Is This How To Wire A House Battery Or Burn Down My Truck? 1st Gen Edition.

I am finally getting around to wiring up my second battery. I splurged and bought the tray from F-ers.com and will be running an Interstate 27M-EFB. I am using 2 AWG wire for all the runs and. PAC 500 Watt Isolator.

I know that there are other ways to do it and probably also easier ways, but I was trying to build a somewhat budget system to begin with and can upgrade batteries/isolators as time goes on.

I mostly want to make sure the diagram makes sense, will work, and most importantly not burn down my truck.

 

Hi, I had some time and was able to clean up the diagram some. I have experience with basic wiring, but a system as big as this one is beyond my comfort zone.

Looking for guidance from those that know more and open to suggestions if anything else should be done differently. (Although I already have all the parts for this layout.)

Any input would be appreciated!

 

@bmf4069
@shifty`

 

Burn down your truck... No, that 100 amp fuse will save you there. However, it will be popping constantly without some sort of charge controller or current limiter device between the starting battery and the house battery. If you draw down the house battery and then close that isolator/solenoid the fuse will pop every time.

you probably want a DC-DC charger in there. Something like this

$150 ATEM POWER 25A 12V DC to DC Battery Charger with Anderson Plug Reverse Charge MPPT for AGM, Gel, Calcium, Lead Acid, LiFePO4 Batteries of 4WDs, RVs, Campers Multi-Protection Design On-Board Charger

https://www.amazon.com/ATEM-POWER-A...5&sr=8-4-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGY

 

@daveeasa @FrenchToasty

 

Ditch the winch fuse and install a switch instead. Blue sea 300 or 600 if your winch needs it. There is a TW guy who makes brackets for them to mount up, Lambtek I believe.

my RedArc for my ‘16 as a kit from OGE wants 30 amp fuses. I have a blue sea ml acr or whatever for the tundra but haven’t installed yet and haven’t read up yet.

The thing is, the alternator doesn’t charge either battery with 100 amps of juice, right? It charges much slower but supports the load while running. So OGE did 30 amp fuses and 6 gauge. I’d rather something beefier than 6 but it’s fine by the numbers.

the point of fusing both sides is if the wire shorts in the middle. I’d use MRBF fuses to get as close as possible to the battery post. Since either battery can discharge if shorted.

beefy ground from aux battery to frame which can potentially share the starter battery grousing spot.

Don’t winch without the truck running. And I’d probably just run it on the starter battery since that’s where the alternator feeds into.

also you want to do the big 3 stuff to suck max juice from the alternator for the winch.

I still need to relocate my control box, for now I have a winch with studs and no controller.

 

The isolators typically auto detect charging voltage and marry up, vs non charging (vehicle off) and open circuit so the two batteries are split. As long as you don’t exceed the alternator output you wouldn’t expect a problem with an isolator. The dc to dc chargers like the RedArc in my Tacoma are nice if you want an agm secondary and lead acid primary since you can boost charging voltage to the secondary. And they can do direct solar input.

but our first gens with the alt s mod and hkb or diode trick can charge at agm voltage so dual 27 AGM’s make sense to me and then an isolator to allow them to both charge when ignition is on.

 

Thanks for the info! All the fuses I am running are circuit breaker-type fuses that can be reset. I was going to put a circuit breaker in for the winch to have as 'off' switch since the power switch is somewhat accessible from the bumper.

I had trouble finding information on how fast the starter battery would charge the house battery, so I just based my wire size off of the 130A alternator I have for about 6' of wiring between the batteries and then for the run to the bed of the truck. Good point on adding a fuse toward each side of the wire connecting the batteries, I will add that in.

Now that I have a pneumatic wire crimper, I would probably do the Big 3 upgrade soon, just want to get one project done before adding in the ninth one.

I did not know about the RedArc DC to DC being able to charge different types of batteries. My normal starter battery is only about a year old, so didn't make sense to dump it for a new AGM at the moment, but when that goes I will be looking to upgrade to AGM and new charge controller (and hopefully some type of solar, those LenSun hood panels keep catching my eye...)


Thanks again for the info!

 

@dittothat and @Wallygator have some good info as well.

 

The isolator works to prevent the starter battery charging the aux battery. You usually don’t want that. You want the alternator or solar to charge the batteries and the starter to start the truck while the aux runs stuff offline and can drain down. Or if the starter dies for some reason you link the aux to “jump” it, but regular jumper cables work fine for that.

Link to Lambtek:

https://www.lambtekinnovations.com/products/05-current-toyota-tacoma-winch-switch-bracket-kit

 

Diagram looks pretty good. I might move the isolator closer to the starter battery (assuming diagram is to scale) and would do as Dave says and run the winch off the starter battery. You can run it off the house but you’re going to have to be more mindful of the duty cycle (should be doing that anyway while winching).

As for adding a second battery there’s a million ways to do it and each way will work. If those are the pieces you got; go for it! Truck will be fine. Just ground and fuse accordingly which it appears you’re doing

 

I'm curious if anyone has used a DirtyParts kit. They sell kits without the trays. I was looking at getting the FJ kit and modifying it to work for the tundra. I know they also use a switch that allows for dual, backup, or neutral switch on their Carling switch. https://dirtyparts.com/store/detail.cfm/DUAL-BATTERY-KIT-FJC---4RNNR/pid-194809