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

I just completed my "budget" dual battery setup.


I fit a 24M Deep Cycle battery in my 2015 TRD OR, which was a massive ordeal. I made a custom battery tray and had to move the exhaust pump a couple inches to fit. I have a 200A isolator wired to a dash switch that lets me choose between auto, off, and self-jump settings. I put in two fuse boxes, one for the front and I wired one to the rear as I have a sleeping platform back there.

Things I learned while doing this:

-CrimpSupply on Amazon is GREAT place to get good cable at a good price. No where else had pure copper cable for such a good price and they threw in lugs to boot.
-Watch out for CCA cable. People use this cable for audio setups and it is not as good of a conductor as pure copper so 4 or 2 AWG CCA will not perform as well as pure copper of the same gauge.
-I got

6 Way Blade Fuse Box for Automotive [ATC/ATO Blade Fuses] [100 Amp][LED Indicator] [Protection Cover] [10-30V DC; 12V] Auto Marine Fuse Block

OLS 6-way fuse boxes over Blue Sea varieties to save some cash. These work, BUT they do not isolate your system when a fuse blows unless you rip out the shitty LED system (really easy to do).
-There are a lot of places to ground things so don't worry too much about having a fuse box with a ground bus.
-It takes a lot more cable than you think to reach the bed from the engine bay.
-Wiring switches to the center dash is a huge PITA

 

Dual Odyssey PC1400
Off Grid Engineering aluminum tray
Blue Sea ML-ACR
All Wiring supplied by OGE
Matt was awesome to deal with
https://off-grid-engineering.myshopify.com/

 

This is a pretty slick set up, I am thinking about going this route on my 3rd gen TRD Offroad. I know the split system is the way but I can not justify the added expense so long as this works. How was the install? any need to relocate anything?

 

Is it possible to fit side by side batteries in the TRD OR (16)? I've only seen that configuration in the Sport.

 

Should be able to. You only usually see this configuration on the sports because it's their only option. The OR's can put a spare in the passenger rear corner, but do to the ABS module in the Sports they can't.

 

By placing it in the passenger corner you can also get a larger battery in there.

 

Anybody rewire the bed outlet to be powered by their aux battery instead of their main?

 

I want to know this too. Any insight would be great.

 

I looked at it a little.

On my truck the bed-mounted 115V outlet is powered from an inverter under the center console. That's fed by a 100A circuit from under the hood, which is a fuse in the main fuse box and a relay in a little box on the side. It would seem to be easiest to take the feed from the 100A fuse in the main box and re-route it to a 100A fuse right on the battery you want to use.

But I never pursued it any further because it seemed like more trouble than it was worth for a 400W inverter that would still be controlled by the truck to be 100W when idling and shut off with the key. So I figured that if I ever needed to install an inverter I'd just wire a stand-alone one in that was just on/off and had a little more power. Even 400W isn't all that much. And I'd kind if like to take the factory inverter out anyway to make room for a larger center console anyway.

 

I know there are ways to make it always 400W

See here: https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/how-to-ac-outlet-in-cab-400-watt-anytime-mod.322320/

So a combination of wiring to that fuse and the 400W anytime mod looks like the solution.

 

It does look possible and I know there are ways to bypass the low engine RPM nanny. It's still only on with the key. Like I say, 400W is just not of much use to me since anything that would run there I already have running on 12V and anything larger (power tools specifically) need a lot more power. So just not something I bothered pursuing since I plan to either remove or replace the whole thing anyway.

 

These are my biggest concerns. I'm thinking ideally, I'll get a much larger inverter (in the 3KW range methinks) and mount that in the bed (or maybe just rewire the existing bed outlet to run off the new inverter). When I need power for camping or working out of my truck I can use clamp cables to attach the inverter to the aux battery. Car isn't on and I don't drain starter battery. I'll still need a relay to charge aux battery.

 

3kW is quite a ton... You'll need to have a huge battery for that. If you are actually using 3kW you'll be drawing 250 amps from the batter and you'll drain your pack in minutes.

 

Just spitballing now. I'd rather have too much capacity than too little. And no way I'll actually be using 3kW for any prolonged amount of time. Definitely will go with a oversized deep-cycle battery. Might end up just continuing with a generator, but the idea of an aux battery solution that can also be used for light camping (read: glamping) applications (and jump-starting) is enticing.

 

I gotcha. For my needs (charging devices and such) 400 watts is enough, but to each their own.

 

And don't forget that 3kW/250A would mean huge cables on the 12V side to feed it. I was thinking more like ~1kW for an inverter so I could run smaller power tools if I had to. And @twhalm is right, running this much is not a prolonged affair, at 3kW you're fully draining a group 27 deep cycle in about 20 minutes.

 

Yea too much work for that 400W inverter in the bed. I ended up adding a 750W inverter in the cab (hooked up to the 2nd battery) with outlets in the front and rear of the center console.




(old pic. added a usb charger back there too)

 

Sub'd: I will be using this thread to build a dedicated dual battery, 400-650 inverter, flex solar system.

Just curious if there was any use (without OEM inverter) of the pin plug under console?

Note: I have now seen one banned OP and a "Delete" OP in two days of looking into Tacoma inverters?

 

Just watched a walk around vid: https://www.*****************/2015-tacoma-flippac-rig-walk-around/

The guy went with a MUCH smaller starter/winching battery than for his rig setup...

Thoughts? And what sizes for each?

 

Please share more photos and the circuit diagram