2018-10/2-10/28 Interior Paint and Battery Isolator Julene was the painting fiend. I helped a little with the masking, but she did all the painting, which I was not looking forward to.I finally made a door for the utility closet. I thought about extending the wall, but decided it would look neater to have the wall curve a little. So, I cut an angle out of the edge of the plywood that I used for the door, so it would overextend on the hinges, and create a smooth angle.It came out better than expected!It was built with the intention of adding a decorative trim piece to that exposed stud, which would make the door more flush. The hinges are heavy duty fence hinges. Overkill, but a nice aesthetic. RalphieWith the paint and the door, the interior looks much less cluttered. It’s really coming together.This is a “Smart” battery isolator. It has two poles; one for the engine batteries, and one for the house batteries. If it senses a charge of over 13.4volts coming from either pole that it is connected to, it closes the circuit and lets the juice flow from one battery bank to the other. If the voltage drops, it opens the circuit so the battery banks don’t try to charge each other.I waited until dark to kick it on the first time. It hit 20 amps! Since then, I’ve seen it go as high as 30 amps. That’s a lot of charge for my house batteries. The only down side is that the house batteries are meant to top up on 14.8v of DC power. The power from the engine doesn’t put out that kind of voltage. So, it helps with quickly bulk charging when the batteries are low, but slows down significantly, once the batteries are at about 92%.I added a handy switch to have more control over when the circuit can turn on or off. It needs a good ground to function, so I just connected the switch to connect or disconnect the ground. Previous | Photos Home | Next