TJ: Question about wiring two air compressors together

[skeletor]

I have two of the Master Flow MF-1050 air compressors. They have the alligator clips that connect to the battery posts. What I want to do is wire them up so I only have one positive and one neg wire for both. I have a set of jumper cables I don't need anymore (they are 8 or 10 gage) I was thinking about splicing them up, connect both the positives to the red and both negs to the black. I have a box I was going to put both compressors in and have the new (jumber cable) ends come out for a clean look.

So I have two questions:
1) Will the the jumper cables with one of the ends wired to both compressors be ok to run them at the same time
2) Each compressor has a 30amp draw. Is this going to be a problem running them at the same time? Of course I will have my motor idle as I fill up.

Please help so I don't kill myself

[Ol Man]

If you really, really want to wire them together you could do that. Pos to Pos on the compressors and then to Pos on battery. Same for grounds. If you want the two to work together, you need to then tee in the two air lines. But, I don't think I would do that. I would use one and then when it burns out you will have another.

[curtis]

Go here and click on the dual packs. http://www.viaircorp.com/OnRoad/wiring.html

[skeletor]

Thank you for the link. Really helpful.

Question: Do I still need a relay if I don't want to use a master on/off switch? Each compressor has its own switch and I wanted to keep it that way so I can turn them off and on independently.

[RAT]

Relays are good because they isolate the electrical system from the high amp draw and any potential failure or short of the motor.

[Jerry Bransford]

My thinking says wiring & running two small compressors like that in parallel would help both of them to last longer... longer than they'd last in total if used alone. This is due to their duty cycles & that they'd both be used for shorter periods of time & have to put out less air when connected in parallel. Not to mention you'd spend half the time waiting for your tires to finish airing up.

[skeletor]

Excellent point Jerry, thank you.

I only want to wire them up together but not run them in parallel. I want to have two air hoses.

One last question on relays. These are going in a plastic box, I don't have a ground to wire up the relays. Can I connect them to the black neg wire and run them to the battery with the alligator clip? Something like this...

BTW, thank you guys so much for helping me with this. I do much better with suspension and engine parts. When it comes to electrical I'm lost.

[sirdabsalot]

The only connection missing in your sketch is from the hot side of the coils (pin 86) to the fused 12V.

[TipsE-Z]

A fused and switched 12v I would say. You won't want to run a constant 12v to the coils unless absolutely needed. Most relay's are pretty robust, but over time it would have no choice but to begin to fail giving you intermittent issues (probably as a result of hot/cold weather). Just my .02; but that is assuming you plan to hard mount/wire everything.