Jumper Cables

[ItalGerBrit]

Originally Posted by Busskipper

UNLESS

It's a diesel with totally Dead Batteries, then you better have a set of Cables., Good Cables.

Been there done that.

JMHO,

Agree.
If your RV is a gasser or small engine then nothing expensive or exotic is needed and the small jumper boxes will be just fine. But, if you have a big rig and big diesel nothing but the big Truck Pak type jumpers will turn it over. Or, you can use two smaller jumpers to bump up the amperage to turn over the motor. Or good cables and another big truck or RV to jump from. My advice is buy the big Truck Pac, keep it on it's charger and be done with it.

[astrocamper]

My truck also has a 265 watt solar panel on the Leer cap that goes to a MPPT solar charge controller and a 50 amp-hour LiFePO4 battery.

I have Verizon phones so I buy an annual unlimited data plan for my truck's OnStar LTE with ATT. This gives me diversity when out in fringe areas of the Great Basin. I use my truck cap solar power a small inverter which powers an 8 amp smart battery charger connected to my truck's starter battery. I can leave my truck's LTE hotspot on all day at the campsite without running down the battery. My trailers WifiRanger can connect to the truck's LTE hotspot and make it available to anyone in the trailer.

Sometimes I may have my truck parked for several days without moving when camping at a regional star party. It's useful to have the ability to top up the battery using solar while using the truck in accessory mode for the hotspot or the radio.

The solar is also used to charge the pair of 50 amp-hour Battle Born batteries that I use at night to power astronomy gear.

[ItalGerBrit]

Originally Posted by astrocamper

My truck also has a 265 watt solar panel on the Leer cap that goes to a MPPT solar charge controller and a 50 amp-hour LiFePO4 battery.

I have Verizon phones so I buy an annual unlimited data plan for my truck's OnStar LTE with ATT. This gives me diversity when out in fringe areas of the Great Basin. I use my truck cap solar power a small inverter which powers an 8 amp smart battery charger connected to my truck's starter battery. I can leave my truck's LTE hotspot on all day at the campsite without running down the battery. My trailers WifiRanger can connect to the truck's LTE hotspot and make it available to anyone in the trailer.

Sometimes I may have my truck parked for several days without moving when camping at a regional star party. It's useful to have the ability to top up the battery using solar while using the truck in accessory mode for the hotspot or the radio.

The solar is also used to charge the pair of 50 amp-hour Battle Born batteries that I use at night to power astronomy gear.

Looks like you do not need to have a jumper pack with the Sun and Stars keeping you powered up. You have it covered for sure and will be the first to see the aliens preparing for the attack.

[Rzrbrn]

Astrocamper, it never occurred to me to have a decent sized solar panel on top of my camper shell to power a small inverter which then powers a small smart charger/maintainer. Ingenious!

Did you install it yourself or did you have someone do it for you? There are Thule roof rack tracks on top of my A.R.E. cab high camper shell, and I have a KRIËGER 2000 Watt 12V Power Inverter with dual 120v outlets, Battery Tenders, BatteryMINders, and a NOCO Genius10 (10amp) charger/maintainer, basically just wanting to be put together. All I need is a solar panel on the camper shell and some wire.

I bet I could mount a Renogy 100 Watt 12 Volt Off Grid Solar Premium Kit with Monocrystalline Solar Panel and 20A MPPT Rover Controller to roof racks, mount the MPPT controller inside the camper shell and run maybe a 10 gauge copper wire to the engine compartment and connect the NOCO. Can the NOCO be run straight to the truck batteries? Not understand why another battery is part of the scheme.

Any thoughts would be appreciated. At last, a possible project while in self inflicted quarantine (until I get vaccinated). At the very least it may give me an out from doing my wife's Honey Do list...

But...I will still carry my trusty jumper cables just in case someone needs a jump start.

[astrocamper]

I bought my Leer cap for my 6.5 foot truck bed with a Thule rack. I bought extra nuts for the attaching the solar panel. I can put my rack on when moving a kayak and it sits above the solar panel. I take the rack off when not transporting a kayak so the bar doesn't shade the panel.

I used a pair of aluminum flat stock bars to bolt to the back of the panel and to bolt to the extra rack nuts on the Thule track.

I ran the solar cables down the front of the Leer cap to align with the side of the front sliding window on the Leer cap. I loosened the hold down bolts of the Leer cap and feed the solar cables into the truck bed along the top of the sidewall.

I mounted a some 1/4 inch thick black PVC on the side wall and mounted my VE MPPT 100/30 charge controller, 300 watt pure sine wave inverter and 8 amp smart charger on the PVC. The output of the smart charger connects to the 7 pin connector on my truck bed sidewall to power back to the battery.

The output of the MPPT controller goes to a PowerPole breakout to feed to one or two 50 amp-hour batteries and any other 12 volt loads I want to connect. I sometimes power an Engel freezer off the system when I need extra food storage on longer trips.

I installed everything on my truck cap and the 1440 watts on my Artic Fox 22G travel trailer.

The VE MPPT solar charge controllers power a the 50 amp-hour LiFePO4 batteries that I use at night for astronomy. The inverter and chassis smart battery charger were added for those times I wanted to leave my truck on accessory mode while using the radio or the LTE hotspot.

The primary function of the solar panels is charging the LiFePO4 batteries after a night of astronomy. The 50 amp-hour LiFePO4 batteries only weight 17 pounds and are carried out to my astronomy mount to power the mount, cameras and computer when doing astronomy imaging.

If you only wanted to charge the truck batteries, connect the output of the MPPT or PWM solar charge controller directly to a fused or breaker connected cables back to the trucks chassis battery. Program the solar charge controller to the desired charge voltage for the trucks starter battery. The solar chargers controllers will go to float mode when the battery is fully charged and will not over charge the battery.

[DirtRider]

Originally Posted by Rzrbrn

Astrocamper, it never occurred to me to have a decent sized solar panel on top of my camper shell to power a small inverter which then powers a small smart charger/maintainer. Ingenious!

Did you install it yourself or did you have someone do it for you? There are Thule roof rack tracks on top of my A.R.E. cab high camper shell, and I have a KRIËGER 2000 Watt 12V Power Inverter with dual 120v outlets, Battery Tenders, BatteryMINders, and a NOCO Genius10 (10amp) charger/maintainer, basically just wanting to be put together. All I need is a solar panel on the camper shell and some wire.

I bet I could mount a Renogy 100 Watt 12 Volt Off Grid Solar Premium Kit with Monocrystalline Solar Panel and 20A MPPT Rover Controller to roof racks, mount the MPPT controller inside the camper shell and run maybe a 10 gauge copper wire to the engine compartment and connect the NOCO. Can the NOCO be run straight to the truck batteries? Not understand why another battery is part of the scheme.

Any thoughts would be appreciated. At last, a possible project while in self inflicted quarantine (until I get vaccinated). At the very least it may give me an out from doing my wife's Honey Do list...

But...I will still carry my trusty jumper cables just in case someone needs a jump start.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding. If this is just to charge the battery, why step it up to 120v and back down to 12? Why not just connect the MPPT controller to the chassis battery? I think that's a piece of what Astrocamper was suggesting, too.

[astrocamper]

Originally Posted by DirtRider

Maybe I'm misunderstanding. If this is just to charge the battery, why step it up to 120v and back down to 12? Why not just connect the MPPT controller to the chassis battery? I think that's a piece of what Astrocamper was suggesting, too.

The last paragraph of my posting with the picture states what you just proposed.

A solar charge controller can directly and properly charge and maintain a truck's starter battery without needing additional active power components.

The other components in my system are used because my primary goal was to charge 50 amp-hour batteries for astronomy. The 8 amp AC-DC charge controller was left over from the days when I used to use lead-acid batteries for astronomy. I put it in my truck bed because I already had the MPPT charge controller and 300 watt inverter installed. I only use the 8 amp AC-DC smart charge when I am running my LTE hotspot for hours while camping.

[RoadEyePie]

Originally Posted by frizfreleng

That is good advice. I guess your Cummins 6.7 diesel has 2 batteries to start it. From experience I know that a single jump box would not start my Ford 6.0L diesel. You will need two. Not cheap but peace of mind. Different scenarios have different solutions. At home, with plenty of time I turn to my charger. On the road where you don't have 8 hours to wait even if you have an VAC source, jump boxes are my choice.

So are you saying one jump box will not start a 6.6 Duramax Diesel engine with two 12v batteries? My problem with good jumper cables (even the copper wire ones for $200) is that you have to have another vehicle with a good batter. So I started looking for starter boxes. On a tech support call with an Interstate battery engineer, I asked him if he could recommend a good brand name, he said "I wouldn't buy a Noco". When I pressed him for a name, he suggested Schumacher. Would you have to go for one like this https://www.batterychargers.com/en/p...p-jump-starter for my truck?

[DirtRider]

Originally Posted by astrocamper

The last paragraph of my posting with the picture states what you just proposed.

A solar charge controller can directly and properly charge and maintain a truck's starter battery without needing additional active power components.

The other components in my system are used because my primary goal was to charge 50 amp-hour batteries for astronomy. The 8 amp AC-DC charge controller was left over from the days when I used to use lead-acid batteries for astronomy. I put it in my truck bed because I already had the MPPT charge controller and 300 watt inverter installed. I only use the 8 amp AC-DC smart charge when I am running my LTE hotspot for hours while camping.

Gotcha, thanks!

[Rzrbrn]

Thank you Jeff for such a complete description of what you did and what I may need.

DirtRider, I was not certain the MPPT would not overcharge the truck batteries. My thinking then was the NOCO Charger/Maintainer is 120v and so would need to be plugged into an inverter. I will need to research various MPPT controllers to make certain it will do what a 3 or 4 state smart charger will not, that is not overcharge but also desalinate the truck batteries which are lead acid batteries.

RoadEyePie, I have used Battery Tenders and BatteryMinders over the years and only recently bought the NOCO Genius10, which I keep my Ram diesel truck plugged into when not driving. That is, it is plugged in overnight and for days/weeks at a time. I sure don't want to mess my 2 truck batteries up. Did the Interstate engineer give you any specific reasons for not recommending the NOCO? The other brands of charger/maintainers worked ok, I just wanted to try something else: Maybe I should just go back to the other two brands. I will research the Schumacher.

[frizfreleng]

Originally Posted by RoadEyePie

So are you saying one jump box will not start a 6.6 Duramax Diesel engine with two 12v batteries? My problem with good jumper cables (even the copper wire ones for $200) is that you have to have another vehicle with a good batter. So I started looking for starter boxes. On a tech support call with an Interstate battery engineer, I asked him if he could recommend a good brand name, he said "I wouldn't buy a Noco". When I pressed him for a name, he suggested Schumacher. Would you have to go for one like this https://www.batterychargers.com/en/p...p-jump-starter for my truck?

That 1800 amp box surely would. Question is how long it would crank a diesel. My current 6.7L diesel starts in no more than two seconds with the 2 installed 900 cca batteries (each). I am curious how you would hook up the box to 2 batteries. Also this is a sealed AGM battery. Limited draw down. Not exactly lithium. Back to your original question. This is my personal experience. 2019 stopped at the Blue Ridge Parkway Music Center. Won't get into how the batteries in my 6.0 L ended up dead but they did. A Park Ranger stopped by. He had a 1000 cca box. Hooked it to one of the batteries and "no joy? Took jumper cables and hooked his SUV battery to one of mine. The jumper box on one battery and cables on the other and my truck spun right up. That experience is on what I base the statement it will take 2 boxes to start a diesel.

[ItalGerBrit]

Originally Posted by frizfreleng

That 1800 amp box surely would. Question is how long it would crank a diesel. My current 6.7L diesel starts in no more than two seconds with the 2 installed 900 cca batteries (each). I am curious how you would hook up the box to 2 batteries. Also this is a sealed AGM battery. Limited draw down. Not exactly lithium. Back to your original question. This is my personal experience. 2019 stopped at the Blue Ridge Parkway Music Center. Won't get into how the batteries in my 6.0 L ended up dead but they did. A Park Ranger stopped by. He had a 1000 cca box. Hooked it to one of the batteries and "no joy? Took jumper cables and hooked his SUV battery to one of mine. The jumper box on one battery and cables on the other and my truck spun right up. That experience is on what I base the statement it will take 2 boxes to start a diesel.

I jump my 4 RV starter batteries in parallel. Neg to first battery and pos on 4th. Could be that in your case the first battery connected to the jumper was totally dead and shorted internally.Or the jumper was not fully charged? Maybe jumping with both batteries in parallel would have worked? That box might might not have been rated for 1000 cca. Maybe 1000 peak amps? A 1800 amp jumper was mentioned but that is "peak" amps, not cca. Big difference. My Truck pack is rated at peak amps of 3000 but only 800 cca amps and it easily cranks my Detroit 60 14L with 4 starter batteries. The numbers on jumper boxes can be misleading. Gas engines do not need much jump amperage, diesels more, big diesels, much more. The bad thing about the high amp boxes are they are expensive, very heavy, and should be kept on a trickle charger. A bit of a hassle for something rarely used like a jump box. I justify the hassle and expense because I frequently off road in a Hummer(H1) carrying spare parts just in case and the jumper is an important "spare" part.

[RoadEyePie]

Originally Posted by frizfreleng

That 1800 amp box surely would. Question is how long it would crank a diesel. My current 6.7L diesel starts in no more than two seconds with the 2 installed 900 cca batteries (each). I am curious how you would hook up the box to 2 batteries. Also this is a sealed AGM battery. Limited draw down. Not exactly lithium. Back to your original question. This is my personal experience. 2019 stopped at the Blue Ridge Parkway Music Center. Won't get into how the batteries in my 6.0 L ended up dead but they did. A Park Ranger stopped by. He had a 1000 cca box. Hooked it to one of the batteries and "no joy? Took jumper cables and hooked his SUV battery to one of mine. The jumper box on one battery and cables on the other and my truck spun right up. That experience is on what I base the statement it will take 2 boxes to start a diesel.

I would assume that I would connect it to the battery closest to the starter. Passenger side battery.