Bongo Fury

People,

Last year on here, I found brilliant instructions on how to wire up a leisure battery, but I've searched today and can't find them.

I've finally found a guy who's prepared to have a go at it, but wants to know what I want to run off it and says it could be a big job to wire up the internal cig lighters, lights and radio..

The leisure battery finally got installed last Sept, and am determined to get it wired before Big Chill and 3 weeks in Scotland in summer.

Can anyone link me to the wiring page, or give me an idea of how many hours it should take a qualified autoelectrician to wire it up? I seem to remember 'Mike'? saying it wasn't a huge job.. was that just fitting a split charge?? Is it a much bigger job to wire up various things to it?

Don't shoot me, I did a search and there were pages upon pages but nothing with the instructions on.

Thanks you lovely people

And there's this one: http://www.igmaynard.co.uk/bongo/forum/ ... &sk=t&sd=a

Thanks fellas, much appreciated.

Yes Pippin, I remember the name now.. it was yours I was after.

Many thanks, you're a helpful lot on here

Just one more thing, how do you people get individual page links?

I'd like to email my autoelectrician the links to corblimey and pippins instructionals, but it doesn't matter what page I'm on, the url up there stays as bongofury.co.uk

And I can't copy the link posted as only part of it's on the page..

Do it the easy way, just buy a complete Relay/fuse/wiring kit off member "willinton" (that is correct spelling BTW) who advertises them on ebay.

They are easy to fit (you don't really need the leccy) and contain absolutely everything you (or he) will need and no need to cut so much as a single wire.

http://www.igmaynard.co.uk/bongo/forum/ ... on#p190283

He's got none advertised ATM so email him and ask when one will be available.

To send a page link (well in Firefox anyway) just, when in the page, click on "File" then "Send link" and a new email will open with the link already pasted in it.

Did a long piece, failed to notice (again) the someone else has posted warning, it dumped it. Oh well. Anyone else keep falling down this hole?

mikeonb4c wrote:Did a long piece, failed to notice (again) the someone else has posted warning, it dumped it. Oh well. Anyone else keep falling down this hole?

Only once

francophile1947 wrote:

mikeonb4c wrote:Did a long piece, failed to notice (again) the someone else has posted warning, it dumped it. Oh well. Anyone else keep falling down this hole?

Only once

Its driving me barmy. It does it in a most unhlepful way, you don't know when its going to do it, you know with hindsight what you SHOULD have done but by then its too late. Lousy piece of software design even though the idea is a good one (though I rarely change what I've written just cos someone else has posted). I'd suggest switching the feature off but thats just me.

Apologies for wandering off thread Kitegirl. Maybe I was the Mike who said LB installation was easy, which it is thanks to work by corblimey. Similarly remapping devices via fusebox, thanks to pippin. You can do the latter without snipping wires if - like me - you have the snip. Corblimey did it by adapting spade fuses and ebay vendor/Bongo owner Willinton does from time to time put kits together on ebay that also do the job.

Control+A then Control+C (for insurance) then Submit - every time folks, every time, or risk losing your hard work. If it loses it, Control+V to paste the stuff back in to a blank form

rawcomponants on ebay do a split kit.
dee it could have been me with the help before, never did get the chance to fit it for u up at fraizy. assumed you had got it done before u went to scotland.

Can you please tell me...

These 'split kits'... am I right in thinking they simply make it so that you can use the power of the leisure battery instead of the main? Is that really all I need?

Do I not have to have my internal lights, cig lighters etc all wired up to it?

Do I need a switch installing, otherwise how do I flick it over to the leisure?

Sorry to sound dumb here people, but am no mechanic, some of the info given appears to be regarding splitting the charge, and some appears to be about rewiring the fuse box... am confused as to how much I need doing to simply be able to run things like the cool box and laptop off the lighter thing.. don't want to go to any additional bother I dont have to, but don't want to get on my hols and run both batteries down by accident!

Thanks again, and yes Mike, I recognise the pic, it was you that offered advice initially

the 'split' bit refers to the fact that the vehicle alternator - the source for charging the 12v car battery and a leisure battery too if fitted - can be persuaded to split its efforts across both batteries. The clever little component that enables this is called a Voltage Sensing Relay (VSR). A relay is a device that has a 'big' switch that handle switching a lot of power through it and it has a 'little' switch that switches the big switch on and off. The little switch only needs a tiny amount of power to power it so allows yolu to use tiddly wiring and switch on the dashboard even though you need to switch on and off something very powerful.

Now imagine your starter battery is a bucket that holds water. The 'voltage sensing' capability of a VSR allows it to use a little switch that can detect when the car battery (bucket) is full of electricity (water) and then switch the charging power from the alternator over to top up the other (leisure) battery. In practice, the car battery only needs a quick top up and the device very quickly passes charging to the leisure battery. Another way it may work (I'm never sure which applies) is that it senses which battery (bucket) is the most empty and switches charging power to that first. But it amounts to the same thing.

Hope this helps and that I've explained it right. If I've not, someone will shoot me down shortly!

As regards what draws power form the leisure battery, the answer is nothing unless you make arrangements for that to happen by attaching (or rewiring existing) devices to run from it. The simplest thing you could do would be to buy a 3 socket ciggie lighter and connect it to the lesire battery (probably by extending the wiring). Ive done this and the 3 socket thing is mounted on the rear face of the centre console. Make sure the wiring is sufficiently rate, and protected by a fuse (unless the 3 ciggie thing has its own built in fuse protection). Another simple thing (which I've also done - surprise!) is to attach an inverter so you can have 240v for the laptop (although a suitable power adaptor that will run it off a 12v socket is probably more energy efficient as an inverter uses some power just to run itself, however I get fed up with endles transformer packs all round the house and car).

Right, that's brilliant, I'll forward all this info and see what my man says.

I don't suppose anyone who knows the ins and outs of all this leisure battery malarkey would be prepared to PM their phone number, in case he has any questions and I could ask him just to ring you direct, saving a whole lorra time?

Would really appreciate it chaps, I'll have this leisure battery working if it's the last thing I do!

That is why I suggested the "willinton" kit as it does it all for you without cuttingany wires/

It connects the two batteries together via the relay Mike mentioned it then connects the leisure battery to the fuse box AND rewires the fuse box so the internal lights and the sockets work only from the leisure battery.

The relay allows the leisure battery to be charged once there is surplus voltage at the main battery and automatically disconnects the two when the engine is stopped.

It is also stupendously easy to fit - anybody who can see and read could do it.