When you don’t want to drain out your primary battery, the isolator is a great tool to prevent breakdowns which can be easily avoided. The load that you would use up will help in deciding which kind of battery isolator you would want. There is a certain amount of load that an isolator can handle and not more and when you out to buy, the capacity of your power needs must be evaluated. The number of batteries your isolator must support should be accounted for.
The right isolator
If the isolator must handle many batteries, then they would have to be connected serially. The lesser the number of links the better the power will be. If the installation must be done right so you better choose one that can be easily fitted. There are two kinds of isolators that are presently available in the market for your use, they are
- Diode battery isolators
- Solenoid battery isolators
The former will have two high current t diodes in a heat sink which lasts for avery long time. But you will experience a voltage loss, which is not pleasing as it is crucial for the alternative batteries to be completely charged and the loss would mean that they won’t be fully charged, and they would take more time to charge too. Whereas the latter allows for full voltage to pass through to the batteries to be charged. Since there is no voltage loss all the power is used to charge the batteries and they get charged fully. But the reliability of this isolator is not great, and it has to replaced.
You can install a second battery when your power needs go up, but you still have to connect it to the isolator. The isolators allow the use a common charging source. But they can allow the independent function of discharging the power to the required batteries when needed. when you go for buying a battery isolator you will have to check how much are your power needs, the number of alternators you have and how many batteries are charged to the system. It not only splits the current into multiple outlets but does not to allow all the power to be used up.