Traxide/Battery Light Question

[schafari]

Hey perkj, I think you must be reading something wrong. The Traxide will protect your main battery from a drain that would not allow the cranking battery from starting the LR3. Say you are running a fridge over the weekend, and have both the main and 2nd battery connected. The Traxide joins the two batterys and provides exteneded run-time to the fridge based on both batterys. In this state, the LED on the Traxide is solid.

However, if the Traxides senses that the main battery is dropping below the voltage necessary to crank the engine, it will automatically disconnect the main battery. I believe that cut off threshold is about 11.4volts from memory. Once the cranking battery drops below 11.4v, the Traxide will disconnect it from the other bank of batterys. It does this so that you you never be without starting power. In this state, the LED on the Traxide will be blinking. This indicates that the Traxide has isolated the cranking battery from the house batterys.

I have used the Traxide for about five years with the Interstate cranking battery, in conjunction with an Optima yellow top under the hood and a Sears Platinum Marine deep cycle in the cargo area. Works like a champ.

 

[perkj]

I think I was reading correctly as drivesafe stated this:

Thank bbyer, and your are correct, the SC80-LR can mask a failing cranking battery and your suggestion of disconnecting the plug in the cable that runs from the cranking battery to the SC80-LR will allow a faulty cranking battery to go flat over night

and you stated this.

In order to protect the discharge of the cranking battery, the Traxide will then disconnect the secondary battery. I was able to tell my main battery was on the way out, as I was often getting the Traxide disconnecting the two.

so drivesafe said it would mask a faulty primary and you said it wouldn't....this was the conflicting statement I was pointing out. I am aware the Traxide will protect the primary, but I was just pointing out conflicting information in the post.

 

[schafari]

Ah, you are reading to litteraly. Both comments are totally correct. The Traxide can mask a failing cranking battery early in the failing cycle. It will add power to the cranking battery while connected. However, it then will disconnect from the cranking battery if the cranking battery voltage gets too low. Once this happens, and the cranking battery fails to maintain voltage above 11.4 volts over and over again, the Traxide can then help you see the problem.

It does this by constantly disconnecting the house batterys from the cranking battery. Everytime you go under the hood, the LED will be flahsing, indicating it isolated the two battery banks. With a perfectly good cranking battery the LED stays solid day after day week after week, etc. With a cranking battery that is dying or pretty much dead, the Traxide LED will more often than not, blinking off and on. This is all with no load at all.

This is exactly how I knew my cranking battery was going bad. The Traxide kept disconnecting it. Everytime I opened the hood, sure enough, the LED was blinking at me. I diagnosed the cranking battery as bad, replaced it, and now I no longer have the LED blinking and the Traxide disconnecting. It is now solid all the time.

This is not conflicting information. They are both accurate. Can't read in to the words as 100% litteral in 100% of all cases 100% of the time. (By the way, if I recall, drivesafe is Traxide.)

 

[perkj]

LOL...I can only read what was stated Your explanation above was much clearer and helpful in articulating how the traxide would effect the surfacing of a primary battery on the fritz

 

[wcryer]

went with the interstate, surprisingly less expensive at the dealership than at the interstate battery store. was also finally able to pick up some transfer case fluid that was on back order forever.

 

[drivesafe]

Hi again folks and thanks heaps schafari, you saved me a hell of a lot of one fingered typing.

All your info is spot on but for the cut-out ( isolate ) voltage. The SC80-LR cuts out when the common voltage of all the batteries drops to 12.0v or lower.

Also as you pointed out, under normal operations, the SC80-LR will keep all your batteries connected indefinitely and this can be for years at a time, unless you are using the auxiliary battery(s) and pull the common voltage below 12.0v.

Folks, this situation of where the SC80-LR allows the auxiliary battery to top up the cranking battery is normally a plus but these Calcium/Calcium batteries can die in strange ways and in some cases, the auxiliary battery can mask a failing battery.

At this stage I am still not sure whether this is a good or bad situation, because while it does mask the failing battery in it’s early stages of failing, as schafari posted, eventually the cranking battery completely fails.

The disadvantage, if you call it that, it that you don’t know as soon, that your cranking battery is failing but on the other hand, it also means you get just that little extra life out of your cranking battery.

The big advantage to the way both the SC80-LR and the newer USI-160 isolators allow the auxiliary battery to discharge back into the cranking battery means that your Calcium/Calcium cranking battery actually ends up in a permanent higher state of charge than it would normally be and this is proving to be a big bonus with correcting the low charge levels that many of these Calcium/Calcium batteries seem to suffer from.

 

[perkj]

tell us some more of these new USI-160 isolators! =) What does it offer over the SC80-LR? I didn't see any mention of them on your traxide site.

 

[drivesafe]

Hi perkj, the USI-160 has been in production, in small runs, since late 2010 and was initially developed to meet a niche area and was not intended to be a major product for us.

BUT, it is proving so popular it will be going into full production in the very near future and while I did not make the new isolators available for export sales because the isolators are based around a totally new type technology and I needed to make sure we had it right.

As the new isolators are proving to be as reliable as the SC80 ( and SC80-LR ) we will be making them available for export when they are finally posted up on my web site, although a few have already been exported to Europe.

The link below will give you a background into these new isolators and has feedback from many of the users of the new isolators.

NOTE, with the way this new isolator is being taken up, all my LR kits are now available with the USI-160 being substituted for the SC80-LR, at around $70 extra per kit.

Anyway, check out the link and see what you think.

Cheers, Tim.

http://www.aulro.com/afvb/verandah/118973-usi-160-160-240-amp-ultra-smart-dual-battery-isolator.html

 

[wcryer]

That unit looks pretty awesome. Running any SC80-LR exchange program?

Anyway, my situation got more strange. After replacing the faulty cranking battery last night, the battery light came on again on the way home. This has me wondering few things:

1. What are the thresholds/inputs that cause the battery indicator to kick on?

2. Is there an associated fault code the faultmate can read for a faulty alternator?

3. Have I damaged my traxide unit somehow that my battery setup is no longer functioning as intended? drivesafe, any simple test I can run to start eliminating culprits in my issue? I was thinking perhaps disconnecting positive lead from cranking battery to ensure LED starts blinking?

thanks

 

[drivesafe]

Hi wcryer, it sound like your alternator could be the problem but you need to get that checked at a dealers or auto electrician.

As to the SC80-LR, the easiest way to check it is to measure the voltage at both batteries before and after you start the motor.

If the LED is on solid on the SC80-LR before you start your motor, the battery voltage should be the same.

If the LED is flashing then you will probably get different voltage roading at each battery.

Start your motor and once the motor is running for about 2 minutes. The LED should be on constant.

Measure the voltage again and this time the batteries should both have higher readings and be about the same.

If the cranking battery voltage is higher than 13.2v but the auxiliary battery is still low, then there is a problem with the SC80-LR.

See how you go and post up your results.

Cheers.