Battery disconnects

[Goofyexponent]

I was reading another thread and seen FordGuy100's idea on battery disconects and I remembered an idea I had the other day while in the "little boy's room" lol

I have a mod done that has a piece of 1/0 battery cable going to the Glow Plug Relay. This supplies power to the GP's.

In the event that I want to use ether to start for some reason, I would like to have a disconnect on this wire to be sure my GP's aren't powered.

Where would I get a decent disconnect for such small wire? I want to mount it permanently to the inner passenger fender.

Anyone else have something like this done?

 

[yARIC008]

I also am looking for a disconnect switch soon. We used to have a boat that had dual batteries. It had a big orange switch that you could turn and it would enable battery 1, battery 2, both, or off. Seems like it must have been pretty heavy duty... Have no idea who made it though or where to find it. I'm guessing a boat store.

 

[jim x 3]

Goof:

If you have a large 1/0 power wire (always hot) going to the GPC, you don't need to switch it to defeat the glow function.

You can defeat the GPC by removing power to the R/LG small (14AWG) primary wire connected to the GPC. This supplies power to the GPC when key is in RUN or START.

I suspect you can also defeat the GPC by isolating it from ground by opening the white ground wire.

Regards,

 

[Dsl_Dog_Treat]

The white wire with black tracer would be the GPC wire to toggle. It has a small amp draw so a standard toggle switch would work.
As far as battery disconnects go, an old firetruck could have a useful donor for a disconnect switch. All of our departments trucks run dual battery banks with a single switch. Problem is I can't remember the manufacturers name right off hand. Cole Herse?????

 

[u2slow]

Blue Sea Systems makes some nice stuff. I used some of this stuff in my van for my battery and inverter setup.

mini battery (or load) switch
http://bluesea.com/category/1/productline/2

manually operable circuit breaker up to 150A
http://bluesea.com/category/3/10/productline/overview/174

 

[93turbo_animal]

Jc whitney has battery disconnects for a good price and even locking ones if you want

 

[OLDBULL8]

Harbor Freight has these. I've got a half dozen like in the lower left corner. Use one on 2/0 cable for my jumper cable setup. http://www.harborfreight.com/catalogsearch/result?category=&q=battery+switch
I would send you one but it costs $5 to send it.

RV stores carry battery disconnects also.

 

[LCAM-01XA]

You can defeat the GPC by removing power to the R/LG small (14AWG) primary wire connected to the GPC. This supplies power to the GPC when key is in RUN or START.

NO! Do NOT touch that wire! Not it alone that is - I made that mistake, pulled the power off the controller thinking it will disable it - well it disabled it alright, and the darn thing defaulted to grounding the GPR full time, this will burn your plugs in a little over 30 seconds and the only way to stop it from happening is to turn the ignition off. I have my WTS light wired to the relay directly, so it tells me when the relay is triggered (no matter what triggers it), you can imagine my surprise when I turned the ignition on and the WTS light came on even tho the controller is powered off - if I did ot have my WTS light rewired it would not have come on, and I would have lost all plugs and not even know it till it was time to fire her up next day.

Your other idea is the correct one, removing the white wire from the GPR cuts the controller's control over it - I first did this in addition to removing the red wire that powers the controller, then a day or two later went in with the wire snips and cut all of the factory GPC wiring - so right now the controller is nothing more than a mount for the GPR and the resistor strip that brings voltage down from battery level to whatever the plugs like, 8-9V IIRC. As you probably guessed, I do have a manual switch to ground the GPR trigger and glow the plugs for as long or as often as I please.

 

[u2slow]

I can't speak for Harbor Freight and JC Whitney's product (haven't used them).

I do like Blue Sea's products because they are high quality and marine grade.

 

[jim x 3]

NO! Do NOT touch that wire! Not it alone that is - I made that mistake, pulled the power off the controller thinking it will disable it - well it disabled it alright, and the darn thing defaulted to grounding the GPR full time, this will burn your plugs in a little over 30 seconds and the only way to stop it from happening is to turn the ignition off. I have my WTS light wired to the relay directly, so it tells me when the relay is triggered (no matter what triggers it), you can imagine my surprise when I turned the ignition on and the WTS light came on even tho the controller is powered off - if I did ot have my WTS light rewired it would not have come on, and I would have lost all plugs and not even know it till it was time to fire her up next day.

Your other idea is the correct one, removing the white wire from the GPR cuts the controller's control over it - I first did this in addition to removing the red wire that powers the controller, then a day or two later went in with the wire snips and cut all of the factory GPC wiring - so right now the controller is nothing more than a mount for the GPR and the resistor strip that brings voltage down from battery level to whatever the plugs like, 8-9V IIRC. As you probably guessed, I do have a manual switch to ground the GPR trigger and glow the plugs for as long or as often as I please.

Well, I guess the consensus is to switch the ground side (which may be easier since the switched power connection also powers other stuff (the FSS, CTA, and FIS, for example)).

Whenever you make an electrical modification, you need to test for proper function.

Just to clarify, I'm calling the entire controller/relay assembly the GPC. LCAM seems to make a distinction between GPC (the controller?) and GPR (the relay part?).

I can confirm on my 1988 w/ 7.3 glow system that removing the red/LG switched power wire entirely from the GPC assembly will disable the glow function - no relay action and no voltage to the GPs. So either LCAM perhaps instead removed the red wire from top to bottom of the GPC assembly or his system is different than mine.

Regards,

 

[yARIC008]

Blue Sea Systems makes some nice stuff. I used some of this stuff in my van for my battery and inverter setup.

mini battery (or load) switch
http://bluesea.com/category/1/productline/2

manually operable circuit breaker up to 150A
http://bluesea.com/category/3/10/productline/overview/174

Guess i'm just being stupid here and missing something, but what would we want for our trucks? If you have two 1100 CCA batteries isn't that 2200 amps? That just doesn't seem right though, a 2200 amp switch would be gigantic.

 

[MIDNIGHT RIDER]

The leaders of the pack when it comes to battery switches are COLE-HERSEE and PERKO(the big RED or ORANGE ones).

I have a couple of both brands, rated for something like 250-ampere constant, 500-ampere surge.

But, the internals and contacts of these are more massive than those in most diesel starters, so I figure they are quite up to the task of battery switching.

So long as they are rated higher than the alternator output, I think they will work fine.

 

[93turbo_animal]

Guess i'm just being stupid here and missing something, but what would we want for our trucks? If you have two 1100 CCA batteries isn't that 2200 amps? That just doesn't seem right though, a 2200 amp switch would be gigantic.

actually you are right and to do it right you should either have one big enough or run it thru 2. However for the glow plugs your never gonna draw that many amps so you just need one bigger then what the glow plugs draw

Also Jc whitney has cole hersee

 

[LCAM-01XA]

Just to clarify, I'm calling the entire controller/relay assembly the GPC. LCAM seems to make a distinction between GPC (the controller?) and GPR (the relay part?).

Yes, GPR is the relay itself, and GPC is the controller for it (the black electronic box the relay sits on). They are separate parts, at least the relay can be replaced on its own, so I call them by two separate terms.

I can confirm on my 1988 w/ 7.3 glow system that removing the red/LG switched power wire entirely from the GPC assembly will disable the glow function - no relay action and no voltage to the GPs. So either LCAM perhaps instead removed the red wire from top to bottom of the GPC assembly or his system is different than mine.

My system is the same, what I removed was the red wire that runs between the relay and the controller - basically I kept the red harness wire that powers the relay trigger circuit, and pulled the other red one that taps off that and powers the controller itself. I was going for disabling the controller only, while retaining power to the relay's trigger circuit. If instead one disconnects the white wire from the relay, then no further wire removal is necessary.

 

[dyoung14]

The way i did glow plugs on my 86 i took a 7.3 engine harnes and cut all the wires out of it except the ones for the glow plugs and the controller and relay, then i hooked the too yellow wire to straight hot, the red wire to a swithced 12V my choice was the timing advance so i tapped into that as there is no need for the plugs to be on if the engine is warm enough that the advance is kicked off, then the black wire to ground, worked flwlessly just like it was supose to off of the switch