Homemade dual battery tray & Aux fuseblock

I bought an ARB 50qt fridge/freezer and a pair of Odyssey batteries. the two options I found for dual battery trays were very pricey, so I put this together this morning. I have the aux fuse block cutout rough, but will update with some progress soon.















Paint is dying now. More to come on the aux block.

 

Sweet!!!

What are you using the 2 batteries for?

I thought about doing something similar for a winch setup

 

One is for regular starting duties, the other will run my fridge and any other accessories. I have aBluesea 7622 to isolate the two, and of course, can combine for winching duty.

I have an 80 watt solar panel for keeping the house battery topped off while camping in the desert too. More on that to come.

 

Oh I get you, I seen where you put you got an arb fridge but I didn't realize you were using it on the truck

do you have them both hooked to the factory alternator?

 

Dual batteries / isolator / aux block installed.

Have a second circuit breaker for my wire run to the bed of the truck. Ill have a second fuse block back there. I am running 2 awg to the bed incase I decide to add a battery there in the future and use one large one up front.




Still have to wire in the in cab control, along with in cab winch control and a few other things.

I have a large order of switches coming from otrattw, and a couple flush mount volt meters to monitor both batteries state.

 

Looks Good ! Great write up and Pics.

 

Very nice setup. I just bought a dual battery kit. I have stock battery and Die hard Platinum 31m. I plan on Having the second battery in a battery box mount to the bed. I plan on putting a solor panel attached to the second battery to charge it whenever i can.

 

Finished wiring in cab controls. Put a switch panel in the sunglasses holder. I know this has been done before, but I added a twist. In between the map lights is a small voltage monitor to check current status of either battery.

Volt meter comes on automatically when engine running, but can also be checked by the momentary switch below it if trick is off. The aux battery rocker selects which battery to monitor.

 

I just bought

$120 Renogy 100W 12V Solar Panel Starter Kit, 100 Watt Monocrystalline Solar Panel, 30A LCD PWM Charger Controller, Adaptor Kit, Tray Cables, Z Brackets for RV, Camper, and Other Off Grid Applications

this solar panel and I can't decide if I want to run a second deep cycle battery, replace my current battery with a deep cycle, or just hook it to my current battery.

I carry dogs in the bed of my truck and I run fans with the engine off and I need a way that it won't drain my battery. I also have a sound system in the truck, so I was thinking the more electronics, the more sense a deep cycle made?

Any thoughts?

 

If you are just running fans that solar panel is probably way overkill. Unless you are running a fridge/freezer, I would just get a large dual purpose starting/deep cycle like the odyssey or sears die hard platinum. A group 31 agm would run a12v fan on its own for many many hours and still start the truck. Figure out the amp draw of the fans and you can figure out how long to expect from the battery.

I wouldn't bother with a second battery for this scenario.

 

Nice setup, I like it. What it that unit between the reading lights that says 12.61?

 

Do you have the dimensions on the battery tray?

 

looks good! good work

 

Voltage meter to show charging state of aux or starting battery

 

Sorry no, just take the dimensions of the battery x2 though. No magic here, I just sat the batteries down on the table and marked the angle sitting beside them.

 

Nice work OP! That's a clean looking install

 

I like it! Been thinking of doing the same

 

thread revival, and sub.

Well done, any updates to this since your initial build?

 

This is the exact setup I hope to do in the future. How much did this whole setup run you