# Electric Issue When Plowing



## famouslee99gt (Nov 6, 2006)

I have a Meyer ST 7.5 on my '99 Chevy 1500. I have had the issue when going to raise the plow, it will draw a lot of power, sometimes killing the radio. I am debating on adding strobes before this winter, but I'm not so sure with my power issue. I know a larger alternator would benefit me. I have heard of someone putting a capacitor on their truck before and that helped and just remaining with the original alternator. Does anyone have any inputs?


----------



## SnoFarmer (Oct 15, 2004)

First clean all of your electrical contacts/ plugs/ grounds/ Positive/ and all of the cables all the way from the ALT to the plugs for the plow and the connections to the plows electrical connection on the motor, next have your battery load tested.

What size is your Batt. have you replaced it lately


----------



## swa136 (Oct 5, 2006)

Do you have the snow plow prep package? If not, you'll want the higher amp alternator that comes with it. Snofarmer's on the mark with the connections, and the battery. Get the highest CCA battery that will fit in your truck, it's worth the extra bucks!:salute:


----------



## famouslee99gt (Nov 6, 2006)

Last summer, a couple months prior to even buying a plow, I had replaced the battery, with one actually smaller than what is supposed to be in there. At that time, I had no intentions of plowing. I'm going to look into a larger battery and possibly search for an higher output amp


----------



## SnoFarmer (Oct 15, 2004)

Unless you are plowing lots or have a lot of drives right next to each other the stock alt will work just fine. Especially for personal use.

If you plan on plowing a lot then after you clean your connections and get a larger Batt ,
then I would look into getting a larger ALT.

All you may need is a bigger batt, try to get a 900cca or a 1000cca Batt.


----------



## famouslee99gt (Nov 6, 2006)

I asked our battery at supplier what the biggest battery was that would fit into my truck, and they made the suggestion of running a dual battery setup. They say that putting a bigger battery into will only temporarily fix the problem, pretty much be putting a bandaid on the issue. I can get a diesel aux batt tray for approx. $20, an isolator for $35, and then a battery for $65-70 and then misc wiring. Then I will just continue to use the stock alt.


----------



## SnoFarmer (Oct 15, 2004)

Sounds good but ditch the isolator that is for a camper.
You would still only have one batt powering your plow
I run Dual batts a lot of guys on hear do also.
You can do a search on duel batteries....
you will get a lot of returns...


This way your plow will have more than enough available amps to make it work effortlessly and your lights will not dim.

She will start easily on cold mornings with the duel batts( with out the isolator)


----------



## Tuxx (Sep 11, 2007)

I plowed 20 yrs with dual batts,I built a truck just for plowing to fix all the stuff that is wrong.I had 2 optima batts,isolator,0 gauge welding cable,140 amp alt.I also had a meyer plow,1 batt was for the truck,1 batt was for the plow.I used this truck for 8 seasons and never had a issue with anything electrical. Good luck.


----------



## T-MAN (Jan 9, 2001)

Think of your battery's as stored power. Do I need to save one ? No not for a plow truck, Isolator's do this. Duals hard wired together gives you the capacity you need for short bursts, then the alt. recharges/catches up because you have extra capacity. One battery gets run down much quicker then two. A plow motor or salt spreader is not a trolling motor that runs continuous, that you need to isolate so you can still start your motor. 
All diesel trucks come with duals with no isolator, so you get maxium power for a short burst. You dont need to save one just in case.
If you do put duals in make sure there both the same battery, preferably both new. Your setup will only be as good as your weakest battery other wise. One will drain the other down if it is smaller or older.


----------



## SnoFarmer (Oct 15, 2004)

Take a look, just-me explains it fairly well.
http://www.plowsite.com/showthread.php?t=28376&highlight=duel+batteries


----------



## MickiRig1 (Dec 5, 2003)

You can buy off the shelf alternators to fix the problem. Most alternators put out 1/3 of their rating at near idle. A place plow trucks live at. _Headlights 14 amps, beacon 5 amps,heat 5 amps, cell phone 1 amp, soon your on the negative side of the system_.
Put the biggest battery you can in and upgrade the alternator. You will need to upgrade the wires from the alternator to the battery when you upgrade the amps. It's a beat to death question. Do a search on the gray line above. It has many post's you can read.


----------



## Philbilly2 (Aug 25, 2007)

I run 3 batterys on my truck. I have a diesel so I started with 2, then I added one more in the bed. Now my headlights don't even flicker when I hit the plow controler. 

Think of it this way. You have a pump and a storage tank. The pump(alternator) replaces the water(power) to the tank(battery) at a rate of 10 gallons a minute. But when you open the bottom of the tank(move your plow) the water flows out at 25 gallons a minute. The more tanks you have or the bigger your tanks are, the less problems you will have draining them before the can be refilled.

Skip the Capacitor. just through in another battery.


----------



## famouslee99gt (Nov 6, 2006)

I was looking under the hood last night, and on the diesels, the battery is on the passanger side, up against the firewall and fender. I measured my battery, and I'm not thinking it'll fit so easy, because I have a brace on the side that connects between the firewall and the fender. Anybody know of any solutions or have any pictures.


----------



## SnoFarmer (Oct 15, 2004)

famouslee99gt;404416 said:


> I have a Meyer ST 7.5 on my '99 Chevy 1500. I have had the issue when going to raise the plow, it will draw a lot of power, sometimes killing the radio. I am debating on adding strobes before this winter, but I'm not so sure with my power issue. I know a larger alternator would benefit me. I have heard of someone putting a capacitor on their truck before and that helped and just remaining with the original alternator. Does anyone have any inputs?





famouslee99gt;404426 said:


> Last summer, a couple months prior to even buying a plow, I had replaced the battery, with one actually smaller than what is supposed to be in there. At that time, I had no intentions of plowing. I'm going to look into a larger battery and possibly search for an higher output amp





famouslee99gt;404455 said:


> I asked our battery at supplier what the biggest battery was that would fit into my truck, and they made the suggestion of running a dual battery setup. They say that putting a bigger battery into will only temporarily fix the problem, pretty much be putting a bandaid on the issue. I can get a diesel aux batt tray for approx. $20, an isolator for $35, and then a battery for $65-70 and then misc wiring. Then I will just continue to use the stock alt.





famouslee99gt;404730 said:


> I was looking under the hood last night, and on the diesels, the battery is on the passanger side, up against the firewall and fender. I measured my battery, and I'm not thinking it'll fit so easy, because I have a brace on the side that connects between the firewall and the fender. Anybody know of any solutions or have any pictures.


What truck are you talking about now?
In your first post you have a "'99 Chevy 1500." now it is a diesel?

On your diesel?
Does the plow draw power from both batts?
If so, you need to clean your connections and have your batts load tested.


----------



## yamaguy (Aug 26, 2007)

Snofarmer, He said he was looking under the hood last night. On the diesel trucks the battery is by the firewall, but on his truck (99' 1500) there is a brace there. He didn't say has a diesel. Look it's your favorite face   JK


----------



## SnoFarmer (Oct 15, 2004)

yamaguy;404738 said:


> Snofarmer, He said he was looking under the hood last night. On the diesel trucks the battery is by the firewall, but on his truck (99' 1500) there is a brace there. He didn't say has a diesel. Look it's your favorite face  JK


 Thanks, I was up past my bed time last night 
Never mind

An early morring too...

I bet the aux tray will replace the brace.


----------



## famouslee99gt (Nov 6, 2006)

I did some more research, and another guy that had done the dual battery setup had a picture. You do have to remove the brace for the battery to fit.


----------



## B&B (Nov 4, 2006)

famouslee99gt;404730 said:


> I was looking under the hood last night, and on the diesels, the battery is on the passanger side, up against the firewall and fender. I measured my battery, and I'm not thinking it'll fit so easy, because I have a brace on the side that connects between the firewall and the fender. Anybody know of any solutions or have any pictures.


Just remove the fender brace to add more room. If you look at a factory equipped duel battery GM, you'll see that that's exactly what GM did too...


----------



## Philbilly2 (Aug 25, 2007)

you can get that battery bracket that is in the duramax diesels from gm. I put one on a '06' 6.0 gas Chevy last winter for a friend. The bracket that you speak of is not there on my diesel truck just like B&B says.

Picture 1 and 2 are what the 2nd battery mounts like on diesels.

Pictures 3 and 4 are my connector for my 3rd battery.

Picture 5 is where on a Chevy you need to connect things that have high draw. The 2 batteries on my truck meet at this junction box, with the alternator wire, and with my setup, my 3rd battery and plow power.


----------



## mike33087 (Feb 9, 2005)

my 03 chevy 2500 hd came stock with two batteries like the diesel setups. i have the plow prep, not sure if that makes a difference.


----------



## B&B (Nov 4, 2006)

mike33087;404891 said:


> my 03 chevy 2500 hd came stock with two batteries like the diesel setups. i have the plow prep, not sure if that makes a difference.


Good point there Mike. The factory duel battery setup could be ordered on any HD's series truck if you wanted it. Not just with a diesel. And the plow prep didn't get you the duel batt. You still had to option it separately.Why GM didn't include it in the Plow prep is still a mystery...


----------



## famouslee99gt (Nov 6, 2006)

I finally got my dual battery system set up about two weeks ago. I hooked the neg to the head where the oil dipstick bracket is mounted, and the pos wire I ran directly to the alt. I still have a huge draw. A friend pointed out to me, while that battery is wired up, I'm most likely not even drawing from it. What would be the most proper way to wire it? Do I need to wire it to the main battery, or do I need to wire my plow to the aux battery?


----------



## ErnieN85 (Mar 16, 2007)

Run a battery cable between the two batteries so you have heavy wire from both batteries to the plow feed point. one wire from the alternator to either is enough for the charging circuit.


----------



## GL&M (Sep 26, 2005)

ErnieN85;466608 said:


> Run a battery cable between the two batteries so you have heavy wire from both batteries to the plow feed point. one wire from the alternator to either is enough for the charging circuit.


Like Ernie said, run POS to POS on your batteries. By going to the alternator you are not getting the combined amps that you need to run your system.


----------



## famouslee99gt (Nov 6, 2006)

What if I removed the aux positive from alternator and connect it at the starter instead? Wouldn't that do the same thing, since thats where the main battery pos is connected as well?


----------



## brian79z (Nov 23, 2007)

I have 2 1000cca batteries onmy truck. Both are wired in parallel (pos to pos) with welding cable, and a heavy gauge wire to the Alt. (150 amp)

With plow lights, Whelen 9000, etc.. I STILL have light dimming issues and at times, stalling.

I'm going to try wiring the plow to it's own battery, instead of having the truck & plow run off the same battery, and using the 2nd battery as a parachute for heavy demand. Hopefully that will work.


----------



## B&B (Nov 4, 2006)

famouslee99gt;466663 said:


> What if I removed the aux positive from alternator and connect it at the starter instead? Wouldn't that do the same thing, since thats where the main battery pos is connected as well?


Having the second battery wired to the alternator isn't a good idea at all.. because your now depending on the small gage alt wire that runs from the alt to the stock battery to complete the circuit between the two batteries..not good.

If you connect it to the starter solenoid like you mentioned, it's not much better as your still depending on the stock cable going to the starter to connect the batteries together...not good as they're not big enough to do the job either.

Leave the pos cable that you ran to the alt on there and run and additional cable from the second to the stock battery. This will tie the batteries together with a good connection and by leaving the cable on the alt, will help get all the power the alt can develop directly to the batteries, rather than depending on the stock small gage charge wire to do the job as the stock charge wire is a weak link on the GM's... it looks like a decent sized wire but it's not enough...and many times, just upgrading this wire alone will help the system deal better with the high amp demands that a plow requires.

You can add all the batteries and alternator power you want but unless it has a good clear path (including grounds) between the alt, batteries, and plow..your leaving a lot of upgrade potential on the table.


----------



## famouslee99gt (Nov 6, 2006)

When people speak of using 'welding cable' for their wiring, what size are they referring to? I was at the hardware store yesterday waiting on my girlfriend and I noticed that they had #4 600 volt welding cable. I would assume that is 4 ga?

When I wired up my aux battery, I had purchased some 1/0 ga on ebay, and me and my brother split it between both of our trucks, but there isn't enough I don't think to run from pos to pos. Since I have 1/0 ga grounding my aux batt to the engine head and the pos to the alt, am I needing 1/0 ga between the batteries as well?


----------



## scottL (Dec 7, 2002)

brian79z;466805 said:


> I have 2 1000cca batteries onmy truck. Both are wired in parallel (pos to pos) with welding cable, and a heavy gauge wire to the Alt. (150 amp)
> 
> With plow lights, Whelen 9000, etc.. I STILL have light dimming issues and at times, stalling.
> 
> I'm going to try wiring the plow to it's own battery, instead of having the truck & plow run off the same battery, and using the 2nd battery as a parachute for heavy demand. Hopefully that will work.


Sounds like you have something else going on. 150 amp alt should be plenty fine. Definitely should not allow the truck to stall. Maybe grounds, bad connector, failing alt, ????


----------

