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- #Battery isolator relay ac delco how to
- #Battery isolator relay ac delco install
- #Battery isolator relay ac delco portable
The other complication with doing an overland dual battery setup in my truck, a 1991 Toyota Pickup (Hilux) which predates the Tacoma models, is that it features a small engine compartment. Join the PTC Community Toyota 4 x 4 Pickup 22RE Request to join and you will be approved soon! Ask questions, get answers, and share photos, along with your own tips and tricks. Join the #PTC Communityīe sure to join our private Facebook group with thousands of Truck Camping enthusiasts. They had the best rate and they came recommended by my neighborhood mechanic. I ended up going with Affordable RV Repair in Bremerton, WA. And the RV repair folks quoted me about $350. The audio stereo specialists quoted me a price of upward of $500.
#Battery isolator relay ac delco install
So your best bet is to call around to car stereo specialists (they often install a second battery for their clients to run their high-powered stereos) or to call an RV repair place or shop (who are more specialized in the needs and demands of using a second car battery for a home on wheels). Most normal auto repair shops will not want to do a dual battery setup. Or, if you’re like me, and that’s still too complex, do it the true dummy’s way and have a local handyman install it for you. So, if you’re able, definitely follow this Expedition Portal thread about a $50 isolated dual battery. Reading online it never sounded too complicated–but with the grounding of the batteries and things of that nature, it was just over my head. Which electronics are absolutely notorious for doing. Really you just need a simple battery isolator kit, which also means that less that can go wrong with it on the road as well. Here is a closer shot of the NOCO battery isolator that I had installed for my dual battery setup. I got an ACDelco M24MF marine battery, $55 for a NOCO 90A Isolator–which you can grab for less than $30 on Amazon, and the rest for miscellaneous parts like electrical wires to hook up the battery, new battery tray, etc. In all it only cost me about $370 for them to do it, about $120 of which was the cost of labor, the rest was the parts $120 for a deep cycle marine battery (which is what you definitely want as they are designed to be discharged down to zero). So I just bit the bullet this year before setting out on the road again and made some calls to area businesses and had them set me all up with a second car battery for accessories. But I just couldn’t really get my head around it.Īmps, grounding, various gauge wires, wiring, voltage, solenoids, blah, blah, blah.
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#Battery isolator relay ac delco how to
I would read and read about the dual batteries and how to do isolator setups on the Internet from various websites and on Expedition Portal. But you don’t ever really want to kill your starter battery–it’s not good for them in the long run and they aren’t built to be drained down to zero and then charged back up.
#Battery isolator relay ac delco portable
Of course, you can buy portable emergency jumper batteries, they also sell batteries with a special jumper built right into it. I now picture Walter White in Breaking Bad rigging up sponges and various metal components to jumpstart their RV battery… Although I could never do that! Alternatives to a Dual Battery Setup I can think of few things worse than getting stuck out in the middle of Grand-Staircase Escalante’s Hole in the Rock road, or some other remote area and being unable to start your vehicle and being stuck without cell service. Thus allowing you to connect your accessories and electronics up to this secondary battery to use while camping without ever worrying about killing your main battery and being unable to start your vehicle the following morning. In practice, this system means that while you are driving around all day you are charging both batteries like normal, but when the vehicle is off the batteries are not connected and cannot see one another. A dual battery with an isolator, for those who don’t know, is pretty much what it sounds like: connecting two car batteries to your vehicle’s alternator while adding in an isolator of some sort to keep the batteries separate (isolated!). Up until now, my answer had always been, “I don’t know, but that’s something I really wanted to do before leaving!”īefore we get into how to install a second battery in your car or truck, maybe we should talk about WHY. One of my most frequently asked questions about my truck camping setup was always in regards to a dual battery setup and adding an isolator.
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