Off-Grid Engineering Dual Battery System Q&A

Quick non battery related question. Bought one of your split systems with a redarc BCDC1225. Love it to death.
About to add solar to the set up. Flexible panels glued to top of Alucab. Any recommendations for solar panel brands?

 

The 2 brands that come to mind are Lensun and Renogy. We have never had an issue with either. I know there are now a specific Alucab solar panel made by Sunflare. But they seem rather highly priced compared to other flexible panel options. But choose which one fits your needs and budget best. I don't think you can go wrong with any of these options.

 

I appreciate the recommendation. The sunflare panels look very nice and well built, but I can't stomach the $800 for 160w panel, when I should get the same output from another brand for $300.

We'll be living out of our truck for 2-4 years, running a fridge and other items 24/7 so reliability is important. Appreciate hearing that you haven't had an issue with renergy or lensun.

 

I had some time last Sunday afternoon so I installed the auxiliary battery tray for the dual kit. Talk about being optimally engineered as it's a nice fit! The wiring harness is certainly in the way, so I pushed it just barely against the firewall and it's also against the back side of the tray. I had some concern about that? I guess it should be okay as there won't be any vibration, but still, I squeezed in a piece of foam insulation between the two.

The Full Throttle battery dropped perfectly in. I do need to further tighten down the back bolt on the tie-down ... I was able to get a socket on it, but not a wrench due to lack of clearance with the plastic cover over it. But still, it's all very well secure.

I did also add some rubber washers between the tray and the mounting surface.



I also went ahead and drilled a hole on the driver's side firewall to run the controller cable through, and for the power wire for a Snomaster fridge that will sit in the back of my access cab. I'm using Anderson connectors to connect to the fridge, which I'm waiting for two more connectors by mail to create a cable that will run from the battery into the cab, and I'll get the starter battery and wiring done.

 

I finished the install yesterday. Off-Grid's YouTube video was very helpful. A good amount of the time that I spent was simply running the wires around stuff and tying them up. The kit is certainly complete, and the fit and finish on the trays is very nice. The Blue Sea relay certainly looks robust! As far as the switch, I ran it along with the power cable behind the drivers seat where my fridge will sit with my access cab (I have yet to mount it ... I'll probably do so on the side of the Goose Gear floor under fridge). I did test my fridge and it was running just fine on the auxiliary battery!

 

Thought on pros and cons using a LiFo4 battery for the house power with this system?

 

I'm considering battery options before ordering. I'm going to go with the redarc solution. Is there a benefit in capacity to running a group 31 in the starter battery location instead of two group 35?

 

With Lithium there are some very great pros, weight reduction which as overlanders we're inherently fighting constantly. Also, with lithium you can utilize the majority of the Ah, unlike AGM and others where it's about 50% and depletion will cause harm to battery life.
The biggest con, is going to be the price tag but for me its buy once cry once.

 

What REDARC products are you considering? Let me know if you have any questions I'm happy to help!

 

Purchased the OGE Redarc solution for 2017 TRD. My concern at this point is fitting the Longer Battle Born LifePO4 100A Heated battery in the second battery mounting location. Looks like it's going to be real tight.

 

This might help you to see what's on the other side of the Group 35 that I installed.

 

The LifePO4 is 12.75" long, which is 3.75" more than the group 35.

 

I just took these pictures and measured. Those two aluminum tubes are 2.75" from my Group 35. The harness is on a mount to the firewall that I assume could be removed to get it against the firewall, but tubes are going to be an issue. Hope that helps!

 

Thanks for the pics. Super helpful and I really appreciate it. Looks like the battery is not going to fit, oh sh^t!

 

Any chance there's a bit off room between the battery and the fender?

 

The tray bolts right to the frame. In fact there is something with a small (what looks like) a horn there that has be unbolted and moved to the back of the tray. (See second pic.)

This pic shows the Group 35 next to the frame.




This shows without the battery. That "horn" thing that is on the frame where the tray mounts, they have you move it to the back of the tray. It doesn't exactly fit the tray's two bolts and as I thought about it I had a zip tie holding it! I did get it bolted down to just the top hole without using a zip tie.



P.S. I might have said this? I didn't like how the bottom of the tray was against the wiring harness, so I first put a piece of sticky padding there (what you see in pic), but it was hard to get it in there as it's that tight. I ended up getting some round pipe insulation and squeezed it in between the bottom of the tray and the harness.

 

^This was a very helpful video if you haven't seen it?

 

Has anyone experienced this before? My acr isn't engaging automatically (no clicking on magnetically) when I turn my truck on and am wondering if anyone has any suggestions on what to look at to diagnose. I hope it's a simple fix but if I need to replace the darn thing, so be it!

 

Google the Blue Sea documentation for those 7622. Theres a PDF that tells you what the error blink codes mean.

I think the only time Ive had issues was when I had manually locked it out and then it tried to engage. Once the yellow knob was back in the right spot, cycling the switch OFF-ON reset it and it worked fine

 

I thought I'd show where I mounted the switch. I have an access cab with a Goosegear floor behind the front seats. Thankfully the switch has a long wire, so I ran the wire through firewall, down the side (under the plastic cover along the door) and mounted it to the front of the Goosegear floor. I can reach it if I have too, but otherwise it's out of the way.

The power cord for my Snomaster fridge is also running along with the switch's wire.