MECHMAN

You could always mount it under the cab or the bed, there's lots of room under there. That way it isn't taking up space inside the vehicle.

You would just run all your batteries together in parallel. (conect all the positive terminals together, then connect all the negative terminals to ground) I would start with one D3100 in the back and see how it does. That's an 80lb battery, the stoutest single battery we've ever tested. (that's why we don't sell optima anymore) I'd start with one and see how it does, you can always add more later.

Just to clarify, I'm not arguing against Missinglink's module at all, I'm just expanding on their battery discussion- That being said, I will point out that the 10 year old autozone battery is a flooded battery and can continuously be charged at roughly half a volt higher charge rate than the average AGM battery without being damaged. There is physically much less liquid electrolyte in an AGM battery. The acid is suspended in the fiberglass mats so that less electrolyte is necessary to have full plate coverage, which allows for more surface area in the same battery footprint- that's the advantage to the AGM design. Gassing will be very minimal in an AGM battery, except in overcharging situations. AGM batterys just have a smaller margin of error regarding overcharging, because it doesn't take very much of the electrolyte to be boiled out for the battery to start loosing plate coverage. The Battery Council International is an independent regulatory and exploratory body regarding all types of batteries. They are not a battery manufacturer, and in the reports that they publish regarding testing and failure analysis, overcharging (classified as a charge voltage higher than 14.8 volts on a 6 cell AGM lead acid battery) was the #1 cause of AGM battery failure. This does not reflect testing performed by BCI, it is merely a statistical observation from contributed data to the council by it's members. If anyone is looking to further their understanding regarding battery theory, there are severall E-books that have really good instructions on how to properly test and evaluate Lead/Acid batteries, available at www.batterycouncil.org . I think someone may have them stickied over on Termlab.com too.

I wouldn't charge any 12V AGM battery over 14.9 volts, it will cook the batteries over time. As long as you don't let your bank of batteries run down before you start the vehicle, you will be fine. I use a Powermaster charger to charge a bank of 10 batteries and it seems to work well.

Yeah, UPS shipping on a 3100... They weigh 82lbs, LOL. At least $50 in shipping.

If you used our alternators for the auxilary setup, I would build them with a digital one wire regulator. You could just leave your stock alternator and battery to power the truck, and add the two extra one wire alternators and run them paralel to however many batteries you would like. That way, the subs would have their own independant alternators and batteries. Becasue they are one wire hookup, you don't have to modify anything on the truck, just run a 1/0 gauge cable from each alternator to the positive terminal of your batteries and your done. We could even set you up to run the subwoofer charging system at 16 volts. (if your amps are 16 volt compatible) That's how I have my truck set up. MechMan

Try and order one from Darvex, they don't have any in stock and will decline your order. Summit was only able to do $299 for that long because they bought so many. I'm a dealer for XSpower and I almost pay that much for them now edited by Meade: please use the for sale section if you want to sell your merchandise on my site thanks!

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It could be that it has the wrong regulator in it and it is putting constant power to the L terminal of the alternator plug, or it could be a faulty alternator. No way to know untill you perform that test.

If your meter was set to amps, it is telling you that your alternator is drawing .6 amps with the car shut off. This is what i was talking about, the alternator is being excited when the key is in the off position, and that is what is killing your battery. Try charging up the battery completely and disconecting the alternator. Let is sit overnight and see if the battery gets run down with the alternator disconnected.

GM's have low voltage at idle. My alternators have a regulator modification to bring that up to 14.7.

You are using the wrong measurement setting on the meter. It need to be set to "DC amps" , not "volts". On a lot of multimeters, you have to move the red test lead over to a different plug on the front of the multimeter that is fused. You can then test it like how you were going, (measuring between the ground cable and the negative terminal of the battery) and it will display how many amps are being drained from the battery. You can use the same setting, and test to see if the alternator is draining the battery. (this can be possible with a regualtor that is bad or mis-wired) Hook up both battery cables like normal, then disconnect the alternator charge wire. Measure from the alternator charge wire and the positive terminal of the battery, and see if there is any current flowing with the key in the "off" position. If there is, the alternaor is faulty, or has the wrong regulator wiring. hope that helps MechMan

Find someone with a DC amp clamp and place it around the charge cable that goes from the alternator to the battery. Take this measurement with your system turned all the way up and you will see how many amps it is making at idle.

You can easily convert an internally regulated alternator to external, and use an adjustable external regulator. I don't know about your vehicle specifically, but I have run my 2001 Silverado at 16.0v for several weeks. Aside from drying out a couple 12v batteries, it didn't hurt anything on the truck.

Assuming that your stock battery is in good condition, it would be better to keep it and add the seccond battery in parralel. That way you would get the capacity of both. It sounds like your alternator is the problem, BTW. You can check it yourself. Just charge the battery with a battery charger for a few hours, then let it sit for a few hours to settle out. Take a meter and measure the battery voltage, it should be arround 12.8 volts. Then start the vehicle, and measure the voltage on the charge post of the alternator, the voltage should be 13.8 14.5 with the engine running and no electrical loads. If the voltage does not come up when you start the car, the alternator is not charging.

Sorry, I didn't see where mentioned a front - back voltage comparison.

The voltage drop tests are what I was reffering to, but you answered my question when you said that your were reving the engine when you were measuring. They probably would be producing enough current to require more cabling at that point.

What RPM are you running these tests at? What kind of alternators are they?

That's an alternator problem. They just don't put out enough at idle. It takes 20-35 minutes for your batteries to drop, then when you rev the engine up, the alt/s start making enough current to bring the voltage back up. This is very common, especially if you are running a 200+ amp alternator.

Are you running the ground cable directly from the amp to the batteries? I would try adding another direct ground cable. Remember that you have to have the same conductivity for your - side as your + side, and steel chassis arn't as conductive as you might think.

You can as long as it is not at too high of an amperage. If you are reffering to your yellow top and a Kinetik, they will charge at almost exactly the same rate. The only time you could have a problem, is if you had one flooded battery and one AGM battery; even then it wouldn't be that big of a deal though.

That is not true. An Isolator would completely defeat the purpose of adding the Kinetik, you would only have access to either/or battery, and you need to run in both in paralel in order to get the reduced voltage drop. (the whole reason for runnig two batteries) Just run them both in paralel and you will be fine, we have mixed flooded and AGM batteries on dozens of installs with no problems. P.S. We carry the Powermaster batteries, and I bet I could beat the shipped price for that Kinetik, and you would have a better performing battery.