Weekend Update: November 7th and 8th
John and I spent most of this past weekend working on the truck. The primary goal that we accomplished was connecting the alternator to the rear battery pack (henceforth referred to as the “Atomic Pile,” a reference to Batman). In order to tap into the 60 Amp output of the alternator we had to run some wire from the Atomic Pile and into either the stock battery box or the engine compartment. John thought it would be nice to be able to disconnect and monitor the power flow from the cabin, so we decided on routing the cable under the cab, through the engine bay, and into the cab. Once inside the cab the circuit runs through a 60 Amp fuse, an ammeter, and (hopefully soon) a heavy duty switch. We weren’t able to get our hands on a switch this weekend, but we’re going to keep looking for one.
Working at night was kind of a pain, but at least it wasn’t raining like it had been earlier in the week. We decided to install the battery separator next to the starer for two reasons. First, it was one of the few spaces in the engine bay where we could securely mount it on a flat surface.
Secondly, being so close to the starter allowed John to simply cut the cable that runs from the alternator to the starter. As you can see in the picture above, the only cable connected at that time was the stock cable.
This picture shows how we ran the plastic tube (and the two #6 AWG cables inside) from the cab of the truck to the box. The hole that it runs through was part of the frame. John drilled a hole through the floor of the box, starting in the inside and working his way down. Once the hole was drilled we had to use a metal punch tool to widen the hole enough for the 1/2 inch tube to fit.
This picture shows the tube entering up from the floor. The pre-cut 10 foot 1/2 inch tube we got at Lowes turned out to be the exact length between the cab and the first shelf in the Box.
John tested is punch tool on a cardboard box to see if it the ammeter would fit in the hole it made. It turns out that the ammeter didn’t fit. Neither of us had a bit that could cut the 2 1/8 inch diameter hole that would be needed. Hopefully we can find a friend that will let us borrow an appropriately sized tool.
The picture at the begining of this post shows the ammeter hanging from the dashboard. Once everything was connected we started up the truck and turned on the inverter. After we tested that the 15 Watts of lights were working properly we connected my servers (connected through a cable leading into my house) and a 300 Watt halogen lamp. Just as we expected the setup was drawing slightly more than 30 Amps. At some point in the future I plan on doing a stress test to see how the truck responds to a full load on the inverter and simultaneously charging the batteries.
For some more pictures, feel free to go here.