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

the faint blink means it has power. you really dont need the optional LED for trouble codes, the main lights are used for that.

 

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I am getting a faint blinking when key is out of the ignition. It took me 3 days to notice since it hard to see the faint blinking. When I start the vehicle the LED is fully illuminated which is normal.

I don’t think the faint blinking when vehicle is off and key is out of ignition is normal.

I might give this light a try.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/353127671479

 

The faint blinking is normal, mine does it too I asked Matt @ off grid engineering and he verified it's normal.

 

Ah ok. Good to know! Thanks for the reply. Glad there is nothing wrong.

I just do not want to have any unnecessary power draw when vehicle is off and key out of ignition.

I might get the 3v bulb just out of curiosity and report back.

 

If the BCDC is pulling power you will know it, it lights up bright red.

Did you hook up the blue wire? Matt told me it's not necessary, but what happens is the BCDC will pull power until the starting battery reaches 12.7v which means it drains it down to ~90% every time I turn the truck off. I'm considering hooking up the blue wire to a switched ign source to stop it from doing that.

 

My blue wire is unhooked. So the Redarc drains down the starting battery or the house battery to 90%? Just making sure you said engine starter battery. That’s interesting. Thanks for sharing that info.

 

The way it works is the BCDC will pull power from the starting battery to charge the aux battery. It doesn't care if the ign is on or not when the blue wire is left unhooked. So what happens is the BCDC will pull power from the starting battery to charge the aux battery, until it sees the starting battery dip below 12.7v at which point it turns off. The problem is on an AGM battery 12.7v is ~10% drained, so it effectively leaves the starting battery at 90% charged after turning the truck off.

Edit, if you connect the blue wire to a switched power source, the BCDC will ONLY operate when it sees 12v on the switched power. That's why I think I'm going to connect the blue wire to an add a fuse somewhere in the fuse box under the hood, so it's only working when the truck is running.

 

Got it makes sense. Please report back if you hook up the blue wire and your findings afterwards.

Your starter battery is AGM? My starter battery is the OEM Toyota battery (non AGM). One of my main reasons going to the BCDC is to completely isolate the starter battery from the house battery in key off situations and charging my AGM house battery to 100%. Also, not buying two identical batteries when you have a perfectly good starting battery wasting money IMO.

 

So after installing my dual battery system, I started moving wiring over to the 2nd battery such as my aux fuse block, switch pros, and my compressor. Im going to be adding a few more things to the battery.

Has anyone figured out a mounting solution for a couple circuit breakers by the 2nd battery? I want to mount 2 but want to see what others have come up with.

I have a 3rd gen with the 2nd battery in front of the firewall on the passengers side.

 

Sub'd. Been prepping for a dual battery setup lately. Have been set on the Off Grid Engineering Redarc kit.. but started searching and reading threads and now I'm here...

 

The other problem is that our 3rd gen's ECU controlled alternators don't supply enough voltage to ever fully charge an AGM battery in the first place. This disappointment sent me down the rabbit hole that brought me to this thread and has me waiting on my OGE/Redarc kit to arrive.

 

I think that DC/DC chargers are really required to extend the life of expensive batteries. If you are buying $89 deep cycle batteries at Walmart the pain isn’t as bad if the battery dies early. I think your investment will be worth it.

 

For sure I think the DC to DC charger will be a great investment for the accessory battery, it doesn't seem like it'll top off the starting battery though. Third gens won't fully charge AGM batteries off the alternator, I can drive 4 hours and still end up with 12.7 volts in my quality AGM starting battery.

 

OVTune will have the capability to adjust the alternator settings once the 2.0 files are released for vF format.

 

I think they have versions for nearly all ECUs now. Some are still being improved but you can at least make your own edits.

 

Confirmed, currently running a higher voltage tune for AGMs.

 

Physical size too. This forum has successfully convinced everyone that the group size refers to the Amp/volt specifics and it does not. The group size is exactly that, the physical size of the battery. The other characteristics do change some but folks should be concerned with the operational specifics.
Zim

 

After a bit of a hiatus, Off Grid Engineering is back to on TacomaWorld! Please tag me in any questions you may have about any of the OGE products and feel free to shoot me an email with any questions about products you already own or with any comments you may have.

 

Do you guys have an all in one system, with redarc dc-dc, for a 2nd gen "sport" that will mount behind the rear seat?