I have an idea for battery relocation and anti-theft
 

I'm wanting to relocate my battery out of the engine compartment and I had a rather interesting idea that I want input on.

Keep in mind that my truck already has a 26-gallon gas tank mounted in the front of the bed, and it is 4wd with 4" of lift so I have plenty of clearance above my diff.

I want to sink a box in the bed that contains the battery, a heavy-duty relay, a remote control of sorts, and possibly a gps location unit.

The idea is that the battery box will be locked and I will be able to control the relay and all the juice coming out of the battery with a remote control on a key FOB. The truck will do without a traditional key start and use a racecar-inspired push-button starter (with a separate switch for ignition on). I will be bringing a large awg positive cable (considering running it in PVC conduit) to a junction block in the front.

Below is my highly engineered drawing of what I want to do. Has anybody done this before? I've been looking for something mostly pre-fabricated that I can work with. I could fabricate it myself, but I'm slow. Also I wanted to do a proximity key, but there is nothing commercially available even close to what I want to do. With a push-button fob I could probably do it.

I'm welcome to thoughts and considerations.

http://i714.photobucket.com/albums/w...psmk0urcys.jpg

Re: I have an idea for battery relocation and anti-theft
 

I have been thinking of a remote activated battery disconnect for awhile. Jhwkns and I bounced some ideas around awhile back, but I guess I never really followed thru with it.

Re: I have an idea for battery relocation and anti-theft
 

I found this kit to control the battery disconnect. One problem solved!

I'd rather have it done with a proximity key (mostly so I don't forget to disconnect it when I walk away), but I can always work on that later.

http://www.summitracing.com/parts/rfw-ms11/overview/

Re: I have an idea for battery relocation and anti-theft
 

You could probably dig up a little more info on a RFID switch. A quick google search pulled up a bunch of info about a kill switch for a vehicle.

Re: I have an idea for battery relocation and anti-theft
 

My HEI has a kill switch. A remote seems even better.

Re: I have an idea for battery relocation and anti-theft
 

So I came up with this.. (see crude drawing at the bottom of this post) which uses a garage door opener button (GDO in the crude diagram) as an effective solution. I texted my boss to see what he thought, and he was just like "Dude! Arduino Nano!" which is a small embedded board programmed in a fork of C that can do all this without all the timers and hard logic.

So I ordered this http://www.ebay.com/itm/271826329538 and I can already program well enough to do the programming. Now I just need a oil pressure switch.

The basic logic is this:

- everything but the oil pressure switch is locked in a battery box

-System is armed with some sort of momentary switch (fired by a garage door opener/RFID reader of something) --> MASSIVE relay is turned on sending power out of the battery box

-System will stay armed for 3 mins. If the engine isn't started (oil pressure switch closed) in 3mins. The entire system disarms and the MASSIVE relay closes until it is rearmed

- If the oil pressure switch opens (say the engine stalls) I have 30 seconds which to close the oil pressure switch (start the engine) before the system disarms. This is a safety feature in case I stall in traffic or something

EDIT - some of the complexity of this system is from the fact that I do not want someone bypassing the oil pressure switch to be able to arm the system.


http://i714.photobucket.com/albums/w...pstx8idcve.jpg

Re: I have an idea for battery relocation and anti-theft
 

For anyone following along..

Because the arduino swiches up to 40milliamps of 5v and I need to actually switch several hundred amps at 12v I will need a series of relays.

This little guy http://www.ebay.com/itm/131394111558 will step me up to several amps of 12v DC.

And I may use another bosch-style automotive relay to get enough current to pull the coil on my main relay. I'm still looking into how much amperage I'll need for it.

EDIT-- I think something like this will work for my main relay http://www.ebay.com/itm/500-AMP-Batt...item462b00e68e