How Important Is It To Have Dual Batts With Winch (1 Viewer)

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turbocruiser

turbocruiser

Joined
Dec 24, 2003
Threads
136
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3,561
Hi folks, the title sorta asks the question for me. I'm slowly setting up to get a good winch. I've been thinking through the problems with putting a dual batt in the regular location on my rig with my turbocharger and intercooler setup. The hoses to and from the intercooler are large (around 3" diameter) and they run right in front of the windshield washer reservoir and the right hand headlight. I cannot imagine another batt and batt tray in that location and I cannot imagine relocating any of those hoses either.

So, that leads to the first question of how important it is to have duals specifically and strictly for winching ( ie, not including refrigerators and heaters and such). It also leads to the second question of if there are any alternate areas in the 80 engine bay to build a second battery tray? I saw a slick one for the 100 series on Slee's site and that sort of thing would be awesome if it would fit with the 80. I would think that same area on an 80 would not work well though because of the location of the cruise control actuator box/triangle thing on the right hand fender wall. Not sure, perhaps relocating that thing lower would make room? Then again, perhaps relocating that thing lower would be wonderful for melting the batt around the exhaust pipes!!! Yikes!

So, I'm going round and round in my mind about how to do this, if it is important to do it, etc and I need someone with a lot more winch and electronic experience to stop the merry go round! Thanks again, I appreciate it. :cheers:
 
You could put an aluminum or steel battery box http://www.cartech.net/images/1batterybox.jpg
in the rear of the cruiser and run 0 guage cables to it, through the frame like I did. Then put a fuse panel in the passenger's side read quarter panel. It is a clean setup and you could paint the battery box to match your interior.
 
One really good deep cycle/dual purpose will work for most winching. An Optima D31M will fit (barely) and provides many amp hours of power. As long as you are not winching ten trucks up a long grade, it should be fine. I had a winch and one battery in my 80 for 2 years and only recently installed a second battery set-up. While I can use it to winch, the second battery is mainly there if I draw down my main battery with the fridge, or leaving a light on. If you want redundancy, you could always put a battery box in the rear-Hltopper posted some pics of that set up before and that looked pretty good. A dual battery is a piece of mind thing, and a fun project. Like most mods it isn't completely necessary (don't tell my wife!).

The thing about a winch is, that you rarely get to use it, though I did break mine out in Moab to help flip dieselbigot right side up. Try it with a single battery and if you run into problems, then upgrade your system. You may find it is easier to switch to military battery terminals. It makes bolting the winch cables down much easier.

Here is a pic of my D31M with military terminals:
dual4.jpg
 
Turbo,

Robbie put two series wired 6v batteries behind the PS panel in the cargo area.

-B-
 
In my opinion dual batteries come in handy for extended power requirements without the engine running. For example refrigerators or coach battery (camper) applications. In almost all cases winching will take place while the engine is running. In such cases battery capacity is pretty much a moot point unless you have a weeny alternator and a motorcycle battery....:D


D-
 
Thanks guys, great advice. Makes much more sense to me now and I think that at least as an exploration into extraction, I will work with one batt, see how that works, and then adapt from there if i am finding that i am draining the batt til dead. This thread was super helpful to me and there's another thread about isolators/switches/solenoids i read through (all six pages) that was also super helpful to me. So with those two threads, I think I have two separate steps to take; single batt and then possible dual batt with an auto charging solenoid switch. Thanks again, super cool, I appreciate all the assistance and all the advice. :cheers:
 
turbocruiser said:
... and there's another thread about isolators/switches/solenoids i read through (all six pages) that was also super helpful to me.
Click to expand...

That reminds me, I need to go back to that thread and harass the guy from Mobi about their "new" product. He got us all pumped up about it back in August, 2004.... like it was about to be a real product any day.

Months and months have passed. Excuse after excuse. No product. I think he was smokin' something. :grinpimp:

-B-
 
Beowulf said:
That reminds me, I need to go back to that thread and harass the guy from Mobi about their "new" product. He got us all pumped up about it back in August, 2004.... like it was about to be a real product any day.

Months and months have passed. Excuse after excuse. No product. I think he was smokin' something. :grinpimp:

-B-
Click to expand...


Yes, I was impressed with your restraint by the way, it was a wild tease followed by a "we're busy enough that we can't answer your questions here where we started this, but not so busy that we can't field dozens of repeat questions to repeat callers over the phone", followed by one delay after another, followed by repeated "our products are better than brand x,y, and z ... trust us on that!" followed by, well, nothing! Irony of it is that if it was openly started as an exciting far future possibility, I would have had so much more interest all the way through. Anyways, I like the auto charging relay/switch/solenoid thing and I'm not too worried about exhausting my two million cycles or whatever either if I go with something that simply switches! :D :rolleyes: :D

So again, thanks to all the helpful advice here, I've got a good plan for single batt, dual batts including other places to locate the things and including REAL world examples of equipment to help me switch from one to the other to both to none anytime I want to. Very cool, thanks again fellas. :cheers:
 
Cruiserdrew said:
Here is a pic of my D31M with military terminals:
Click to expand...


Ok that is slick. Couple questions,
Where to get the military terminals?

What is your review of the D31M (blue top?) I see it has extra mini posts for accessories.

Is the fridge a serious draw on a standard battery? I thought fridges like Engel & ARB were very low draw so assuming you dont have alot of extra accessories, will the stock batt be well within range?


Thanks
 
FirstToy said:
Ok that is slick. Couple questions,
Where to get the military terminals?

What is your review of the D31M (blue top?) I see it has extra mini posts for accessories.

Is the fridge a serious draw on a standard battery? I thought fridges like Engel & ARB were very low draw so assuming you dont have alot of extra accessories, will the stock batt be well within range?


Thanks
Click to expand...

Military terminals can be had at the Napa Warehouse near me. They are also sold by Wrangler Power Products. The Napa ones are cheaper.

The fridge will work with a regular battery, but standard starting batteries do not like to partially discharge and then charge back up. They die prematurely, though in reality it isnt a big deal. A standard battery holds about 50 amp hours of power. The max draw of an arb/Engle fridge is 2.7 amps. Theoretically, you could drain a battery in 20 hours or so. Real world, it takes 2 days to fully drain a battery if you don't run the car at all (beanz2 did the experiment at Rubicon last year and had to give away his ice cream at Buck Island). The D31M is a 75 amp hour battery, and is not damaged by deep cycling. I run a single D34M in my FJ40 no problems.

Turbo-Here is my dual battery install, with pics:
https://forum.ih8mud.com/showthread.php?t=36775
 
Cruiserdrew said:
Turbo-Here is my dual battery install, with pics:
https://forum.ih8mud.com/showthread.php?t=36775
Click to expand...


Wow, very cool setup man, i have tagged the page and will read and re-read it til I totally understand what you did. Thanks. On the note of totally understanding what you did, and what so many electrical experts here share so helpfully, what sort of simple reading is available for someone who really wants to 'understand' automotive electronics??? I really want to get up to speed in that area specifically; I feel I am at least a 2.5, maybe even 3.0 :banana: in terms of mechanical skills but I am barely a 1.0 :banana: in terms of electrical skills. I can do some simple diagnostic stuff and I can wire up simple stuff like one or two accessories but when it comes to mapping out complete dual batt systems with fancy isolators or switches or whatever, I am lost. Actually I'm even a little lost just reading the diagrams after the helpful experts post them! Doh! Hey, humility and honesty here! I remember another post where Beo mentioned a text book but also mentioned it was not really a remedial approach and that is what i would want to start with. Any suggestions? Thanks. :cheers:
 
Last edited:
Thanks Andy for the blue top and terminal info

Cruiserdrew said:
you don't have to be that smart to install it.
Click to expand...

That is my kind of mod! :D
 
I can second the hell roaring set up- easy to install -easy to operate -and Mike at HR usually answers the phone and will answer even the redundant questions. I use the Yellow top - I have one in the normal Tacoma battery spot. The second backup Yellow top lives inside the silver across the bed tool box. I ran 2 gauge wire I got from a new pair of 40-ft jumper cables at Auto-Zone - ran it through the cab into the engine compartment. So far I am stoked with the set-up. I have the Engel fridge running for 4 months now 24/7 ( I drive the truck almost somewhere ever day) run all my aux power needs , winch, lights, computer, audio speakers, and not one problem with the main battery.
 
Hi All:

If you are going to be using the electric winch for occasional vehicle self-recovery a regular lead-acid battery is fine - just turn-off the other accesories and keep the engine running.

If the truck is a 'Wheeler and you expect to have to use the electric winch a bit more on each trip than consider swaitch to a "deep cycle/starting" battery - these are designed to be drained-down then re-charged (without any damage to the battery.) I've this set-up for about 7 years now on my FJ40 quite successfully.

There is a need for dual battery set-ups, but they are more specialized. I haven't gotten to point of needing to do that yet (no ARB frig/freezer in my future!)

Regards,

Alan
Seattle
 
Beowulf said:
That reminds me, I need to go back to that thread and harass the guy from Mobi about their "new" product. He got us all pumped up about it back in August, 2004.... like it was about to be a real product any day.

Months and months have passed. Excuse after excuse. No product. I think he was smokin' something. :grinpimp:

-B-
Click to expand...

FYI...This is a copy of the e-mail Scott, from Mobi-Arc, sent to me on April 23, 2005...but I am on "the list" and haven't heard a thing since this e-mail a month ago.

We've finished threshold testing and have the basic rectifier completed
and
we're packaging them this week. We're prioritizing packaging based on
application. First is the basic rectifier and OR'ing switch for the
Marine
Corp. Then the dual isolator/combiner which will be popular with
off-road
applications; that will be another 10 business days or so. It requires
a
modified package that has two blades for dual batteries.

In our testing we ran 318 amps through the rectifier. A typical
silicon
rectifier would drop about 1.75 volts. A Hellroaring would fail. The
POWER-GATE dropped 47 millivolts (that 47 thousandths of a
volt)......and
the kicker is that you can hold it in your hand while running 300+ amps
through it! We hope to add pictures to the website this week once we
get
the product labels. www.perfectswitch.com/whypgate.htm

If you want to be added to the POWER-GATE "priority" e-mail list, let
me
know and I'll do so. As soon as we peg pricing and have them ready,
we'll
first fire an e-mail to those on the list and give them first crack.
At
this point, it seems our biggest problem is going to be facilitating
assembly quickly enough to keep up with demand. I suppose it's a good
problem to have.
 
I gave them my e-mail address and got the same promises 6 weeks ago, including the promise of e-mail updates. They also said production units would be available in 1 or 2 weeks.

Nada.

-B-
 
Turbo I feel your pain :mad: (i.e. lack of space under the hood). I got your pm just havn't had a chance to snap some pics to send to you showing you the dual setup in my rig. :eek: Its really quite clever and does allow for both the radiator overflow as well as the turbo. :D Will try to get some pics by this weekend and post them up in this thread for you. Sorry for not responding to you sooner on this issue but things have been kinda busy.
 
reffug said:
Turbo I feel your pain :mad: (i.e. lack of space under the hood). I got your pm just havn't had a chance to snap some pics to send to you showing you the dual setup in my rig. :eek: Its really quite clever and does allow for both the radiator overflow as well as the turbo. :D Will try to get some pics by this weekend and post them up in this thread for you. Sorry for not responding to you sooner on this issue but things have been kinda busy.
Click to expand...

No problem man, I totally understand, whenever you can snap some shots, I'd love to see em, but take your time; I think this is going to be an experiment conducted in several discreet steps so I've got time to think through each one and prepare for the next one. I knew if anyone could find a way to fit two batts in there along with the turbocharger and intercooler, you could! Thanks again! :cheers:
 
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