x2 on the BlueSea, love mine and tested it several times and hasn't let me down yet, no biggie for me to pop the hood and throw them to combine for a self jump either.
Necessity of Dual Batteries
- Thread starter atomicshawn
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I still have one under the hood so hoping the one that failed was just a fluke. I read good things about the 34R-PC1500T before I dropped the cash. Others have had good luck it seems. But, yea... I'd hang on to your receipt.
I bought mine from sears just so i could do the warranty easily. Sears' die hard platinum marine battery is the same as the PC1500 , and it was 50 bucks cheaper. I verified with the manufacturer first of course.
Cruiser Jimmy
Moderator
Getting ready to install the Blue Sea automatic charging relay. My setup is as follows. Red top Optima for the starting battery and Yellow top for the winch and accessory circuit. My accessory circuit will only have an ARB fridge for the timing being. I plan on running the stock alternator which pushes 55A IIRC and won't have a fancy second alternator. Question or concerns with be appreciated but I shouldn't have a problem with the stock alternator should I?
Cruiserdrew
On the way there
It will be fine. I run a similar set up on my FJ60.
You sure you don't want to put the winch on the primary battery? I'm thinking that as you pull down the voltage of #2 battery it will open the charging relay and you won't get the benefit of your full alternator output immediately recharging the #1 battery.
You sure you don't want to put the winch on the primary battery? I'm thinking that as you pull down the voltage of #2 battery it will open the charging relay and you won't get the benefit of your full alternator output immediately recharging the #1 battery.
rusty_tlc
Dain Bramaged Member
Consider what Cruiserdrew said. The winch acts more like a starter than the other loads, lots of current in a short time. The Red Top is designed for that. Based on first hand experience you can do a lot of winching with a Red Top in a day with fairly short recharge times in between sessions.
I would do it as planned, and have the which connected to the second battery which is a Yellow Top.
The Yellow Top is also capable of delivering more than 1100 CCA, so power is no issue. The Yellow Top is in fact designed for that as well, but also for lower loads. It is the reason that (together with the bigger size) it is sometimes seen as a popular starter battery if you also have a whinch (and not a second battery)
And if you have the big yellow top (75Ah) compared to the small/normal red top, it will also last longer.
And the important thing is that you don't drain the starter battery so you can still start it after a lot of whinching! I guess that is half of the use of having a dual battery setup.
The Yellow Top is also capable of delivering more than 1100 CCA, so power is no issue. The Yellow Top is in fact designed for that as well, but also for lower loads. It is the reason that (together with the bigger size) it is sometimes seen as a popular starter battery if you also have a whinch (and not a second battery)
And if you have the big yellow top (75Ah) compared to the small/normal red top, it will also last longer.
And the important thing is that you don't drain the starter battery so you can still start it after a lot of whinching! I guess that is half of the use of having a dual battery setup.
However, one drawback is, that if the second battery is far behind in the interior space, it needs a long cable, and a thick one because of the amps. And the longer the cable, the thicker the cable needs to be.
I half killed one (31M 2150) over the last three years from undercharging it. I would drive home every other day almost about 15-25 minutes, see 13V on the gauge and think it was charged up. Then a year or so later when it started showing 12.8 or 7 the next morning I would put it on what I know now is a wholly inadequate $30 15A "smart" charger and call it done.
Today the moderate volume stereo will knock it down from 13v to 12.5 in an hour or so.
So after speaking with Odyssey I know that my new 31M PC2150 requires at least 40 amps to charge it and at a specific profile. I bought a correct charger and I'll put it on every time I deep cycle the battery no matter what the gauge says.
The old 2150 will start the truck just fine every time (especially with solar charging). I'm thinking of keeping it as the starter battery in a dual system.
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