Dual Battery / Low Battery / Loss of Power Steering

gschlossnagle

New member
Hi,

No idea if this is the right subforum for this.

I recently installed a Genesys Offroad dual battery kit for my JL.

The way that works is there's a isolator that should disconnect the batteries when the voltage on the primary battery drops below 12.7V and relink them when it's back above that. All the accessories are hooked up to the second battery.

So I installed the kit, everything worked great for a week. Last night I left my Dometic fridge on overnight and running at the Low battery protection mode (which I assumed was cool because it was attached to the secondary battery.

Come out this morning and it starts like a champ but then reports low voltage (11.0 on the dash), and power steering is not working/CEL is on. After running for about 10 minutes, power steering came back to life (and stayed alive for my 25 minute drive to work) and the low voltage indicator kept flipping on/off. CEL is still on.

Besides 'what happened/did I do something wrong/should I not drain the secondary battery below a certain point or else the jeep will freak out', I'm curious: is the power steering issue related to low system voltage a known thing? Because that seems rather scary.

I've reached out to Shane who runs Genesys (who was super helpful through purchase and installation), but they're out for a week for the holiday.
 

moodywizard

New member
The JL alternator is variable charging.. only runs at 14V based on certain parameters. Mostly only above 13V if slowing down (foot off gas) or during 20 or so minutes when starting jeep. Jeep will tell you so its not to over charge your battery which is a load of crap considering for the past 50+ years alternators have been charging steady at 14V. In my opinion this is all to increase ever so lightly MPG, as less charging means less drag on the alternator..

I feel your pain as I also installed the genesis dual battery kit and run a fridge 24x7 in the back. If you drive short distances daily it does tend not to charge the 2nd battery as you described. I have been researching a work around as I have yet to hear back from Genesis.
 

SouthCo

New member
The JL alternator is variable charging.. only runs at 14V based on certain parameters. Mostly only above 13V if slowing down (foot off gas) or during 20 or so minutes when starting jeep. Jeep will tell you so its not to over charge your battery which is a load of crap considering for the past 50+ years alternators have been charging steady at 14V.

You’re absolutely wrong about alternators charging at a steady 14v for the last 50 years. My wife’s last truck, a 2005 GMC Yukon Denali, had a variable output alternator. Never had any issues with it or the truck itself...

Looks like OPs aftermarket system didn’t keep his fridge from over discharging his aftermarket battery setup....
 

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