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Old 12-27-2016, 05:06 PM   #1
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New Van! Just need some electrical help

Hey everyone, just picked up a 2011 Express Van AWD w/ Penthouse Top. Pretty excited about this as it's my first van!

That being said, the previous owner had an auxiliary battery put in that appeared to be causing some issues. Apparently the positive terminal of the aux battery was making contact with the frame and causing the ECM to throw error codes. Thus, the previous owner took out the battery entirely and "tied up" the wiring. This resulted in the speakers, interior led lighting, amp, and inverter to stop working entirely.

After searching around on here and watching some other videos, I think I have a clear indication of what I need to do to fix it, but I just need a little help.

You'll notice in the pictures and wiring diagram below, that currently the Blue Sea ACR is hooked up to the auxiliary battery, but not the starter battery. There don't appear to be any fuses anywhere in the engine bay, so I'm guessing it was previously directly attached to the positive terminal on the starter...is this even possible?

If that was the case, would I be able to connect it back to the positive terminal on the starter battery, reconnect an auxiliary battery (ensuring the positive terminal isn't making contact, and restore power to the interior lights/speakers/amp/inverter?

Thanks for any advice!
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Old 12-28-2016, 07:11 AM   #2
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Yes, you should be able to hook up to the starter battery. I would suspect that is where he had it before, probably without a fuse.

One solution for fusing is a Bluesea MRBF terminal fuse. https://www.bluesea.com/products/519...k_-_30_to_300A


My installation.



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Old 12-28-2016, 08:28 AM   #3
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Greg, thanks for the response!

In a fit of impatience and excitement, I tried hooking the ACR up to the positive terminal on the battery, starting the vehicle, and then testing the other electronics which unfortunately didn't work. I made two assumptions here that I was hoping you could confirm/deny...

1. I assumed that once hooked up to the starter battery, the ACR would recognize that there wasn't a charge coming from the aux battery (as there wasn't one hooked up), and therefore would power the remaining electronics from the starter battery. Since this didn't work, I was lead to believe my 2nd assumption:
2. Whoever did the wiring, wired it so that the speakers, amp, inverter, and lights are all directly powered from an aux battery.

Now if those assumptions are correct, my next thought would be to test the electronics by hooking up a battery in the aux place and reconnecting the ACR to the positive starter battery terminal. For testing purposes, is it okay to use a standard starter battery rather than a deep cycle battery? I'm hoping to test it using a friends car battery before purchasing a deep cycle battery.

Thanks again!
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Old 12-28-2016, 10:19 AM   #4
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Originally Posted by llmeyer09 View Post

For testing purposes, is it okay to use a standard starter battery rather than a deep cycle battery? I'm hoping to test it using a friends car battery before purchasing a deep cycle battery.

Thanks again!
Sure...test away......

...for clarification....do you have an aux battery installed now? Why do you want to replace that with a borrowed battery? Do you know the state of charge (or at least the voltage?) of the presently installed aux battery?

...if the house/aux battery is really low/dead.....the separator won't connect the two batteries together.
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Old 12-28-2016, 10:28 AM   #5
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I suspect that you need a minimal voltage on the house battery side for the ACR to combine the two batteries. So when you started it up the ACR it never combined, was there a status LED wired in? You can use another starting battery to test.

I would say you equipment is wired correctly to the house battery side of things. This way when the van is off the equipment will run off of house battery only, so that your starter will have power to start engine.

the Bluesea 7611 that you have is very similar to the 7610 that others on the forum have.
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Old 12-28-2016, 03:56 PM   #6
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Update: I took the van in to a local battery store to use one of their deep cycle batteries for testing purposes. After reconnecting the ACR and connecting the aux battery, I started my car and still nothing worked. I forgot to wire the positive wire to the inverter (as it had been disconnected) so I rewired that terminal and got power back to the lights. speakers etc. HOWEVER, it was short lived. Not long after I noticed power was up, the inverter started making a loud popping noise and smoking, so I shut everything off and disconnected it all.

I assumed (not the best idea for wiring) the two red wires and one black wire for the aux battery were for the positive and negative terminals of course, so I can't understand what would have caused the inverter to react that way...
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Old 12-28-2016, 04:24 PM   #7
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On my van the inverter taps off the main run from the house battery system to the separator. So with the inverter cut loose it would not make any difference in keeping other 12v systems from operating provided the battery voltages are good. Who makes the inverter? Model?
It does sound like it's toast but can't figure how connecting the inverter makes 12v stuff work.
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Old 12-28-2016, 04:27 PM   #8
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It would be best that you take it to a shop that can do electrical, It is really impossible to really get much from the pictures of you're wiring. So you are really going to have to track down each wire and identify where it goes.

If you listed you're location then someone local to you might offer to look at it.

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Old 12-30-2016, 09:20 AM   #9
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I've since taken it into the shop and am waiting to hear back on the electrical issues. On a side note - does anyone have recommendations for a battery mount?

Thanks,
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Old 12-30-2016, 09:32 AM   #10
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On a side note - does anyone have recommendations for a battery mount?

Thanks,
An under van battery mount? For what size battery?

Chris at U-joint off-road sells a battery mount IIRC.

one more thing on the Blue Sea ACR.....there is a small ground wire that needs to be tied to ground for the ACR to function properly.
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