I don't know beans about millitary vehicles yet... but having a 4500 watt
sound system in a honda crx and doing it all, including the 400 amp
charging system qualifies me for this :)
if i understand you correctly, you have a 100 amp generator in this rig?
and a starting battery and a deep cycle.
the rules i was taught to go by are as follows:
generators do not charge at idle.
generators do not charge woth beans into an isolator if the batteries are
different.
deep cycles are nice for lights and such, but won't dump enough current
fast enough to do high end car audio, heavy winching, starting, etc. and
these applications will ruin them in a hurry. in the case of radio
equipment, they'll drive low end stuff fine (like a cb) but they won't
drive same cb with a 10,000 watt linear behind it as well as a starting
battery will because of the current demands.
assuming you have a common ground for both batteries, and an isolator that
controls which battery receives what juice, my guess is that eithier a)
your isolator can't deal with the deep cycle, or b) the sensing wires to
tell the isolator which battery is full are corroded, etc.
this is what i would check, in this order.
1) engine to chassis ground wire and connections (my crx has 2 zero gauge
ones)
2) battery terminal connection for starter / accessories / gen
3) battery to chassis ground (this can be to the engine block, but the
engine chassis and battery - terminal must be tied together somehow)
4) check your generator brushes / current output at cruising rpm.
short trips at idle in stop and go traffic with all the gear running is
going to be a bit of an effort for a generator to keep up with anyway...
even a big one.
if none of the above work, try replacing the deep cycle with a starting
battery and drive it for a while and see what happens.. good money says
you'll be fine. we had so much problems with this in a couple of our demo
rigs that we ended up using a relay so the deep cycles would charge while
it was running and disconnect completeley when the rig was turned off.
otherwise the deep cycles would charge the starting battery and discharge
themselves...
my rig is running 2 200 amp critical mass alternators and 4 optima 800
batteries, and i left the stock alternator and battery in there so the
sound system is totally seperate... this was because the current draw at
"to the rails" would kill the car because the draw would leave nothing left
for the electronic ignition :/
if this is a daily stop and go driver you might drop the pulley size on
your generator down one size....
depending on what kind of current it produces at idle...
enjoy :)
-dd
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