit wired into the factory harness on the cart. This means I simply ran a supplied wire from the blue "tether wire" on battery 4 to a connector down around the controller, then plugged the headlight in to an existing harness connector and my rear lights into existing harness connectors at the back of the cart. Then I added a radio which I tapped into the blue hot 12v wire behind the dash and the black ground wire. Which means my lights and radio are both feeding off the 4th battery and the ground that is part of the factory harness.

I want to rewire those accessories to a separate 12v battery that will be dedicated to the lights and radio only. But I'm not sure what I need to rewire from where to where. I'm assuming I can't just remove the wiring to the blue "tether wire" to the pos terminal on the battery, because I'll still have to deal with rewiring the ground. Is that correct? If so, where can I go to rewire the ground to the new battery? Or should I not look at not rerouting that blue wire at all and, instead, run a hole new pair of wires directly from the new battery to 2 of the wires behind the dash? If so, which wires and what spot?

I know some of you guys have dealt with this. Hoping you'll see this and chime in.

[gaminde]

There are so many ways to deal with this
1 leave it alone
2 hook up battery to the blue and black in the dash along with the radio and lights.
A. this way it will charge with the pack.
3 get a 48 to 12 vdc reducer

what answer do you like

[gaminde]

let me add one more option disconnect the lights and radio from the blue wire hook them to the new battery install a switch from the blue wire to the new battery. switch off when not charging, switch on when charging. if radio and lights get dim while driving home at night flip the switch and run off # 4 till you get home. then charge all with switch on.

[SaltLifeCC]

I don't think charging an additional 12v battery with the pack should be an option, based on what I've read here, right? I don't want to leave it alone because I've already seen that it doesn't get the job done. I hoped to have this resolved before we started camping this year. It all works fine as a neighborhood cruiser but the lights and radio just aren't "living" long enough as a campground cruiser. I really don't want to go the reducer route. I started down that road and changed my mind.

Ultimately, I want a completely independent battery that is dedicated to running the lights and the radio. I can charge it separately. But I'd like to figure out how to do it and touch as little of the existing wiring as possible.

[SaltLifeCC]

Originally Posted by gaminde

let me add one more option disconnect the lights and radio from the blue wire hook them to the new battery install a switch from the blue wire to the new battery. switch off when not charging, switch on when charging. if radio and lights get dim while driving home at night flip the switch and run off # 4 till you get home. then charge all with switch on.

Great idea, and would be fine for me, but my 13 year old is the primary driver when at a campground. One that finds it easy to say "uh, oh I forgot" when it comes to questions like "did you flip that switch, or this switch, etc". Get my drift?

If a dedicated battery will run those accessories for a couple of hours at night, then I don't care if I have backup power or not. When the lights get dim, it's time to go home.

[gaminde]

Ok so you have already chosen what you want, where are you going to mount the battery? then run two new wires to the dash and remove the blue and black wires an wire to the new battery with a fuse in line.

[SaltLifeCC]

Probably mount battery in a batt box in the bag well if I can fit it. What size fuse would be good to use? I have the OEM style light kit and a 20wx2 stereo.