Boyle Future Tech

[TacoDell]

I know Dick knows...

And I forgot to ask Boyle over the phone...

So I'm getting ready to do my alt. upgrade... and dual battery set up...




Boyle says they will be able to bump up my oem 80a alt. to around 130a maybe a little more and give me near 80a @ idle...

Question is...

My current 80a alt. has a fuse rated for 120a... so in upgrading the oem alt. to 130 - 140... I'm guessing I'll need a higher capacity fuse for the alt... in the fuse box ?

What rating and can I find one with a high enough rating ? Where ?

Does Boyle give a read out... for the alt. output when it's modded and shipped to the customer ?

Sorry but I'm learning as I go...
And initially always overthink shit... or at least panic... LOL

Thanks all...

Edited for an update...

Still haven't gotten the Alt. upgraded... But decided to get the dual batteries on line regardless of that... Got a 95 amp Sure Power Isolator dirt cheap ($ 20.) and decided to quit stalling...

I had to find a place to mount the isolator and also redesign the battery hold down on the drivers side... I decided the plastic spacer thingy just had to go...

Here's what I did... before the tack...



After weld/paint and isolator mount...



I also located a Yellow Top for the Aux. Batt... And now have an extra Red Top... I'm not sure what I'll do with...

Engine bay pic...



Finally I'm ready to wire chit up... just waiting for the few items I ordered online to get here... and it will be finished... for now... It eventually will get the Boyle alt. upgrade and a 160a Isolator... Shouldn't be too much to switch over as I'm running the 6 awg cable rated for the 160am Iso...

My next update will include the Boyle upgrade and the 160a Iso... But dang... I had to get the mounting shit outta the way first... I'll update again as soon as it is done...

[Dickfoster]

You can find the fuses at you local auto parts like Kragen and the like. Do not try to pull the ALT fuse, it's bolted in. You have to snap the top off of the fuse box to change that kind of fuse. Don't ask me why, I would never confess to designing something like that even if I did do it.

They did not send me any read out of what the alternator was putting out after they did mine but I did my own measurement to confirm their work.

See if you can find someone down their who has a DC clamp on amp meter if you want to measure yours. You'll have to come up with that much of a load though. Lots of lights or a winch maybe. Don't go burn shit up and make smoke when you do it now.

What are you going to use for the isolator in your dual batt setup?

[TacoDell]

Thank you Sir... I would have been pulling on that fuse for a long time... muttering discernable words the whole while... LOL

Oh and what amp rating on that fuse... do ya think ?.. 150a ?.. I'm sure I'll have to drive all over hell trying to find that... Hemet sucks btw... LOL

I was going to go with the SurePower unit... Though not sure of which model... Think it has to be the 160a unit This one ?.. SP-16023A ?..
Which leads me to another question....

So if this alt. rewind actually gives 130 amps maybe a little more... Can going over board on the Isolator amp ratings be of detriment ?.. Should I be looking at the 160a unit ?.. or something lesser... I'm not really sure what amp ratings are available with the SurePower units... Though what I've seen they are 120 and 160 respectively... But I'm sure a little searching will satisfy my curiosity...

This is a budget project... Not your super buss bar mobiarc bling bling... he he

But you know I'll listen to any advice you have to give...

BTW... I have 8 rocklights... 4 LightForce 170's... Warn M8... CB...

Will that be enough load ?.. I'm sure there will be other gizmos down the road...

Thanks again Dick...

[Dickfoster]

For the small difference in price get the 160 amp unit. The only thing you will pay is the small difference in price and probably a small difference in size. It can't hurt to have a higher capacity isolator.
The way that one works is that current flows from the alt to the input of two diode paths, one for each battery. That way current can't flow from one battery and it's circuit and loads to the other battery and it's circuit. You can use standard jumper cables if you need to use the aux battery to start the truck should the main battery take a dive. Or if you want to get fancy, you can use a starter contactor along with a swicth of some sort to do the same thing. You'd want to power the contactor coil circuit with the aux battery for that.

[TacoDell]

Originally Posted by Dickfoster

It can't hurt to have a higher capacity isolator.

good

Originally Posted by Dickfoster

You can use standard jumper cables if you need to use the aux battery to start the truck should the main battery take a dive. Or if you want to get fancy, you can use a starter contactor along with a swicth of some sort to do the same thing. You'd want to power the contactor coil circuit with the aux battery for that.

the fancy method sounds smarter...

first let's see if this greenhorn can get past step 1... LOL

[Dickfoster]

However, you did post some slur earlier about bling bling bus bars this and that did you not? LOL
If you want to keep it simple do the single diode hook up to the main battery like I did. However if you go that route it's better to use the more expensive FET isolator because of the silicon diode voltage drop.

[TacoDell]

I eventually tend to eat my slurs... (and yer no help )
yer bling buss bars are the shit... just don't see how that could work when my batteries are on opposing sides...

I'll think about that FET if I can find it in my budget...

[Dickfoster]

If space is not a big big problem as it was for me perhaps it's not worthwhile. However they do save a little power over the silicon diode isolators.

[RangerCB]

Quick question. Is that battery box custom or store bought? I like it's location.

[TacoDell]

Home fab by me...

[ErikB]

Fuses are sized to protect your wiring (and therefore, your rig!).

Putting in a larger fuse and using the stock wiring on an alt putting out much higher than stock amperage is asking for trouble!

Upgrade the wiring from the alt to the battery and install your big new fuse there. 4ga battery cables from the local vatozone are still pretty cheap.


Not to mention the undersized wiring will cause a significant voltage drop between the alt and the battery under high loads, reducing its overall efficiency, but that isn't nearly as big a deal as the possibility of your rig burning to the ground.

[TacoDell]

I was intending to run a fused link to the battery... But does that mean that the fused link in the oem fuse box becomes obsolete ?..

I'm sure the isolator will come with instructions that make more sense to me... But have not had the opportunity to read up on that as of yet... as I'm still contemplating as to which unit to go with...

Believe you me... my rig will not be burning down... I may sound dumb... but that's hardly the case... I'm just new to this mod and probably missing some of the concept...

Appreciate your input... and further explanation...

[thenrie]

So, you are going to be upgrading to a 140amp alternator, or maybe the 160? The question is not so much how much your alternator can push out, but how much can your truck use, when considering your fuse. If you have an on-board welder or something, you might consider wiring it separately, with its own fuse, from the rest of the vehicle and leaving your 120a fuse in place. Under no condition would I recommend upping the value on the fuse for your system. If you do, you may risk frying your computer.

What your fuse is protecting against is the possibility (probability in a crawler) of a wire somewhere in your electrical system shorting to the frame and drawing all 160 amps from your alternator through a little 16 or 18 gauge wire and burning it out, along with any wires touching it as it melts down. This, indeed could produce a system meltdown and possibly a fire, or at least leaving you stranded somewhere. You have fuses along the way to blow and disconnect the shorted wire from the system.

You should have a 120amp system fuse, which leads to your fuse box, where you have individual fuses to protect the rest of the system against shorts in those individual circuits. That 120 amps should be sufficient even if you have added stuff like a CB, driving lights, even a decent stereo, because you normally don't run all those things at the same time.

Now, should you add a welder, or a super-duper stereo amp, multiple driving lights, or other accessories that take high amperage, I would recommend running a separate circuit to another large fuse equal in value to about 75% of the total amperage draw of all the components on that circuit (eg. 80amps for the welder + 50 amps for the stereo amp + 12 amps for a compressor, etc, add them all up, multiply by .75) and install a fuse of that value. Then run that to a fuse block and fuse each component separately with the appropriate fuse for that item.

As far as a fuse between the alternator and battery, I don't recommend it. The battery will only draw what it can take. If the battery shorts out, the whole shebang stops, which stops the alternator, which stops the surge into the battery. The problems come in when things downstream from the battery short.

Hope that helps.

[Dickfoster]

There is some misinformation in your post. You should try not to spread it around like that. It does little good, least of all for you. It tends to do more in the way of spreading confusion on a subject that most folks are already confused enough about.
I don't know why that is, because electrical stuff is really easy, it just is.

[Dickfoster]

If you are going to run dual batteries then you can pretty much just delete the stock positive wiring to the alt all together. I used #4 welding cable to the welder then on to the aux battery. Current then flows through the isolator then on to the main battery. In most welder setups the alt output is switched to welding and away from the battery. When it switches to welding mode, the alt output is hopped up to full voltage output, something on the order of 36 volts or so. Of couse when welding the truck is running from battery power alone.

Don't forget to beef up the negative side too. For example I have a #4 welding cable connection from the alt mounting bolt to the welder and the common negative for both batteries. I've also added connects from the block to the frame, beefed up the body to battery negative, connected the winch directly to the battery common negative (# 6 cable for the winch connects), direct connect any high powered stereo amps, compressors etc. Basically anything that pulls a big load is connected directly to the battery negative and battery positive though a properly rated fuse.
No not the winch. At the hundeds of amps they pull, a winch is not fused. Notice that starters are rarely if ever fused. Just take extra special care and guard against chaffing when you route cables to really big loads like that.

[thenrie]

Foster is right, of course. His explanation makes sense regarding the installation of a welder and second battery. I came to this forum as a neophyte, to learn, as I am getting ready to start a buildup of a Tacoma, but I have wired my share of vehicles from the ground up and thought I could help on the question about fuse size. I have never installed a welder or an aux battery. Car electrical systems really are simple, if you understand them. Sort of like biology is simple if you understand it, or calculus. Some people struggle with it.

If there was more to my post that was wrong, please be more specific, and fix the "misinformation" rather than just saying it is wrong. The question he was asking was whether he should change out his main fuse for a larger one, since he was installing a hi-amp alternator. My answer to that is "no", since he would then have a fuse of too high a value for the rest of his wiring downstream, but that he should create a separate system for any added accessories. If that is wrong, then please, everybody disregard my post. It was not intended as a manual for installing a welder. I was just using that as an example of a high-draw accessory.

[TacoDell]

Originally Posted by thenrie

The question he was asking was whether he should change out his main fuse for a larger one, since he was installing a hi-amp alternator. My answer to that is "no", since he would then have a fuse of too high a value for the rest of his wiring downstream, but that he should create a separate system for any added accessories.

I understood your response... and appreciate the input...

Dick thinks everyone should have a OB welder... LOL

[thenrie]

Well, I may end up using his post when I get around to installing one on my rig (when I get rich and famous...or at least rich). There are a few other things I need to get done first, though.

[Dickfoster]

Actually, I wouldn't recommend a welder unless you do the sort of wheeling that leads to a lot of carnage and other breakage. It tends to make it very busy under the hood causing difficulty in acessing spark plugs etc. However mine has seen some use but mostly for other people. Although I did use one on my own truck this summer.

[RangerCB]

Originally Posted by TacoDell

Home fab by me...

Good work. I'm still trying to perfect my drawing of a stick man.

[TacoDell]

This is in regards to the temporary install of a 95a Sure Power Iso. and stock alt. until I can afford the Boyle rewind and necessary Iso to run it...


1. Should the breaker be mounted closer to the isolator or the Aux.
battery or does it matter ?

2. I purchased a 50a Buss breaker from Napa... is there a better
one to use ?

3. One pole of the breaker (aux. batt.) seems
designed to be on the battery side... and it looks to be
copper colored... Is there a reason for that ?.. just curious...

4. What gauge is that exciter (S sense) wire supposed to be ? 18 ga ?
And also what's the best splice method/connector to the
ign. wire... I don't think I can get to it to solder it in line...

5. Also the "S" wire is supposed to have a 6a breaker...
can that just be an inline fuse or is a breaker better ?

[Dickfoster]

What circuit are you installing the 50A breaker for. By the S wire I assume you are talking about the field winding for the alternator rotor. A traditional inline holder will do but there is a fuse in the fuse box for it already. You would only need to do something extra for the field winding if you were installing a welder or something that modified or eliminated the stock wiring for it.
The only value a breaker has over a fuse is that the breaker does not need to be replaced if circuit shorts. But the idea is to build the circuit so that the fuse only blows if something happens to go wrong.

[TacoDell]

Just going off the Sure Power instructions...

It recommends a 50a breaker inline of the isolator's # 2 post to the Auxillary battery...

It also recommends a 6a breaker in line of the isolator's excitation wire from the alt. ignition wire to the excitation terminal of the isolator... ( I may have used the wrong terminology in referencing the "S")

I'm guessing both of these could just be fuses... as long as you could get to them easily to change them if need be... ?

Already have the 50a breaker... so will utilize that on the aux side of things...

[Dickfoster]

6A for the field winding is OK but if the battery ever want's to take more than 50A of charge like the AGM types can, or if the alternator starts to help feed the winch power the fuse is gonna blow.
Don't know what you are using for wiring for the Alt output and battery cables but I used #4 welding wire for most of em but #6 for the winch to battery connections.

Remember you are up amping the alternator to put out well over 50A so if the isolator is only rated for 50A, maybe you are wasting money somewhere. It seems to me that if you're going to fuse it at 50 amps, either the isolator is way under rated for what you're doing or you are paying to up amp the alternator for no good reason.

The way mine is hooked up, a simple diode isolator is in the charge lead to the main battery while the alternator output is connected to the aux battery (high current winch etc.) then charge feeds through the isolator to the main battery that then runs the stock truck loads. In other words the only loads the isolator feeds is the stock truck stuff. Remember, a winch can suck hundreds of amps when loaded up.

[TacoDell]

Just thought I'd share the temporary end results...

The alt. upgrade will have to come a little later...
Due to insufficient funding

But at least I have duals now...





And just to make this thread not completely worthless... here's Boyle's addy and #... They are great over the phone and real informative... I know I'll be doing business with them shortly...

Boyle Future Tech
12325 Locksley lane
Auburn, CA. 95602
530-888-6290