khorse said:
To me there's no point in a seperate lighting battery because you can always wire a switch to turn accessories off separately from the motor. That's what I did.
Oh, i have that, too. But that doesn't help if the motor runs the traction pack down to zero, and you still need lights.
That's part of why I have a separate lighting pack. The other reason is that I don't have a DC-DC that handles the turn-on surge for the halogen headlight very well, and on my previous bike I also had car horns (which will probably someday get moved to the trike) that take a lot of current, more than the DC-DCs I've had can handle even without the headlight on.
It's a lot more convenient to know everything charges off one cable.
Sure; but in my case everything *could* charge off one cable if I mounted the lighting pack charger on the trike like I have the traction pack charger--just plug in the AC cord and walk away, like I do now for the traction pack. The only reason I haven't done that is I use that charger (Satiator) for other purposes as well, and don't presently have anything else other than a basic RC charger that will charge the lighting pack. (I did do this for a short time and it worked well; am probably going to do it again soon as I don't often need the Satiator for something else).
What I'm wiring up next is a relay on the ignition switch so that the lights can't work when the motor is off.
What I have is a main traction battery cutoff switch, which when switched off completely cuts the power to controllers, CA, etc., as well as the small DC-DC that powers an automotive relay which passes power from the lighting battery to the lights/etc. (I also use automotive relays to control the headlight power, etc., so I can use small switches and very very small wires in the control cable, as they dont' have to pass significant current).
There is a bypass for this, in case the traction battery runs out, (or has some other failure) to keep the lights on.