shermanpm

My Feedback: (17)

I have a Hobbico Field Box with a 12V battery and Hobbico Accu-Glo Power Supply. I need some help in regards to wiring. Can I run the wires from the Powers supply to the battery and then run wire from the battery to banana plugs on the side of the box to use for the exteral wall charger? Will this mess up the power supply if they are soldered together on the battery? This may sound dumb but I just don't want to burn up anything.

piper_chuck

My Feedback: (12)

Look at the back of the power panel. If it's like most others you'll see that the 12V sockets for the starter are connected directly to the battery leads. Rather than wiring a separate set of sockets for charging, I plug the charger into these starter sockets.

danny31292

Charging through the starter plugs works for me

krossk

My Feedback: (27)

Same here...

Now what I'm looking for is a wiring diagram to connect 2 x 12v batteries in series to run my 24v starter, but still allow me to operate a 12v power panel and also charge both batteries in parallel with my 12v charger??? I know that there must be some way to put a switch in to toggle between 12v in parallel and 24v in series - I just haven't been able to figure out what kind of switch and how to connect it.

ag4ever

To get 24 Volt:

Battery 1 - Negative to negative binding post or bannana plug
Battery 1 - Positive to Battery 2 Negative
Battery 2 - Positive to positive binding post or bannana plug

To get 12V on same battery that has the two connected,

Battery 1 positive to the positive power panel and battery 1 negative to the power panel

or

Battery 2 positive to the positive power panel and battery 1 negative to the power panel

or

Battery 1 positive to battery 2 positive to power panel positive and battery 1 negative to battery 2 negative to power panel negative. (This will give you double the amp hours at 12v compaired to just one battery).

All this can be done on the same batteries to get both 12 volts and 24 volts from the same battery bank.

krossk

My Feedback: (27)

I think this might get me what I'm looking for:

rlipsett

Try to put a fuse into the wiring if the battery is not readily accesible in case you have a short then the fuse will blow instead of the wiring burining up and starting a fire.

krossk

My Feedback: (27)

Good idea.
Where should the fuse go to isolate the circuit for all possible shorts?

danny31292

Thats gonna be a heck of a starter at 24 volts. A 12 volt motorcycle battery is enough power for me and has a lot more power that a field box battery.

piper_chuck

My Feedback: (12)

I use 24 volts for my boat engines. In addition to having a few that 12 volts just won't turn over, 24 volts results in much quicker starts even for the ones where 12 volts was enough.

-pkh-

My Feedback: (2)

As already mentioned... you can just charge the battery through the starter jacks on the power panel, but you can also install another jack wired directly to the battery as well. I did this so I could power my charger off of the 12V field box battery (to charge an RX or TX battery) and still be able to use my starter jack to start a plane. I installed a fuse on this additional jack, just in case it got shorted out somehow.

krossk

My Feedback: (27)

I use a Sullivan Dynatron that works on both 12 and 24 volts. 12 is fine for my smaller engines, but I think I'll need a bit more for a 1.50-4C.

piper_chuck

My Feedback: (12)

Yup, my 24 volt starter is a Dynatron too.

I drew up a diagram to allow 12 and 24 volts without a switch. This is something I need to wire up eventually, so it was worth spending a few minutes on. While this doesn't allow charging both batteries at the same time, I like being able to monitor the state of each battery.

I know it could be done with just one black jack off of battery 2. It also could be done with just two sets of jacks, using the left most + and the right most - would give 24 volts, but for simplicity of operation I thought having dedicated sets of 12 and 24 volt jacks made sense. What do you think?

krossk

My Feedback: (27)

It looks like you've effectively accomplished with jacks what the DPDT switch in my drawing accomplishes.
By having 2 sets of jacks, you could implement the switch with jumpers.
1+ to 2- = 24V using 1- and 2+
1+ to 2+ and 1- to 2- = 12V parallel

BTW - My Dynatron is left over from my boating days as well. Nothing else even comes close for marine engines!

bruce88123

krossk - your drawing doesn't have "connection indicator" dots so I can't be absolutely sure where you are trying to make connections and where wires simply cross each other in your drawing. One thing I can say though is that you will NEVER get 24 v out of your present drawing in post #6. The MOST that drawing does is parallel the 2 batteries for high amp 12 volt service.

EDIT: Oh, I see what you are trying to do now. Again your lack of connection indicators confused me. Your red and black balls are supposed to represent UNLABLED jacks. And you had me assuming wrongly that you were trying to get 24 volts to the power panel. Tsk-tsk, poor drafting.

krossk

My Feedback: (27)

There are no "overpasses" - anything that intersects is a connection.
The attached pic shows 24V when the switch is moved to the position represented by the purple lines.

bruce88123

see my edit above

krossk

My Feedback: (27)

That's why I write software instead[sm=bananahead.gif] (here we go with the hat again...)
Besides, I haven't found a smoke-powered panel that doesn't leak on 24V!

I just wanted to avoid needing a separate charger or twice as long to charge it, but still have 24V available for larger engines.

rlipsett

put fuses on the negative leads to both batteries to be sure. Starters require hi amperage so don't go too low on the fuses