Dual Battery for Noobs (1 Viewer)

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Hi all. I am very new to the electrical side of the house. I’d like a dual battery setup to run a fridge. I’d also like the ability to add solar later. Most of the things I see online are for 200s with 2 batteries already installed moving the, from parallel to serial. My 200 only has one battery on the drivers side so I am a little confused.

Does anyone have any recommendations for a system. I’ve been looking at the redarc webpage but am honestly out of my depth.

Thanks!
 
I mounted a lithium battery in the rear (I have a drawer system) with a Redarc BCDC in the engine bay. The battery powers my fridge (which remains in my LC 24/7, aux lighting, and cell booster. sPod in the engine bay for control. Wiring under the driver's side interior trim and through the firewall. Solar panel on roof rack.
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The Slee battery trays are well made and convenient. If you do opt for a Redarc bcdc, they also sell a bracket for that.

It is pretty straightforward if you follow the Redarc recommended diagrams. Then again, it probably isn't a project best suited as your first electrical job. The wiring is large guage and requires specialty crimper, and mistakes could get costly. Do you have a trusted shop that could do the work?

I made all of my own cables, but something like this kit may be a way to avoid the crimping aspect?'08-Current Toyota Land Cruiser 200 Series SDHQ Built Dual Battery Wiring Kit

The downside is that you are kind of locked into their component choices and installation locations?m. Like that sqhd kit uses a blue sea acr Rather than a Redarc bcdc, which you may want.

Lots of people suggested to me that dual batteries aren't really worth it. In retrospect, I see where they were coming from. Doing it right is costly, and unless you have a lot of auxiliary loads, may be a lot of extra complexity and weight. The small jump packs (like the Noco) are pretty useful for self jump starting, if that is your primary goal.
 
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Welcome to Mud! I agree with @CharlieS that a full dual battery setup may not be a good choice as a first electrical project for someone “out of my depth” and “very new to the electrical side of the house”. For starters, everything in a LC dual battery setup is wired in parallel to maintain 12V. Serial connections would lead to 24V.

Go to the 200 section FAQs of Mud and scroll down to post #5 on electrical mods. In that post there are 3 linked threads on dual battery setups from other members. You’ll see it’s quite a project.

 
I'd say a dual battery setup for noobs is a Yeti 1000. Setup a mount point in the trunk and take your time figuring out wiring anderson plugs for the fridge [so it doesn't come loose while wheelin']. Next step would be running solar wiring to/from roof or even a bumper anderson plug for flexibility.
 
a single group 31 battery will run a fridge for 2 days. Add a 100 watt portable solar panel and in decent weather you’re good for 3-4 days.

Are you going to be parked and not moving for longer than that?

Dual battery systems are so heavy expensive and complicated and just aren’t necessary for the majority of users.

A slee primary tray and a group 31 main battery and a portable solar panel is “dummy proof” and will work for 99 percent of what folks do with these trucks.
 
Thanks guys lots of good info. How bad would it be to just run the fridge off the existing plug in the back without doing a dual battery? Would I drain the cars battery? Assuming 4 Hrs of driving a day. Fridge is a Dometic CFX 45.
 
It can work partially and you won't hurt anything because unfortunately, the outlet/inverter is off when the car is off. Some people do use that rear outlet to charge a portable lithium battery that then feeds the fridge which can work well. Personally, I like a standalone lithium batt as it offers lots of flexibility and value in various uses.

I second what @fireball is proposing.

If you must go duals, I would suggest
 
My issue is I have a XL James Baroud rooftop tent up top that limits real estate for solar panels. I love the concept though. Have any of you installed solar on top of your tent?
 
My issue is I have a XL James Baroud rooftop tent up top that limits real estate for solar panels. I love the concept though. Have any of you installed solar on top of your tent?

You might touch base with David Bates at 4thDSolar. He knows his stuff...

 
You might touch base with David Bates at 4thDSolar. He knows his stuff...



This place looks great. Thanks!
 
a single group 31 battery will run a fridge for 2 days. Add a 100 watt portable solar panel and in decent weather you’re good for 3-4 days.

Are you going to be parked and not moving for longer than that?

Dual battery systems are so heavy expensive and complicated and just aren’t necessary for the majority of users.

A slee primary tray and a group 31 main battery and a portable solar panel is “dummy proof” and will work for 99 percent of what folks do with these trucks.

I agree with this. I have a 5th gen 4Runner with the Off Grid Engineering Dual Battery kit with the Blue Sea ML-ACR and I'm going to switch it up a little in an effort to simplify things. Right now it places the aux battery in the passenger side firewall area. Instead of running dual group 35 batteries I'll likely switch to a single group 27 or 31 battery and use the Dometic PLB40 to run my fridge. A large single battery will be plenty enough for my off road lights and winching. The PLB40 will be plugged into the stock 12v plug in the rear which will disconnect when I shut the car off and the fridge will just run off the battery when at camp. From calculations the PLB40 can run my small Dometic CFX35 fridge for 1.5 to 2 days. I'll supplement with solar and I never tend to stay in a camp spot for more than 2 nights anyways so it'll eventually get a boost from the vehicles 12v before it goes dead. I'll also free up a large spot in my engine bay for something like a dual arb compressor.

@MrWiggles I think one of the best, user friendly and most dummy proof dual battery kits is the National Luna Power Packs. I'd look into their DC-DC power pack. All you have to do is run the wiring to the battery box and everything else is setup for you. Another advantage of an external box is that you can remove it and use it as a portable system if you wanted to.

 
One of the 100 watt units will work great for your application. The portable suitcase is nice because it easily clamps onto any battery. And you can buy longer cable so that you can pro in the shade and run the panel to the sun. And you can rotate it during the day to capture max exposure.

 
One of the lithium power stations with deployable solar panels would work great for your application. Charge with solar while in camp or from the vehicle while driving.

And it can be transported or removed completely from the vehicle when not needed.

e.g. this one is on sale right now
 
I did a dual battery in my 2013. I used a Slee GP 31 tray and aux battery tray. I ran cables to the P/S so the smaller GP35 battery was the starting battery and the larger Gp31 battery the aux. Actually not as bad as I thought. I bought pre-made cables. Originally I was overthinking it but it was easy.
I used a National Luna system. I did find that the system would overheat and stop working where I mounted it.

I ended up separating the circuit modular from the solenoid. I just extended the wires between the two units. The solenoid is mounted in the original posistion and the circuit modular is mounted behind the grill where it gets airflow. Of course when I did this, the the triple digit temps has passed.

I'll post up pictures when I get the truck back from getting a gear change.

 
Thanks all for your help. One additional question. I spoke with my dealer and he suggested putting two Yellow tops in. Yellow tops are deep cycle AGM as I understand it. SHouldn’t I have one cranking high cycle battery, or am I missing something?
 
Twin underbonnet Lithiums.

Cranks the engine, Runs the winch, powers all the accessories, runs 3000w invertors, coffee machines, Induction cooktops, Toaster. Nothing i cant do.

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Twin underbonnet Lithiums.

Cranks the engine, Runs the winch, powers all the accessories, runs 3000w invertors, coffee machines, Induction cooktops, Toaster. Nothing i cant do.

View attachment 2514951

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View attachment 2514953

View attachment 2514954

One o these days, Stewart, Ima have to get the FULL details on your lithium setup...
 

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