Anyone like puzzles? Unravel please (1 Viewer)

irnbru

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Is this double wired in places? Can 2 wires be removed and used to add another 2 batteries?Can anyone follow the wiring.
And what is the sensor for that's just sitting on top ofthe right hand battery...it's not attached to battery?
Vehicle is AT.
 

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Feb 27, 2011
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I can't answer your question. However my first job on that would be to rewire properly and put a proper distribution block/board in place.

Some of the positive wires don't appear to be fused. It's a bit of a mess?
 
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I'm with @Gromett on this. Even if I could see an answer I wouldn't offer it.

Lashing up something onto previous multiple lash ups always ends in tears eventually.

It all needs ripping out and redoing properly by someone who knows what they're doing.

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hilldweller

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I don't know which is worse, your photo what is technically known as A Rat's Nest.

You need to pick up some wires and photo from different angles.

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DBK

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Notwithstanding the above comments, trying to make sense of it the two negative terminals seem to be connected together and then a single thick black cable comes off the negative terminal in the top right and then disappears into the battery compartment. So far so good but the positive terminals don't seem to be connected the same way. It looks as if each has a separate cable running off into the vehicle. Both of these cables seem to be fused. You can see one fuse on the extreme right, yellow inside a clear cover. The other is a different design and is hidden under some cables at the front. The fuse is red and should have a rubber cover but that is not fitted but you can see it connected to the fuse. There is nothing wrong with each positive having its own fuse and cable - this is how mine is wired.

If you wanted to add two more batteries then a quick and dirty solution would be to add one in parallel to each of the existing batteries using as short and thick cable as you can. Some might say you should fit a fuse in these cables and for safety you probably should, say 100A.

As suggested getting it all sorted out by a good vehicle electrician would be the ideal answer - there is a risk of fire in that lot I think.

The sensor might be a temperature sensor for the battery charger.
 
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andy63

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Hey that's my wiring... :LOL:
First things first.. a lot of what you see is auto trails own wiring.. the heavier black wires are paralleling the batteries at source and connecting a solar charge controller to the parallel batteries..
It's untidy looking because in order to be abe to lift the batteries individually out of the locker and still remain connected the wires are long enough to allow that.. there is also a relay to trickle charge the start battery in there somewhere:LOL:
Andy..
 
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It's untidy looking because in order to be abe to lift the batteries individually out of the locker and still remain connected the wires are long enough to allow that

I would have installed a fuse block inside the locker and then had well secured but single wires going to the batteries. I don't like lifting out batteries that are still connected and if I planned on doing this a lot I would have used quick release battery terminals.

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andy63

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I would have installed a fuse block inside the locker and then had well secured but single wires going to the batteries. I don't like lifting out batteries that are still connected and if I planned on doing this a lot I would have used quick release battery terminals.

I might have as well lol ..if I had had the gear.. but I took all i thought I would need to do a few jobs for Sandra .. and had no idea that auto trail would install their batteries in the way they do.
There's things which could have been done differently to make it tidier..but anyone who knows the set up on that auto trail will know there is no room around the batteries .. and the only way of getting at them is to remove them..
So anything that's connected to them has to be long enough to allow that.. even auto trails own wiring (the lightweight loops of wire in front of the batteries in the photo allows that....
The job was a case of having to make do with what I had at time..
And I don't believe there was any fire risk or safety issues from my wiring... it was more substancial than autotrails.. . It's been in that locker for getting on for two years without seeing the light of day and working fine as far as I know... I'm sure Sandra would have told me if there had been a problem..

Andy..
 
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irnbru

irnbru

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Hey that's my wiring... :LOL:

So did you say you did or did notify the sensor. Whats it for? It leads to somewhere inside the van and is NOT connected to a battery.

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pappajohn

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Apart from spending an hour or two sorting out the spaghetti you dont need to remove any wires to fit another battery.
In fact you need two more wires.
One each from pos and neg of one existing battery to pos and neg of the new one. ...neg to neg, pos to pos.

But until that mess is sorted out i wouldnt bother.

The sensor may be a battery temperature sensor for an intelligent charger...in hot weather it reduces charge as the battery is hot and increases in winter when the battery is cold.
 
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between this and jaws thread i dont think i would let autotrail wire a plug

I was just thinking that Autotrail were having a bad time of it at the moment. There's this thread, Jaws' one and of course matey who seems to find a wet AT whenever he turns around.
 
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The two looms with the in line fuses are the AT looms,the temperature sensor is connected to the Sargent unit,something to do with charging current?...the rest not a clue :LOL:

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pappajohn

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I would have installed a fuse block inside the locker and then had well secured but single wires going to the batteries. I don't like lifting out batteries that are still connected and if I planned on doing this a lot I would have used quick release battery terminals.
I would have installed both batteries the same way round to keep the link wires as short as possible...straight over the batteries from post to post.
 

andy63

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So did you say you did or did notify the sensor. Whats it for? It leads to somewhere inside the van and is NOT connected to a battery.
No idea what that is for... but I did suggest a temperature sensor..
Now start telling folk what a good job I did .. I need a little support here.. your photo doesnt show the batteries in the locker and the total lack of space ..if I remember correctly you can barley get your hand in to the top of the batteries... so before im hung out to dry some support please..:LOL:

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pappajohn

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No idea what that is for... but I did suggest a temperature sensor..
Now start telling folk what a good job I did .. I need a little support here.. your photo doesnt show the batteries in the locker and the total lack of space ..if I remember correctly you can barley get your hand in to the top of the batteries... so before im hung out to dry some support please..:LOL:
And of course, it was dark at the time. :LOL:
 
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irnbru

irnbru

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@andy63. Did you wire the batteries up cos both batteries were already on Vanessa when we bought her. I thought you just wired up the solar and battery master thingy.
 
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irnbru

irnbru

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@pappajohn How would you go about adding another 2batteries on. Would you change any of the existing wiring. Its a sergeant system.
 

pappajohn

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@pappajohn How would you go about adding another 2batteries on. Would you change any of the existing wiring. Its a sergeant system.
No.....simply join all the positives together and all the negatives together....as many batteries as you want but the charger may need uprating.
There are various ways to wire them but that is the simplest and commonest way.

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andy63

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@andy63. Did you wire the batteries up cos both batteries were already on Vanessa when we bought her. I thought you just wired up the solar and battery master thingy.
Auto trail had both batteries wired to the sergeant individually with what I thought looked like inedaquate wire size..when the wires get to the sergeant the battery's are paralleled there..
So I wanted to take the solar charge controller wires direct to the batterie's without using the installed auto trail wiring between the batteries and sergeant. .
So I paralled the batteries at source and connected the charging wires ..negative to one battery and positive to the other battery..
I remember asking if that would be the best solution on a thread at the time..
And yes I installed a battery master device at same time...
Does that explain the nest of wires:LOL:.. the length was necessary so you could remove the batteries from the locker as there is no room to get into top of batteries once they are in locker..

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andy63

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@andy63 there's gratitude for you! :rofl:
Yea Richard. . I've told her that's the last I'm doing..:D
There was mention of an external 12v socket increasing the solar capacity to cope better with the two additional batteries and a new charge controller... hmm...you can go whistle is the expression that comes to mind:rofl:
 
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irnbru

irnbru

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Looks like I've stuck my big feet right in it LOL:ROFLMAO:
mudflat-hiking-watts-feet-dirty-mud-quagmire-2.jpg
 
Feb 27, 2011
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I might have as well lol ..if I had had the gear.. but I took all i thought I would need to do a few jobs for Sandra .. and had no idea that auto trail would install their batteries in the way they do.
There's things which could have been done differently to make it tidier..but anyone who knows the set up on that auto trail will know there is no room around the batteries .. and the only way of getting at them is to remove them..
So anything that's connected to them has to be long enough to allow that.. even auto trails own wiring (the lightweight loops of wire in front of the batteries in the photo allows that....
The job was a case of having to make do with what I had at time..
And I don't believe there was any fire risk or safety issues from my wiring... it was more substancial than autotrails.. . It's been in that locker for getting on for two years without seeing the light of day and working fine as far as I know... I'm sure Sandra would have told me if there had been a problem..

Andy..
I didn't realise you did the original install sorry.

If there is no room to get a spanner in, then I would probably still go for the wall mounted fuse box. Then use either quick release battery terminals or use something like anderson connectors.

If there isn't even enough room to get a spanner in then it is AT fault for badly designed battery storage area.

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