Battery rundown protection?

[greiswig]

If you don't fully latch one of the doors that you don't commonly use it will prevent the system from waking up if you open another door. Eventually the car goes to sleep even if that one door isn't fully latched.

Also there are hood mounted solar panels, lensun and Cascadia4x4 to name two.

This does not seem to be the way mine works. I've had my doors open for days (hooked up to a battery trickle charger) to dry things out after the sunroof drains and/or windshield cowl allowed water in. If I open or close any of the doors, even after hours with them open, the thing seems to wake up: relays can be heard, the puddle lights all light up, etc.

So yes, it eventually goes to sleep, but I think the goal here is to stop it from waking everything all the time?

 

[greiswig]

I helped Lensun with the very first LR3/LR4 hood solar panel fitment. The first panel was off by a lot hitting the spray nozzles. The first one that fit correctly, I still had to dremel the nozzle holes. Anyhow, that $400 hood solar panel slowly died under a year and completely died 1.5 years later. I was offered a 30% discount on a replacement when I first reported it. I said all that to say, don't get the Lensun version.

I ended up relocating my spray nozzles to the wiper arms and fitted a cheap $75 Amazon special on top of the broken Lensun panel on the hood. Looks clean enough and it works. Don't mind my dirty truck.

I have had the Cascadia version for about 2.5 years. Naturally, just outside the 2-year warranty, I noticed some areas where it almost looks like parts of individual cells have broken under the plastic. It appears as almost "bubbles" or swells, and if you poke at it you can kind of feel what seems like shards of glass moving against one another. I contacted Cascadia about it and they are offering me a replacement at cost.

 

[ftillier]

This does not seem to be the way mine works. I've had my doors open for days (hooked up to a battery trickle charger) to dry things out after the sunroof drains and/or windshield cowl allowed water in. If I open or close any of the doors, even after hours with them open, the thing seems to wake up: relays can be heard, the puddle lights all light up, etc.

So yes, it eventually goes to sleep, but I think the goal here is to stop it from waking everything all the time?

I noticed similar last night as I was getting started on my LCA replacement - I left the rear door unlatched, and when I opened the driver's door I heard the fuel pump prime things. The radio doesn't come on though (no logo displayed on the screen) and I don't think the instrument panel woke up, but it definitely didn't stay asleep. I will try and see if I get similar from opening the passenger side, it might be special logic for the driver's door...

 

[powershift]

I've been opening a frequently used door and then latching it with my finger. Doing that enables the door to be open and mostly shut with the ground light off and the system goes back to sleep. Luckily the designers were thinking about battery draw when they wired the rear hatch and tailgate buttons. When I open/close either one the computer doesn't need to boot up and light up the displays.

 

[itsaguything]

hmmm, are you certain you heard the fuel pump by opening the door and not depressing the start button?? I have my doubts…

 

[Rover Range]

hmmm, are you certain you heard the fuel pump by opening the door and not depressing the start button?? I have my doubts…

Fuel pump does cycle on for a couple seconds, when the doors are opened.

 

[powershift]

I made improvements to the charger for the starter battery by picking up some alligator clips and wiring. Its a lot easier to connect/disconnect the charger. I'd like to hard wire an Anderson connector to the battery and fasten it in the big space on the front passenger side. There was a post the other day emphasizing to use a body ground. The alligator clips don't work well with the negative post and I tried looking for a body ground but didn't see one in the area and all the metal parts were painted. Does anyone ground to the body when doing jumps or charging? Where do you connect the ground?

 

[Rover Range]

Where do you connect the ground?

Just follow the negative battery cable to where it is bolted to the body grounding point. Use that for your negative ground cable.

 

[powershift]

I made some upgrades to the charging setup for more convenience. Now the connector stays with the battery and the hood closes one step. Just the charger moves back and forth from a DIY Lifepo4 pack to the AGM.

 

[powershift]

Every day while overlanding I have put the charger on the starter battery while I'm at camp. I ran a test to see how long it would take to **** the battery since I started to get OCD idealizations and wondered if I've just been wasting time and energy. At the 1.5 day point it read 12.3V. Then I opened the front door and I heard the computer monitors flip off which was abnormal. I did business and then checked voltage after I shut the door and the monitors were still off and it read 10.4V. I couldn't believe it. So I tried starting it and clunk, not going to happen.

Aside from that, while I'm in the back cargo area, engine has been off for a day or whatever, I'll hear a fan kick on near the rear passenger side and behind the plastic interior panels. It also has fans behind the fuse box and those will run for several minutes even after the engine is off. I think the heat has a lot to do with the extra energy it needs compared to everyone else where they let it for weeks and never have a problem.

To streamline charging, I was thinking about buying a dedicated charger and mounting it where people put the ARB compressor or 2nd battery. The benefit is I don't need to carry it in the back cargo area. But in the cargo area is a Lifepo4 battery pack and inverter already so if I'm at a swimming hole on the river way out in BFE and it doesn't start I could just plug-in the charger. It sounds good, but I need to plan it all out because if that thing catches fire or interferes with the existing electronics in some way even when AC is unplugged, then I'll have more and bigger problems than when I started.