Dual Battery Setups! Let's see them! Multiple Batteries Thread!

I'm pretty sure @slimwoodshady is either running that box or the Columbia overland with HID projectors.

 

Thanks bud, guess I'll order it up, now I'm just wondering about what cable and terminals I should get

 

Question, I'm going to be setting up dual batteries with the blue sea ml-acr. When it comes to electronics I'm retarded. It's capable of handling up to 500amps. I'll be locating the house battery on the passenger side fire wall and keeping my winch on the starter. My question is what gauge wire and amp fuses?

Thanks!

 

Hey Mike use at least 2 AWG wire and I'd recommend getting circuit breakers so you don't have to replace fuses if/when it blows.

If you're still in the area, I can show you my set up, or you can see it in this thread or my build

 

Awesome thanks!

 

To anyone with a national luna controller... does the cab meter stay illuminated all the time?


And heres some dual batt porn... in a ford

 

I just finished my first round of testing my setup. Has anyone upgraded their alternators with two battery's? I noticed a 5% drop in output with both batteries charging.

 

I don't think I needed to upgrade alternators, but did so anyway since I was doing the Big 3 upgrade (technically did a "Big 4" upgrade). I got a 250a alternator

 

Do you know what stock puts out with the tow package?

 

130a

 

Sounds like that's my next upgrade. Do you feel a difference in engine drag with that alt?

 

Yes - how else would you know the status of your battery? You can turn the lights off, however.

 

Nope

 

It was just a question... Not really interested in seeing how much batt power it has while it sits in the driveway for weeks on end... killing them

 

confirmed on our FJ, the lights stay on the national luna controller with the truck is off.

if the truck is off for long, you can always unplug the controller.

 

I wasn't being sarcastic, but I think their draw is pretty negligible. The SET button, I think, is used to turn them on/off and turn the alarm on/off.

 

Confirmed. Set button turns off the display. Says it keeps the alarms active while its "off"

Thanks guys

 

Awesome thread, pretty much sold me on my direction for going with Blue Sea ML ACR.

Somewhat off subject, but related to the yellow selector switch on top of the ACR unit. It has 3 selections, and I'm trying to really grasp how they work.

1. All the way to the left, automatic operation, so the unit is allowed to monitor the system and link/unlink batteries as is necessary. This would've the setting it would stay in the majority of the time.

2. Forced integration, making it so you could in effect link both batteries to use for starting if one is low or other applications. Not sure, but sort of understood from Blue Sea tech page that you could toggle the switches back and forth and force them to be isolated as well?

3. System completely off, allowing you to service system, etc. I am really curious about this setting, if it in fact simply shuts off al power to vehicle. If this is the case, I'm really sold. I have the idea to perhaps mount the ACR in a lockable box under the hood, or some kind of lockable device to prohibit access, and in effect use the switch as a kill switch.

I just don't think the average thief would take the time to figure out why the truck has no electrical power, especially when he looks under the hood and sees he would have to start pulling wires off to get it to run.

It may make a lot more sense to just wire a kill switch in a secret location, but this seems like an easy and effective way, and after owning my truck for ten years and having a bunch of custom fab I've done to it, money can't replace all the hours of work

 

@Laxtoy
It's kind of like that.

You have a switch that goes into the cab that does On, Off, Auto. So you can manually engage or disengage the ACR from the cab.

On the unit itself you you have auto(or on, which takes cues from the switch) and off, basically a lock out for servicing.

That same knob has a large button in the middle, if it's down the house and starting battery are connected and up means they are disconnected. When the system is not locked out, you can press and hold that button to manually engage the two batteries (like if the switch is broken or you need to connect the batteries even if voltage is low).

The unit only connects two batteries that it monitors (starting and house), so unless you put a switch from a battery to a starter the truck can still start even if the batteries are disconnected. Blue Sea also sells some large mechanical relays that can be switch controlled if that's what you want to do.

I hope that helps!