Redarc Smartstart

I can not believe how easily this unit went into the 80 series. For the battery tray I just needed some m8 bolts I got from bunnings. Came home, fitted the battery tray & battery, went inside and connected the wires to the terminals, mounted the unit using the m8 bolts I bought for the battery tray into some random holes on the inner guard near the air filter box, and hay presto!

The only thing I will have to do is lengthen the lead going from the cranking battery as it didn't follow the firewall the whole way, I just need some terminals and I can cut some excess off the other side near the aux battery.

Hi Sandman, I will be using an engel fridge and some campsite lights off the aux battery.

I was looking at getting an optima deep cycle battery, rated at 750 cca and 120rc. I looked up my century which is 720 and 160rc, which is about 76 amp hours. Better than the optima "deep cycle" battery.

I can purchase a century deep cycle with 100ah, but already had one with 76... so I'm happy with that (for the time being)

Josh

Hi Josh,

With Optimas, you really need to watch clearance from the terminals to the underside of the bonnet with any Aux battery set-up.

On my 100 Series 'Cruiser, there's nowhere near enough clearance! If the fitter had closed the bonnet with an Optima in the cradle, the two threaded terminals would have made "terminal" (pun intended) contact with the steel bonnet and, if I were a betting man, I'd have laid odds the vehicle would have been a smoking ruin!

By the way, not a good idea to test-fit by trying this! :-)

Regards,


Charlie

Very good point Charlie.

I needed to lower the carrier in order to get adequate clearance from the +ve terminal. It was alarmingly close before, 3 or 4mm!!

One way to check for existing clearance is to create a "little mountain" of Blu-Tack or similar putty on the terminal post and close the bonnet. When opened, the compacted height of the Blu-Tack will indicate the clearance.

Josh, If your sound system is connected to your new auxiliary battery then it cannot exhaust your main (cranking) battery.
If however, the sound system is connected to the main battery it can exhaust it and so fail to crank the engine. Your choice.

You certainly can "run the main battery dry from the headlights." The auxiliary battery will not feed "backwards" to supply the headlights.
If you run your sound system "until the aux battery runs out" you will permanently damage the battery. It should not be discharged below about 50%.

Also your choice is running your sound system "really loud" and exhausting your hearing...... also known as incurring a permanent hearing loss. You can recharge batteries but not your hearing!

Haha thanks Allen,

So from here I suppose I should get an auto electrician to run some wires to the back of the car and install some 12v connectors? Or is this something I can under-take myself?

Can I run a thick wire straight from the battery down the back and have a terminal system & possibly an inverter back there?

Josh

Its an easy peasy job in an 80
Run wires off your aux battery and theres a grommet in the firewall. Then under the trim at where the base of your doors are is channeling to run the wires to the back

You could do it yourself if you feel comfortable about it Josh. Alternatively an auto electrician would do it for a price.

There is a wiring diagram in the Redarc instructions which you should have or this is a link to them. I would recommend you use 13mm2 (6B&S) cable. The only change that I would suggest to the Redarc instructions is to not rely on the vehicle body as the negative return but to run a separate wire of the same gauge as the positive back to the cranking battery earth point.

Apart from also installing a Redarc Smart start isolator, what I did was install an 8 fuse fuse box under the bonnet and ran all my wires from there. I also ran a negative wire from the battery and did not rely on the earth from the body of the vehicle. From the fuse box I ran wires to where I wanted power outlets and used appropriate fuses and wire gauges based on what I would use that power socket for. For example I ran heavy duty wires to the fridge power sockets and a heavier fuses in the fuse box for them. I had 8 power sockets running off the auxiliary battery. It worked really well and I had plenty of sockets for stuff. I also ran a very heavy duty wire ( + & -) from the Auxiliary battery to the back of the vehicle to an Anderson plug.

My system ran successfully for many years before I sold the 80 series.
WBS