The Digital 400 comes with clamp on and wire-on leads. The wire-on leads are really handy for using the charger as a maintenance charger for stored vehicles. The charger has reverse polarity protection so nothing bad will happen if you accidentally hook things up backwards, something that all of us have done in our lives before.
When attaching the Digital 400 charger it first analyzes your battery’s condition, state of charge, and connection quality. Then it decides what charging strategy is best for the battery. The charger can do a soft charge for deeply discharged batteries, fast charge, normal charging, recondition mode for a sulfated battery, and auto maintenance and auto recondition for long term storage. It will automatically apply any of these modes or a combination of them to provide a complete and safe charge.
The first step in restoring power to our trailer is to get at the old battery. This meant moving a bunch of tools and spare parts that had been accumulating in the trailer’s box. It was time to clean it out anyway! Next, we removed the lid to our battery box.
Our old battery was a conventional deep cycle and it had actually done a bang-up job for 10 years of neglect and abuse before giving up the ghost for good. We had a trailer accident where a wire got pinched in our folding tongue causing a big short and a minor cooking wires electrical fire. This was the beginning of the end for the battery.
The trailer used the deep cycle batteries accessory terminals. Good thing we had ordered the deep cycle Blue top D34M with identical terminals.
Ok, everything is detached. Time for our new battery!
6 comments
Because you have two batteries, being charged with the alternator, did you also use a battery isolator? Where it automatically switches between batteries at a pre-determined low voltage? They seem great in theory, cheap too, but I never see a mention of it, so I’m not sure of the real world limitations/issues/shortcomings….
Here is an example of one : https://nvx.com/nvx-xsbi200.html there are higher rated ones and lower rated ones, and I’m sure dozens of other brands too.
I think the truck doesn’t draw high amperage current from the trailer so the OEM wiring must already isolate the battery from supplying the truck, although the truck does charge the trailer battery.
Not really a concern unless they’re permanently mounted together, like in a diesel pickup or RV. Occasionally hooked up overnight for a weekend? Meh.
I have a drag car with no charging system. I have a red top that is 12 years old still working perfect, I charge between runs with a regular battery charger at 30 amp sitting. I have a electric fan and water pump when it finally dies do you recommend blue top or other set up. Thanks
Your car is a perfect candidate for a dual-use deep cycle battery like this. The only disadvantage is that it weighs a couple of pounds more in the same size.
do you have motorcycle batteries?