I am coming to a close on my 83 Toyota's build and decided dual batteries is worth the extra expense. I know there will be a long hard day of wheeling and winch use followed by a long night of tunes played over the stereo, dual batteries will ensure I always have a backup to start. I have a 12k winch, so I am pretty sure one battery for the winch will be more than sufficient.
Roman and I have debated over what the best way is to route my wiring for the 2 batteries so here is the Billavista dual battery setup I will be copying.
So here is the billavista write-up:
http://www.pirate4x4.com/tech/billavist ... _setup.htm
Billavista wrote:My Dual battery setup.
I did a bunch of research on dual battery setups before doing mine. There are a lot of different options and setups available.
I wanted mine to be simple, reliable, and uncomplicated. I rejected the designs with fancy isolators and those using multiple solenoids
because I felt the potential for failure in these parts, leaving the entire electrical system inoperable, was too high. Plus they're harder to
setup, understand, and maintain. Also, even though many claim success, the solenoids you see used are not designed for this, even if they are
"constant duty - more on this below.
So I ended up with a very simple system consisting of 2 batteries, a large marine switch with positions 1/2/both/off, all wired with 1/0 welding cable.
A lot of conventional wisdom recommends 2 identical batteries, but I wanted to try to reap the strengths of both kinds of batteries, so I installed a marine deep cycle battery (battery 2) and a regular heavy duty automotive starting battery (battery 1).
Here's my system:
This is the switch, available fromhttp://www.marinco.com/product/diesel-power-battery-selector-switch. Note that they have switches available rated up to 1000 amps !!
Mine is rated for 230 amps continuous, 350 amp intermittent (5 minutes).
This is the back of the switch, with the terminals labelled. The field terminals are for use with an externally regulated alternator, such that
accidentally switching the switch to "off" with the engine (alternator) running, will not harm the alternator. However, as my alternator is internally regulated, I do not, and cannot use this feature, and must not switch the switch to off with engine running....no big deal.
Here's where I installed the switch....not for everyone I know, but I like it. My friends joke that I could launch nuclear missiles with that switch !
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Ill update this thread with a better schematic and my dual battery build soon. If anyone has any pointers please feel free to post.