Portable Battery with Slave cable

[Hoefler]

I have a few trucks that I keep on a parcel of land I own. A few trucks translates into a bunch of batteries. Three of my trucks stay on the land and are not licensed-so I got to thinking...
I have two 5-tons trucks with weak batteries, with another that has 6 year old batteries in it. Given I only run one at a time, I was thinking on mounting a fresh set of batteries on a "skid" that I can use a forklift to move and set onto a "nest".. I would then secure half of a slave cable to the batteries, then plug it into the truck. I would simply leave the weak batteries (11.8 volts or so) still mounted in their normal position.
Has anybody done this?
Pete
opcorn:

 

[JasonS]

The only issue that I can think of is that the slave cable conductors (at least the ones I have seen) are smaller than battery cable conductors and you may have excessive voltage drop if trying to start in cold weather.

 

[rmgill]

Put em on a cart, wire them up series parallel to get enough juice.

 

[wheelspinner]

Do they have solargizers on them? I never had a problem, even when I left my dash lights on for a week!

 

[Hainebd]

Would the low/weak batteries cause the alternator to overcharge the good batteries in the "nest"?

 

[glcaines]

I think that's a great idea. Keeps you from becoming battery-poor replacing batteries in trucks that are not routinely used. How about mounting a slave-cable receptacle on the skid, permanently connected to your good batteries? Then you could use a complete slave cable. You could also set the skid in the bed of the truck if needed to make sure you could re-start if you drive somewhere and have room in the bed for the skid.

 

[CARNAC]

What rmgill said. I 've seen that done in a lot of places if they don't have direct power for the authorized battery machine.


No real standard for this. I've seen kids wagons (4 wheel) and dolly truck (2 wheel) versions. I've seen small caster wheels up to large bike wheels all depending on your need. Wish I would've taken pictures over the years.

 

[M35A2-AZ]

I have a deuce battery box with a slave cable on it that we use when we got pick up a truck I lift it into my pickup and and then I slave off of that.
After we get it started I remove the slave cable truck and just run off the low batteries.
If you have low batteries in the truck I think a little cart would work just fine.

 

[VPed]

A yard where I bought my 5 ton had a bunch of 5 tons for sale, all with dead batteries. They had good, charged batteries in the back of a golf cart with half of a slave cable. They had regular jumper cable gator clips on the other end. No problems starting the 5 tons with dead batteries.

 

[andy3]

You could also use that modified slave cable for field repair welding cables.

 

[VPed]

You could also use that modified slave cable for field repair welding cables.

Nice!!

 

[Hoefler]

Thanks for all the input. There are some good methods listed here. The key would be the portability and ease of attaching the portable skid to the truck. Maybe a simple cable lift like a Deuce spare tire lift-crank it up the set onto a nest with a couple of quick clamps. I like the part of using a slave receptor that would allow a full slave cable.
My wrecker batteries drop to around 11 volts after a charge. They are dated 2005-so guessing they are not recoverable.
Pete

 

[andy3]

Don't give up on those batts yet. A good multistage charger in desulferating mode and time can do some magic.

 

[Jeepsinker]

Yep, I've saved a lot of weak/ bad batteries with a desulfating charger.