Dual Battery Setup for my 80

[peytonkristen]

A few weeks ago I posted about getting power behind the second row of seats which has led me to realize that I definitely need the Dual Battery Setup.

I have spent many hours over the last few days browsing the FAQs and the many posts about this topic, some of that info goes back 20 years or more. Some of the older stuff seems fairly simple and then there are the newer, fully involved systems. I've read so much and seen so many things that I now have no clue what is best or what I need.

This is what I will need to power/charge:
WARN Winch
53L Refrigerator
USB ports in front and rear
Several Led lights for camping
Diesel Heater
Misc stuff
Be able to start if one battery is dead
I also have an Anker C1000 Power Station that will need charging.

So far, I have a new OEM battery box for the auxiliary battery and need to get a bracket to relocate the washer bottle.

Any advice would be appreciated for what I am going to need as far as wiring, controllers, fuses, and type of battery. Diagrams and links to currently available products would be great too. Thanks!

 

[NeverFinis]

I would personally look at @Delta VS wiring kits. They released it after I did part of mine, but I am thinking about getting the parts that I haven't done yet. Huge time saver figuring everything out.

 

[CharlieS]

20 years ago it was an awesome setup. Today, a portable power station also sometimes called a solar generator (bluetti, jackery, et al.) and jump pack are a better alternative.

I have dual Oddesy AGM batteries with a redarc bcdc on my 200, and wouldn't do it again. It works fine, Dual batteries are heavy, expensive and can be complicated. I've never self jumped, it's a cool sounding feature, but overblown in terms of practical use.

We have noco jump packs in all of our vehicles.

A winch should be run to the starting battery, not the house battery, regardless of whether single or dual batteries are installed.

 

[Tennessee80]

x2 on the more modular, portable style setup. They are removable and much easier to mess with unless you are hard core. I have a National Luna Dual battery box that just needs a cable that comes from the main battery back to it via Anderson plug. From there it powers whatever I need back there (fridge, USB, whatever).

I'm considering moving to a Jackery style setup, and my NL battery box may be for sale if I go the Jackery route....

Good luck man!

 

[CharlieS]

If you're set on it, doing it yourself isn't that difficult. I used a redarc bcdc 1225 to charge the aux (house) battery. Use the redarc wiring diagrams and fuse as they say. I used bluesea components for everything. A simple solution to self jump is a high amperage solenoid (I trigger mine from a switchpros, but a simple spst switch will work fine). Buy high quality multi strand copper (not copper coated aluminum) silicone jacketed wiring for the larger wires, and ancor tinned copper multiple wire jacketed fir the smaller stuff. I used the charts available from bluesea for sizing wiring and fuses. I have a safety hub 100 at each battery, the high amp loads (like the arb compressor) and bcdc off the larger AMI fuses. I run a property sized circuit breaker between the house battery and the power wire that goes back to the cargo area. I have an additional six circuit fuse sub panel in the cargo area that I run all of my charging sockets off - usb-a, usb-c, powerlet (it is what my national luna fridge has), and a cigar plug. Battery type is a whole can of worms, I went AGM, but there are strong feelings about the right way to go.

I used littlefuse/bussman fuse holders for AMI fuses in the 80. The sell a copper busbar (multiple sizes available) and the fuse holders interlock, so it's pretty tidy too. I'd consider this in place of the safetyhub if I was doing a dual battery setup today. (My 80 only has a single lead acid battery).

Also keep in mind your front suspension setup may need to be adjusted to accommodate the additional weight of dual batteries.

 

[Tennessee80]

@CharlieS that sounds like a bad ass setup. Wow

 

[peytonkristen]

20 years ago it was an awesome setup. Today, a portable power station also sometimes called a solar generator (bluetti, jackery, et al.) and jump pack are a better alternative.

I have dual Oddesy AGM batteries with a redarc bcdc on my 200, and wouldn't do it again. It works fine, Dual batteries are heavy, expensive and can be complicated. I've never self jumped, it's a cool sounding feature, but overblown in terms of practical use.

We have noco jump packs in all of our vehicles.

A winch should be run to the starting battery, not the house battery, regardless of whether single or dual batteries are installed.

Thanks Charlie! I also have the NOCOs in all of my vehicles (they are great!) and just acquired an Anker C1000 power station. One thing I was concerned about was how to charge the power station when it gets low when out for several days. How do you keep yours charged? I think I could avoid the costly dual battery setup if my power station works out.
Thanks!!

 

[Tennessee80]

Thanks Charlie! I also have the NOCOs in all of my vehicles (they are great!) and just acquired an Anker C1000 power station. One thing I was concerned about was how to charge the power station when it gets low when out for several days. How do you keep yours charged? I think I could avoid the costly dual battery setup if my power station works out.
Thanks!!

the power stations should have a way to keep it constantly charged from your cigarette lighter (12 v plug socket )?

 

[captainva]

https://www.amazon.com/ETAKER-Fleet-1000-Compatible-Generator/dp/B0CTMH3V7J

This works well and will give you 500W only when the vehicle is on (or you can override that) and will combine alternator and solar charging to provide up to 1000W of charge into a battery bank. Got this and an 2000wh

 

[peytonkristen]

the power stations should have a way to keep it constantly charged from your cigarette lighter (12 v plug socket )?

It did come with a cigarette lighter adapter for charging. I just don't trust that type of charger for various reasons. I may just run power from my battery to the rear with a good, heavy, fused cable to avoid power loss, and then adapt everything with an Anderson fitting.

 

[Tennessee80]

It did come with a cigarette lighter adapter for charging. I just don't trust that type of charger for various reasons. I may just run power from my battery to the rear with a good, heavy, fused cable to avoid power loss, and then adapt everything with an Anderson fitting.

That's exactly how my National Luna battery box works, via main battery and Anderson connection. With a true dual battery housed inside the NL box, it is solid. It's just way more cumbersome and the new tech power station scene makes my setup look like a dinosaur.

 

[Mark W]

20 years ago it was an awesome setup. Today, a portable power station also sometimes called a solar generator (bluetti, jackery, et al.) and jump pack are a better alternative.

I have dual Oddesy AGM batteries with a redarc bcdc on my 200, and wouldn't do it again. It works fine, Dual batteries are heavy, expensive and can be complicated. I've never self jumped, it's a cool sounding feature, but overblown in terms of practical use.

We have noco jump packs in all of our vehicles.

Jump packs are really handy. I have one in every rig now too. But if you are in cold climates and run into the all to common "not enough battery to get her started this morning" situation... That jump box kept in the rig is gonna be worthless until you take it inside and warm it up for an hour or so.

I have never "self jumped". But my default configuration of my batteries is in parallel during normal on road winter operations. So on those -20 mornings I always have lots of electrons on board waiting to rush to the starter.
When I am on the trail or road tripping or simply not in the colder months, then I isolate the batteries so as to always have the back up of a fully charged one if some bit of stupidity drains the primary somehow. Dual batteries are also pretty nice when winching.

I do not personally consider a dual battery setup all that complicated if that is all that you are dealing with. I'd rather not have the extra battery weight up front, but it is more than worth it in my book.

I have also been in the position of being able to charge and swap batteries over a couple/few days during a longer trail run when one of the others has alternator problems. Charge their battery while my secondary battery is under their hood powering their rig and swap them back and forth until we get back to town. Have even done that on a several hundred mile rod trip once until we could get back to town to replace the alternator..

That has saved the day for us more than once.

What I have been meaning to get... and may very well order today now that it is on my mind again, is one of those capacitor based jump boxes. They can pull ever last biit out of a nearly dead battery to feed it back in a surge that will crank the engine beautifully. And you do not have to worry about them being too cold to function.

Mark...

 

[CharlieS]

Thanks Charlie! I also have the NOCOs in all of my vehicles (they are great!) and just acquired an Anker C1000 power station. One thing I was concerned about was how to charge the power station when it gets low when out for several days. How do you keep yours charged? I think I could avoid the costly dual battery setup if my power station works out.
Thanks!!

I don't have a power station. If I did, and I wanted only one battery, to keep it simple, I'd run a properly sized power wire from the starting battery through a circuit breaker, through the grommet in the firewall, tucked under the step plates in the door jambs, up into the rear cargo area where I'd terminate it with a connector compatible with the power station. I'd probably also put an AMI fuse properly sized for the wire guage and run, near the battery in one of those littlefuse/bussman holders to protect the wiring. The circuit breaker doubles as a cutoff - just press the button to disconnect the whole circuit, flip the lever to re-energize it. I'd ground to one of the body ground points near the termination (the one in the D-pillar is handy).

 

[ebbs15]

It did come with a cigarette lighter adapter for charging. I just don't trust that type of charger for various reasons. I may just run power from my battery to the rear with a good, heavy, fused cable to avoid power loss, and then adapt everything with an Anderson fitting.

I cut off my plug on my fridge and my portable power station and put one of these on each end
30 Amp Anderson plug Note you will need the anderson plug crimping tool...

or you can get this Anderson plug pigtailand splice on...

Then put one of these with a wire to my battery Anderson outlet

Note there is no low voltage cutoff unless your system has it built in.... (my fridge does but my power station does not... learned the hard way)
so you may want to wire in this Low Voltage Cutoff Switch (my plan for this summer)

 

[ebbs15]

Jump packs are really handy. I have one in every rig now too. But if you are in cold climates and run into the all to common "not enough battery to get her started this morning" situation... That jump box kept in the rig is gonna be worthless until you take it inside and warm it up for an hour or so.

I have never "self jumped". But my default configuration of my batteries is in parallel during normal on road winter operations. So on those -20 mornings I always have lots of electrons on board waiting to rush to the starter.
When I am on the trail or road tripping or simply not in the colder months, then I isolate the batteries so as to always have the back up of a fully charged one if some bit of stupidity drains the primary somehow. Dual batteries are also pretty nice when winching.

I do not personally consider a dual battery setup all that complicated if that is all that you are dealing with. I'd rather not have the extra battery weight up front, but it is more than worth it in my book.

I have also been in the position of being able to charge and swap batteries over a couple/few days during a longer trail run when one of the others has alternator problems. Charge their battery while my secondary battery is under their hood powering their rig and swap them back and forth until we get back to town. Have even done that on a several hundred mile rod trip once until we could get back to town to replace the alternator..

That has saved the day for us more than once.

What I have been meaning to get... and may very well order today now that it is on my mind again, is one of those capacitor based jump boxes. They can pull ever last biit out of a nearly dead battery to feed it back in a surge that will crank the engine beautifully. And you do not have to worry about them being too cold to function.

Mark...

I have seen jump packs even some expensive ones... Norco specifically more than once, fail to jump the vehicle... so we pulled a rig up (we went with the simple option first) and it jumped immediately... now these batteries I believe were super low... and it was below freezing every time. I do have a jump pack in my wifes car... but I'll definitely be going with dual batteries for my rigs that go to remote areas.

 

[Tennessee80]

I cut off my plug on my fridge and my portable power station and put one of these on each end
30 Amp Anderson plug Note you will need the anderson plug crimping tool...

or you can get this Anderson plug pigtailand splice on...

Then put one of these with a wire to my battery Anderson outlet

Note there is no low voltage cutoff unless your system has it built in.... (my fridge does but my power station does not... learned the hard way)
so you may want to wire in this Low Voltage Cutoff Switch (my plan for this summer)

Thx for the link here on these Anderson plug ends....

 

[OffRoadScott]

I guess I'll jump into this conversation as well. When I wired up my dual batteries I used a drawing I sourced from a out of business vendor. This schematic allows you to wire in a Blue Sea ML-ACR and with the dash mounted switch. The Blue Sea ML-ACR allows you to jump the batteries and self jump yourself if your starting battery does die.

Then I was given this rough drawing for how to wire in a the ML-ACR with a Red Arc DCDC charger. This drawing includes solar option as some Red Arc DCDC chargers have the option for a solar hook up. The nice thing about having the solar option is that the Red Arc will pull power from solar first then the alternator. In no way am I am assuming the Red Arc DCDC charger is running full time, if it does adds the comfort of knowing your batteries are charged.

One last thing as far as connecting the two batteries via the ML-ACR, you will want to purchase (2) Blue Sea fuse block terminals, with a separate 200 AMP fuse. They will be mounted to the threaded post/MIL-Spec automotive terminal kit on the positive side of each battery.

This schematic was sourced from Red Arc's website for their BCDC 50A Alpha charger. Most of the wires you see are included in these kits if I recall or can be sourced from Red Arc or a Red Arc dealer.

To address your the things you are wanting to run off different power sources here are my thoughts and if anyone disagrees please feel free to correct me:

WARN Winch - run it off your starting battery. One thing I would recommend in winching situations is to get yourself the handle throttle. The hand throttle allows you to raise the RPM and increase the charge rate of your alternator while winching. You can also wire in a switch to kill power going to the winch, some say it is over kill. I personally do not have a kill switch.
53L Refrigerator - the fridge can be run off a power source via an inverter in the back, if you plan on using the plug. Depending on the fridge you can get a hard wire kit that you can use the fuse panel to source power from. Below is a picture of a 1/4 panel with some extensive wiring. The fuse panel you see in this picture can be sourced from @Delta VS pre-built with the relay on the side. The long bars you see ground cables going to are called bus bars, they provide you with a common ground source for multiple items. This will make your life easier when tracking electrical issues.

USB ports in front and rear - in the picture above you can use a 12 slot fuse panel the again is available from Delta VS. You will power your USB ports from here or you can add a second fuse panel mount in the center console
Several Led lights for camping - again these LED can be ran from a power source similar to the fuse panel above.
Diesel Heater - Diesel Heater doesn't need an external power source if I am correct. Diesel is the power source and there are some great options out there for some vehicle mounted solutions.
Misc stuff
Be able to start if one battery is dead - I go back to the Blue Sea ML-ACR and Red Arc DCDC chargers that I mentioned above.
I also have an Anker C1000 Power Station that will need charging - doing an inverter will allow you convert power from you battery to power/recharge this power station re-charge camera batteries, etc. The size of the inverter limits what you can run, if it was me I would run no less then 1500 watt inverter.

Also, use the largest batteries you can fit in the stock box with the longest reserve capacity and stay with the same group size for both. Land Cruisers call for either a group 24/24F or you can even run a group 27/27F. I run 2 group 34 AGM batteries in my 80. The starting battery is a Interstate MTZ-34R and the house battery is a 34M-AGM from Interstate as well. The house battery I would recommend having a deep cycle battery as there is a greater demand on that battery. The bad thing about Lead Acid batteries compared to Lithium, lead acid can only be discharged 50% before you have to charge or it has to be charged. Lithium per some sources say you can discharge them down to 10% and they do have longer AMP hours meaning they go longer between charges. But lithium batteries can be expensive, quickly looking at both Battle Borns site run $750 - $950 and the Red Arc batteries is $1800.

And before I forget a second time, get yourself a some type of circuit breaker too, minimum of 150 amps. That way you can cut power to the back when you are not using those items or parking the rig for an extended period of time so there is no extra draw on the power source causing dead batteries.

If you have any questions feel free to contact me via DM and we can talk there or via text.

Most of if not a lot of the parts I have mentioned can be sourced either from Delta VS or Red Arc

 

[robnicko]

I guess I'll jump into this conversation as well. When I wired up my dual batteries I used a drawing I sourced from a out of business vendor. This schematic allows you to wire in a Blue Sea ML-ACR and with the dash mounted switch. The Blue Sea ML-ACR allows you to jump the batteries and self jump yourself if your starting battery does die.

View attachment 3812591

Then I was given this rough drawing for how to wire in a the ML-ACR with a Red Arc DCDC charger. This drawing includes solar option as some Red Arc DCDC chargers have the option for a solar hook up. The nice thing about having the solar option is that the Red Arc will pull power from solar first then the alternator. In no way am I am assuming the Red Arc DCDC charger is running full time, if it does adds the comfort of knowing your batteries are charged.

One last thing as far as connecting the two batteries via the ML-ACR, you will want to purchase (2) Blue Sea fuse block terminals, with a separate 200 AMP fuse. They will be mounted to the threaded post/MIL-Spec automotive terminal kit on the positive side of each battery.

View attachment 3812623

View attachment 3812589

This schematic was sourced from Red Arc's website for their BCDC 50A Alpha charger. Most of the wires you see are included in these kits if I recall or can be sourced from Red Arc or a Red Arc dealer.

View attachment 3812618

To address your the things you are wanting to run off different power sources here are my thoughts and if anyone disagrees please feel free to correct me:

WARN Winch - run it off your starting battery. One thing I would recommend in winching situations is to get yourself the handle throttle. The hand throttle allows you to raise the RPM and increase the charge rate of your alternator while winching. You can also wire in a switch to kill power going to the winch, some say it is over kill. I personally do not have a kill switch.
53L Refrigerator - the fridge can be run off a power source via an inverter in the back, if you plan on using the plug. Depending on the fridge you can get a hard wire kit that you can use the fuse panel to source power from. Below is a picture of a 1/4 panel with some extensive wiring. The fuse panel you see in this picture can be sourced from @Delta VS pre-built with the relay on the side. The long bars you see ground cables going to are called bus bars, they provide you with a common ground source for multiple items. This will make your life easier when tracking electrical issues.

View attachment 3812592
USB ports in front and rear - in the picture above you can use a 12 slot fuse panel the again is available from Delta VS. You will power your USB ports from here or you can add a second fuse panel mount in the center console
Several Led lights for camping - again these LED can be ran from a power source similar to the fuse panel above.
Diesel Heater - Diesel Heater doesn't need an external power source if I am correct. Diesel is the power source and there are some great options out there for some vehicle mounted solutions.
Misc stuff
Be able to start if one battery is dead - I go back to the Blue Sea ML-ACR and Red Arc DCDC chargers that I mentioned above.
I also have an Anker C1000 Power Station that will need charging - doing an inverter will allow you convert power from you battery to power/recharge this power station re-charge camera batteries, etc. The size of the inverter limits what you can run, if it was me I would run no less then 1500 watt inverter.

Also, use the largest batteries you can fit in the stock box with the longest reserve capacity and stay with the same group size for both. Land Cruisers call for either a group 24/24F or you can even run a group 27/27F. I run 2 group 34 AGM batteries in my 80. The starting battery is a Interstate MTZ-34R and the house battery is a 34M-AGM from Interstate as well. The house battery I would recommend having a deep cycle battery as there is a greater demand on that battery. The bad thing about Lead Acid batteries compared to Lithium, lead acid can only be discharged 50% before you have to charge or it has to be charged. Lithium per some sources say you can discharge them down to 10% and they do have longer AMP hours meaning they go longer between charges. But lithium batteries can be expensive, quickly looking at both Battle Borns site run $750 - $950 and the Red Arc batteries is $1800.

And before I forget a second time, get yourself a some type of circuit breaker too, minimum of 150 amps. That way you can cut power to the back when you are not using those items or parking the rig for an extended period of time so there is no extra draw on the power source causing dead batteries.

If you have any questions feel free to contact me via DM and we can talk there or via text.

Most of if not a lot of the parts I have mentioned can be sourced either from Delta VS or Amazon or Red Arc

great info there Scott

the only thing id be wary of is in the 1st diagram, do not rely on a fender as a ground point only. I ground my 2nd battery to the AC bracket on the engine as well as the fender. Grounding just to the fender will not be enough to allow proper charging of the aux battery

 

[ebbs15]

Diesel Heater - Diesel Heater doesn't need an external power source if I am correct. Diesel is the power source and there are some great options out there for some vehicle mounted solutions.

only minor correction. Diesel heaters do require a external power source for the glow plug and fan... they can pull over 10A at startup so that's the biggest hurdle (many power stations will trip at 10A on a cig plug) after that they drop to near nothing (just running the fan). also note Diesel Heaters MUST go through a shutdown process so the power needs to be stable and not randomly disconnect (like some cig plugs do) or soot will build up in the combustion chamber and smoke you out in your tent.

Otherwise lots of great info and I'll be referencing it later! thanks!

 

[OffRoadScott]

only minor correction. Diesel heaters do require a external power source for the glow plug and fan... they can pull over 10A at startup so that's the biggest hurdle (many power stations will trip at 10A on a cig plug) after that they drop to near nothing (just running the fan). also note Diesel Heaters MUST go through a shutdown process so the power needs to be stable and not randomly disconnect (like some cig plugs do) or soot will build up in the combustion chamber and smoke you out in your tent.

Otherwise lots of great info and I'll be referencing it later! thanks!

Thank you, I was not aware of that and why I said to correct me if I was wrong.