I intend to connect the spare battery in parallel with the bike battery when I ride. It will be housed in a milk crate I have strapped to the rear platform. It will have a 12 volt female lighter plug permanently connected. And I would connect it to the bike via the bike's auxillary plug pig tail male lighter socket. At nite, I will take it ino the cabin and plug it in the inverter using the same lighter connector.
I will bring it in to the cabin as temperatures outside may be down to 10F which will lower the battery output.
Not sure I will need the battery isolator as I will not let the spare battery get below 11.0volts while running the cabin lights. So I don't think I will have problems starting the bike in the morning. But I will try it and use the isolator if neccessary. Thanks for the tip.
Yesterday I hooked up 2 100 watt CFL spiral light bulbs (which use a total of 50 watts) to the inverter and then to my spare car battery. The initial battry voltage was 11.9V. Ran the lites for 6 hours and the battery had only dropped to 11.4v. This is perfect for my needs. And will end up being a great solution for lighting at nite if it works!!
Now the question is.....will the bike charging system have enough poop to charge the spare battrey over a 6 hour drive time??
Anyone have any idea??
Intend to do a dry run this weekend.
Thanks to all who replied. Please chime in with any thoughts!!