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

Yah, I thought I read EBay somewhere earlier in here. And I could not find that one on EBay so thought I would ask. Thanks. I'll keep looking.

 

Yeah, ebay.

The seller, keven1002012, only seems to get a few at a time to sell and they sell out quickly when he lists them. I wrote to him when I was looking for one and he responded when he had more and gave me a heads up so I could get one.

He is in S.A. but he is very responsive and has an excellent feedback/rating. It did take about 3 weeks for it to get here after ordering but that is more about the mail delivery system than a reflection on him.

 

I believ it's the same seller in both eBay and the peakdbi store. Your CC company will protect you against fraudulent charges and it seems like a legit company. I didn't have any issues and would buy from them again

 

Same here.

 

When the car is on and RPMs are pretty high (freeway speed), I've see my gauge read in the low 14s for both batteries

 

Best battery monitor you can buy and only $14.99.

 

In a dual battery setup, if that is plugged into the cig lighter/power port, that would only read out for the main batt right?

 

It's a volt meter. It will read whatever voltage it is exposed to. I have one in my dash. Upon truck startup my alternator puts out 14.2 for about 1-2 minutes, then 13.8-5x volts thereafter. My aux battery is setup very different as I'm using a DC-DC converter to isolate and charge.

I have the same voltmeter in the truck shell where my aux battery is. voltmeter lives on the wall and at a glance I can see battery health. Super simple and works great. I once metered the draw of the voltmeter using an ammeter and it was in the milliamps, nothing to worry about, so meter runs 24/7/365

 

So you have to have two of them and an extra 12V socket?

 

One is the dash is plugged into standard +12 socket. I took the second one in the back of the truck and disassembled it to get rid of the bulky socket connector, and I just wired it to a smaller barrel connector. It's held onto the wall of my shell with some velcro. I like this arrangement, because it's out of the way and easy to see.

 

Here is a picture.

Please excuse the velcro mess. I've since cleaned it up.

 

Ah that makes sense. I was wondering if you had to have another socket to keep the volt meter on.

 

I got my ATO mount, all my Blue Sea hardware, Optima batteries being delivered tomorrow. Question is, where is the best place to buy battery cables? Online? Auto parts store? Home Depot?

 

With your dual batt system you may want to consider custom length cables to keep things neat. I recommend @HeliMedic and you can check out his work here:
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/off-grid-engineering-dual-battery-trays-wiring-kits.420680/

 

He's definitely got some nice stuff there, but I wanted to do the work myself.

 

Are you wanting to buy pre terminated cables? If you dont mind doing them yourself, i picked up the 1/0 cable from home depot and got the lugs off ebay. Same with the military style terminals. Youll need a way to crimp them though. You can pick up a hydraulic crimper form harbor freight for ~45 bucks or get a hammer crimper for ~20 bucks. Or call around and some place near you might do it for cheap (or free if you buy cable form them)

 

I was thinking of doing the cable terminations myself. Not sure if i was looking to buy a crimper for this, or just borrow one.

 

Doc- see @Crom's unique, but effective way to terminate large diam cable: see post #1689

 

I forgot about that method. I always end up with the open ended terminals instead of closed end ones Crom had. But the punch method works well too...especially since thats all a hammer crimper is pretty much anyways.

 

I am a fav of west marine. They are a bit pricey, but everything they sell is designed around a salt water environment. My winch stopped working because the terminations rusted. Moved to WM and never had an issue again. Their wire is stout and being in FL, I imagine it is readily available.