Ultimate Off-Road Utility Light and Power Station

Very cool project!

Could this be adapted to also serve as a battery jump box?

 

This was discussed earlier in the thread, but the short answer is no.

 

correct.

to summaraze what I posted on a previous page, with the batteries used, you don't have the CCA to directly start a vehicle, and you do not have the capacity to bring a dead battery's voltage up high enough by letting them sit and equalize.

The only way (that i can come up with) that you will get a unit of this size to function as a jump box is to use a very high end (high output) car audio battery.

 

I used anti-gravity batteries for bikes and also have the micro-starter jumper for my taco. These things way next to nothing. less than 5lbs for some serious CCA 360-720 depending on which model you buy.

http://www.motocorsaitaliano.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=21&products_id=193

 

they don't state on there what the battery capacity is. do you recall the amp hour rating for one of those?

the potental downside is that even if they have the discharge rate needed to start a vehicle, they may not have a huge capacity, meiang it you were to use it to run lights, you may onyl get an hour or two. if that is the case, you'd have to run 3 or 4 of them to get the durations that the sealed Lead Acids get. and then your $450-$600 deep into batteries.

however, if they have a decent capacity, that's a great way to go.

 

I did some experimenting with the batteries in series this evening. The spot light I chose will operate on up to 30V so I wanted to see what the output was. I placed the box in as close to complete darkness as I could and aimed the light at the door which was about two feet away. I used an ap on my iphone to measure the LUX output. I placed the phone against the wall in the center of the beam for each test. Here are the results.

12V - 531 LUX
24V - 838 LUX
36V - 941 LUX (just cause!)

I won't try to go into lumens here, but you can see the increase in the lux with the varying voltages. With the batteries in series I will only get the run time of one though. For my purposes it's probably better to go with the longer run time than the slight increase in light output. If I really need to light things up I'll just flip on the HID's on the truck.

 

Done!

 

I used my setup extensively this weekend. I was able to run the amp for about 10 hours and ran the lights at night for two hours. The batteries still have a good charge. I did have to charge the bluetooth receiver though.

I was running crew for my companies MS150 team. My role was to set up a rest stop on both days. I played music for the 13,000 riders that went past me both days. I did realize that I need something with more punch, so I'm looking at building a second box that is dedicated to music. Here's whats going into the box.

Pyle 8" marine subwoofer



Pyle 6.5" two way marine speakers



Bass blockers for the 6.5" speakers



Pyle 800W 4 way amplifier with 3.5mm stereo input



The next step is to find the right ammo box to put all of this in. I plan to bridge the rear speaker outputs from the amp to run the sub. So far all of the speakers will be in the same air space, anyone think I should separate them?

Stay tuned.

 

SMKYTXN offered up a cool little trick while we were camping this weekend. if you shine a light up at the inside of an easy-up, it reflects back down nicely, illuminating the area around and under it. tried it with my light box. the only light sourse in this picture (taken with a cell phone), is the light box. fantastic way to light up your entire campsite.

 

sub. i want to do something kinda like nathan did but maybe just 1 speaker idk yet, just saw him post in live.

I got a 40mm ammo can sitting around i can use.

 

For protection from a shorted battery, I would fuse each individual pack with a resettable breaker.
A 10a breaker on each battery will prevent overheating and still allow 30a total to flow to the outlet.

 

Sweet

 

if you're doing the stereo version, the larger the box the better.

If i were selling these, i may do something like that, but it's pretty overkill for me. that'd be like saying all 3 wires coming off of the battery in your tacoma (i think that's how many a stock tacoma has?) should each have their own breakers, as close to the battery post as possible.

 

I think one would be just fine, but big enough to handle the average load you pull from it or it will keep going off.

 

i agree. i don't plan on pulling high amps out of it either, so since any over amping/shorting will be rare, if ever, a 30A fuse is probably the better (and more economical) option to a breaker.

 

They do, except for the starter cable.
They're called fusible links.... it's a short section of wire that is a smaller gauge that is designed to burn out before the harness is damaged.
They are located as close as practical to the power source, and generally in a location where they will not burn anything else, and where the burned insulation and exposed wire will not short against the chassis or engine.

 

Ya, it's going to be fine for the most part.
Generally, when SLA batteries fail, they just start dropping capacity. When they short a cell, it's normally only one cell, so the bad battery will continually drain the good batteries and will only show as minor swelling of the case.
It's an outside possibility... there's even some traffic signal equipment that runs SLA packs in parallel (the system my city uses runs 6 in series for a 72v system and avoids the issue completely).

Overkill would be full diode isolation on both the charging and discharging circuits

 

Tossed together a stereo box for this past weekend. had most of the parts laying around already, just need a reason (river tubing) to get it done.

Lepai amp, same as what nathan used in his, paired with a bluetooth reciever. used 3 more of the same batteries as the light box has. Been very happy with the infinitys in the truck, so i got some of their waterproof speakers for this.

played music from the phone, which is waterproof, so even while i'm swimming in the river, i never have to open the stereo box and expose anyhting sensitive to water


the innards. still plenty of space to toss a charger in there, or even the source for the music, if it's a regular phone or ipod, that has to stay dry.



Here's the Lepai amp and the small bluetooth reciever. bluetooth reviever runs off of 5 volts, so i had to take apart a usb car charger and solder some wires to it for the 12v in and 5v out. it does have it's own battery, but i don't want to have to worry about charging it and the 12v batteris, so not it just runs off of main batteries. so as long as they have a charge, so with the bluetooth unit.




used the same style box that was used for the light/charging station, just a larger version, so they actually snap together very nicely. should be a good setup for around camp, or in the garage.



and here she is, out in the wild yesterday. it was actually knocked into the water, off of the cooler once, so it's waterproofnees was tested right away.

 

that's a nice project!!!!

Glad it turned out as it should be: waterproof!

 

I'm just glad it was tied to the cooler, since it sinks like a rock with those batteries in it