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The battery relay – exciter wire is working again on my truck

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The battery relay – exciter wire is working again on my truck. πŸ”‹

Took five minutes to fix. I apparently used copper coated aluminum wire to run the exciter wire. Salt, water air got into one of the butt connectors, dissolved the wire. While I should replace the wire, I instead just stripped it back and fixed the bum connection. If I ever do any more automotive wiring I’ll follow the advice of the experts and not ever use CCA wire, it’s bad news. I am not surprised, I made this mistake previously and had this issue. CCA is much cheaper than copper but it’s one headache after another.

No excitement!

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My exciter wire is once again not providing excitement to the battery relay, so the solar panel isn’t maintaining the starting battery and alternator isn’t topping off the accessory batteries. Relay is fine, just tested it with allegator clips. Bad butt connector somewhere, nothing obvious. I’ll have to get out the test meter and work backwards to the cab where I know I have power.

I thought I had mastered automobile electrical wiring, haven’t had issues in a few years. But vibration, dirt and salt is tough mothers.

Map: Green Mountain National Forest North

God’s alternator is working hard today

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God’s alternator is working hard today … πŸ”‹

Cold but sunny! No starting problems for me today when I go out later.

Wednesday, when I last went out to check the truck and knock the snow off it, the accessory battery bank was at 12.4 volts and starting battery at 12.3 volts. It was pretty cold, it was 3 days since I ran the truck, I had the lights on a while while I unpacked my truck on Sunday evening.

Today, with the sun and power flowing from the solar panel, the accessory batteries are at 14.3 volts and the starting battery at 12.8 volts. It looks like starting battery is taking a little longer to charge, but that’s normal as the system is set to charge the accessory batteries first, then once the voltage in system is above 14.1 volts to dump the excess power into the staring battery.

Covered up Big Red

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I figured this snow isn't going to be real icy so make it easy for cleaning off the snow from the cap come tomorrow so I can have solar panel cranking out a trickle charge when the sun comes back out. 

Wednesday December 16, 2020 — Big Red — Battery Diagram 🗺
Map: Applachian Region Of New York State