I have a lot of stuff throughout my truck and use alot of it with it off. My system, inverter, ect. I would like to have an extra battery mounted somewhere that I could tap into my alt to keep it charged, but have my accesories ran off of it. That way if Im listening to music at a party with my truck off, I can jump in it and start it up when Im ready to leave. And dont have to worry about my battery being dead.

So basically:

How would I tie my auxillary battery into my alternator?

Where is a prime location to mount the extra battery?

 

i would just get a dual battery kit, its not exactly the setup you're looking for but alot easier to wire up.

 

What exactly is that?

It shouldnt be that hard to do would it? All I need to do is unplug all the crap off of my optima now and put it on the new one. Then somehow tap into the charging system. That is the great question for the day.

 

this is probably what you need.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00029XF4C

 

Neat concept, but wouldnt it just be easier to just attach my accesories directly to the other battery and have my main battery treated as if completly stock?

Do you attach the factory battery cables to that, and then attach both batteries to the Isolator. Almost like a splitter, but it olny draws power from one battery?

 

Sure, you could hook them up in parallel. (red to red and black to black) Hooking them up like this doesn't prevent your batteries from completely draining though.

Yeah pretty much.

 

What im tryin to figure out is why I cant just add another battery to my truck at attach my accesories to it. Not have it connected to my original battery it all. Or is it not possible to tap it into the alternator with anything other than the original battery?

 

I don't think there is anyway to hook up two batts to the same alternator and keep them separated without using an isolator of some sort. I remember seeing an isolator were you could manually switch between running both and isolating the one but I can't see to find it.

 

your going to need an isolator for what you want to do

 

He wants to run a dual battery setup like in the super duty diesels.

 

I don't believe the superduty's isolate one batt from the other which is what he is wanting to do.

 

No he doesn't. He wants the batteries completely isolated from eachother when he turns the key off, and run all of his accessories from the aux battery.
It's already been said, you need a battery isolator. It charges both batteries from the alternator. When you turn the key off, the batteries are seperated and you can completely drain one without using any power from the other. That is if you wire your accessories up right. This includes re-wiring the power to your stereo, amps, and everything else, without any power wires from those going to the starting battery.

It's not complicated if you have some electrical wiring background. I'm not sure about where to mount another battery, I haven't looked around to see where you can stuff one. I believe you could fit one on either side, above the leaf spring shackles under the bedside, but you'll have a bit of loss in the long battery cables.

 

its not hard to do what you want, but is there any one thing you want to specifically run? if it was me, i'd just wire a battery up in the back and use it and recharge it when it's dead, but it sounds like more work than anything. they make devices that will alarm you when the battery is getting low.

 

Why not just get a single deep cycle battery? I just put in a Kinetik HC 1800...i can blast my system for hours, and it will still fire my truck right up....and i have 2 (well, 3 soon) amps in my truck.

 

I have an optima yellow top in there now. And I thought about getting something a little beefier, but I think another battery would be the way to go. A sense of security.

Yeah Im sure I could wire everything up okay, and if not my dad could help. The olny problem would be how to get my HU to work on my new battery. I dont want it on all the time, so how would I kill it. I can easily remove everything off of the stock battery, and move it to the auxillary. Will my HU still work when I just turn my key a little bit. I figure just a HU will be able to last off the optima for a VERY long time.

So...

Everything stock will be ran off of the stock battery, including my Pioneer in dash, power points, ect.

My off road lights, 2 amps, strobes, underglow, ect, will all run off my aux battery.

I will be able to use all of that when my truck is in aux. mode and when it is fully on correct?