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

ATO tray
2 optima yellow 34/78
IBS controller + relay booster

Winch is set to be wired into main(left) battery, bluesea aux fuse block is wired to aux(right) battery.

ran out of red heat shrink, but the red lines are pretty visable through the mess sleeving.

 

I have to say, I always like seeing people use BLACK power wire in the installs instead of RED/ Blue/ White/ Green/ etc. Looks cleaner to me.

 

A temporary solution so I can stop killing my headlight on the drivers side. Used hose clamps and drilled 5 holes.

That was AFTER I killed 4 headlight bulbs. The batterys were bending the connectors and ripping them off being loose in there.l

 

Another one.

 

Anyone running Odysseys?

 

What wiring setup are you guys using for the dual battery mod?

 

im going ground to chassis on both. then a solenoid inbetween the positive on both. is that what you mean?

 

Yes I mean how do you connect the batteries and if you make the setup or buy it like a kit

 

I got the Stinger 500amp solenoid of ebay for ~$20. The only additional Wire you need is to the alternator/ acc on to trigger the solenoid, and of course a couple short lengths of thick gauge wire terminated to make the connections.


The actual kits with smart solenoids and monitoring systems are made by IBS and National Luna - few others out there but they are the most popular/

http://www.sierraexpeditions.com/index.php?l=product_list&c=298 380 for the IBS
http://www.equipt1.com/companies/Battery Systems/product-nl/118188-dual-battery-kit 395 for the National Luna

The difference is that you can monitor each individually, self jump, and a couple other features. However, they both have these wired dongles you have to use, or an flush mount kit version of them is around also.

in my setup, i have gauge terminals from Stinger that i use to monitor when i am curious.

 

I mentioned I was considering looking at getting an S-POD system in another thread.

Basically, if a company made a system that was modular with a solenoid, monitoring, relay and fuse box, with the tech integrated into a switch - I would be game.


1. S-POD - ~400
1. Dual battery monitoring system ~400
1. Blue Sea Fuse box ~60
Additional heavy gauge wire ~100
Additional Switches ~50

So you could easily get into over a grand just on the electrical. Not to mention the battery's and new tray.

 

http://www.12voltguy.com/ULTRA-DUAL-BATTERY-WINCH.html

 

Slimwoods!

 

Yeah yeah yeah....I didn't know about this thread I will take some pictures of it today...

 

Sub'd

 

abarber11's!

 

Sub'd

 

As requested, here is the specifics on my new setup.

Main Materials
1.Optima type 31A Yellow Top Battery
2. Perfect Switch Power Gate Single Rectifier. - Its a really good unit. I got lucky and found a new, unused old stock one on ebay for $30.
3. 30' or so of 1/0 gauge cable. Its more than you need, but I figured I could use the extra on for my inverter.I got 20' of red Knukonceptz Fleks and 10' of black 1/0 gauge KCA cable.
3. 2 200A in line water proof fuses. Knukonceptz makes waterproof housings too
4. Battery tray with nylon strap. Mines for a size 27M and fits ok.
5. Ring terminals, random screws, wire loom, etc


The first thing I did was to re-run the factory grounds with 1/0 gauge wire. I have the tow package and I think the 130A alternator can handle my needs, but I wanted to make sure I was getting all I could out of the electrical system. I used this link for reference.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cO3SgiQF26E

I made a new negative terminal to body wire (the short one), and ran a wire from the negative terminal to frame. There is a hole in the frame below the battery that will accept a 12mm bolt (I did not use the sway bar bracket as they did in the above vid because I didnt want to efff with it). Its the forward of the two holes on the top of the frame. Im not sure if its threaded, but a 12mm bolt fit tightly. I accessed the spot by removing the forward rubber when you look under the driver side front wheel well. I also ran a 1/0 gauge wire from this bolt to the case of the alternator as well to complete the circuit. (Theres 2.5 of the big 3, the 0.5 being the little wimpy neg term to body)

On the positive side, I removed the stock alternator to fuse box wire. Its a 4 gauge wire that runs from the top of the alternator output post (covered by the black or red plastic cover), to the 10mm bolt at the top of the fuse box. Unscrew that nut, tear open the loom and remove the wire completely. You can probably tape it off, but I didnt feel comfortable with it being able to cause a dead short on pretty much anything metal under the hood. I ran a 1/0 gauge wire from the output terminal of the alternator to the anode side of the perfect switch isolator and a 1/0 gauge wire from the cathode to the positive term of the battery (#3 of the big 3)

I used this schematic to wire it all up and put 200A fuses close to each battery. I chose 200A because the alt puts out 130A, but the wire can handle up and over 300A.



Heres mine and the 200A fuse on a little mount that I built.



I ran the 1/0 gauge positive wire from the anode side of the isolator through the front firewall down behind the kick panel and along the door jamb. You have to pop all that plastic off. Theres a thumb screw behind the plastic pedal for the kick panel, and you have to take out the seatbelt to remove the plastic column.

To fit the type 31 Optima in behind the rear passenger's seat, I first removed the passenger seat in the rear. 6 bolts and the seat comes out. Then I pulled out the black plastic cubby and chopped it up. I just basically used a dremmel to cut out the back and bottom of the cubby below the middle ridge where the two bolts connect it to the rear of the truck. You can see the white of the cab around the battery in this picture. That's what I cut out. If I didnt have the JBL sub, I might have placed the battery on the other side for weight distribution.

I mounted a size 27M battery tray from Amazon on the bottom of the cab where I wanted the battery. I tried to make sure the battery was pushed as close to the center as I could. I used size 12 1" sheet metal screws with 1 inch washers and drilled through the floor. Be very careful, your gas tank and all sorts of wiring is up under there as you get closer to the center of the cab. You can reach up under there before you drill to make sure you dont hit anything.



I chose to mount everything in one spot behind the rear passenger's seat so I fit the 200A fuse on the outside of the plastic cubby and drilled through the side. For the negative battery terminal to frame ground, I ran 1/0 gauge wire back along positive wire path behind the rear kick panel and underneath the carpet behind the drivers seat is a rubber plug. I drilled through that plug, ran the wire through it, and grounded that wire to a bolt on the upper outside of the frame. it should be out of the way enough, but you may be able to find a better ground if you are a serious offroader and think it might get hung up.




I added a blue sea fuse box with 4/0 gauge wire and a 100A fuse so that I can run my accessories. There is another plug in the rear middle of the cab under the bigger seat that I will run the wires for my accessories.

Put the rear passenger seat back on and you're done.

EDIT: That is not me in the video, nor did I make the video. I found it on YouTube and it was a good reference for me. Credit goes to the guy who made it.

 

In your last pic, did you use a gromet? I am still trying to find some for the many holes I drilled.

Your the man by the way, appreciate that video. I need to re do my Alternator wire also. Boy is it a pain with my big hands. What was involved in you doing it? from under the truck? or from the top? I was unable to get to the screws.

 

Also, besides the battery, what was your cost on the materials?

 

Its not a grommet. Its an existing plug that's already there. It must be in case the truck floods, you can pull these plugs and drain it. But anyway, I used a uni-bit to drill out just enough to jam the 1/0 gauge through so its very tight.

That's not my vid, so credit to the dude who put it up for us, but I used that to figure out exactly what to do.

I found that removing the stock battery completely and the stock battery tray was best for access to everything. Then I removed some of the protective plates on the outside of the alternator and surrounding frame to make it easy for myself. They're connected with 10mm bolts I believe, and there's two of them (at least). The output of the alternator wire is protected by a black cap, pop that off. You'll see that its a black wire with blue stripe and thats the one that you need to remove. It runs through some wire loom and is ultimately connected to the fuse box by the nut in the corner. I didn't worry about upgrading the factory battery to fuse box wire because I was just worried about making my current alt as efficient as possible.

If you aren't running an isolator and you wanted to do this just for big 3 purposes, I believe you could just run an additional fused 1/0 wire from the positive side of the battery to the alternator output.

You don't have to remove any of the negative grounds from the battery, I just added more. I added a alt case to frame, and a frame to neg batt terminal. I didnt add my alt connection where they did in the video either. That bolt looked like it might be too much work, so I attached it to one directly right of that bolt to one where one of those protective plates attaches. I had them off anyway so I just scuffed the alt case with a wire brush and bolted the alt to frame ground there.

I did everything from the top, except to attach the ground to frame wires I did it through the driver's side wheel well.


Total cost with everything including battery, tray, fuses, cable, solder, terminals, screws, blue sea fuse box, 1500w inverter, probably $800 give or take. Without the battery, inverter and fuse box it probably was around $350 or so. I saved some money because I got the isolator for a steal, I already had some of the tools like a torch, multimeter and I made the bracket out of some scrap I had. Im planning on making this a camping/road trip rig though and the peace of mind is worth it.


Note: If any of that doesn't make sense just let me know and Ill get you a pic or something.