Need help with Dual Battery and Inverter setup

[Tedd Rowe]

Hi everyone,
I am new to this and I have a 1999 Jeep Grand Cherokee 4.0 I6. I want to use it for Over Landing on small trip and towing behind my motor home on longer ones. Anyway I have purchased a 2000 watt pure sine wave inverter to install for use on the Jeep. I would like to also be able to make portable to use with my Ram 1500 Rebel. I was mainly going to use it for making coffee and my wife's hair dryer so that I can get her out camping for real. Trying to get some information on how to set it up. Do I need or should I use a dual battery set up? Can I make a dual battery box and have it where it will hook up to the crank battery? Would like to maybe use it in the tent for wife's CPAP. I am installing the inverter in the back of the Jeep and Ram (Ram has a ARE Cap with carpet).
Thanks
Tedd

 

[1Louder]

Buy an ArkPak or similar. ArkPak allows you to put in whatever size battery you like. Keep it charged up with solar. While the ArkPak will be heavy depending on the size of battery you put in it, it will be portable.

If you don't want to do that then just get a good deep cycle battery for your vehicles and again keep it charged up with solar. By a Antigravity jump box or similar in case you do drain your battery to the point it won't start. Unlikely if using solar but a good just in case device. I don't run a dual battery setup. I have in the past and it was pretty costly and a pain to setup. Unless you do the "$50" dual battery setup explained on another forum you will spend good money for the controller, 2nd battery, wiring, etc. Not sure how you would make something like that portable. Again some type of "powerboat" like the Arkpak sounds like a better option.

 

[Mike W]

We have some really good threads on the topic too. Lots of interesting setups. I have posted about mine in several. Good luck!

 

[Tedd Rowe]

Can you link me to them?

 

[1Louder]

Can you link me to them?

I would suggest reading some of the post on the ExpeditionPortal.com forums. Not to take anything away from OB but there are some good ones on EP.

You are going to determine the power draw for all of your devices to see if the inverter can handle them. A 2000 watt inverter is peak power for example. You typically can't run something at a constant 2000 watt draw.

So a hair dryer would probably need to be a low watt one like 1000 watt or less. No idea what coffee maker you want to use and what the power drawer would be. As for a CPAP I have seen many discussions on powering those so do a search here and on EP.

 

[Tedd Rowe]

Thank you

 

[Spacemonkee23]

Im building a solar powered battery box.

 

[Tedd Rowe]

That sounds interesting. I have two Optima Yellow top 31's for my project.

 

[MOAK]

The yellow tops are probably a very good choice. At one time they were the best on the market for the money spent, but the quality did suffer for a few years after they were gobbled up by a much larger corporation. I think their quality may be as good now as it was in their early years. As far as a dual battery set up I'm a firm believer in the KISS method. I use a manual isolator switch between the two. Off when the rig is shut down at camp, On when we are rolling. I also utilize a 150 watt solar panel to keep things charged up when we are sitting. With the two batteries and the solar panel we can park indefinitely and keep everything topped off while our Engle is running, charging camera batteries, phones, laptops and camp lighting. We have a 500 watt inverter which is plenty for our use. I know we must bend a bit to accommadate our partners, but a hair dryer and coffee maker? Those two appliances will draw your batteries down quick, very quick.

 

[Tedd Rowe]

I would only use those items with the engine running. I need my second Yellow top for my Wife's CPAP in a battery box. Which Solar Panels do you use?

 

[MOAK]

I bought the panel kit on line from a retailer selling Solar Cynergy. I upgraded the controller for an extra 20 bucks. As I recall the entire package was right around 175. Here is a brief outline of how I mounted it on our rack. I misspoke here earlier, it is in fact a 120 watt panel.

 

[Cort]

That’s a lot of money to spend just for a hair dryer and coffee maker. Why not just buy rechargeables, they won’t require such a burst of power demand and you can charge them while you drive.

 

[PintSize]

I would look into the draw of all the electronics that are going to be used to determine what battery’s you’ll need. Something of your workload might require a higher capacity battery like a Northstar with over 100 amp hours. I made my own tray and battery cables for my dual set up, I’m sure a portable setup is possible some components might have to stay on each vehicle.

 

[LVCoffeeguy]

The image that I think I attached kinda shows my set up. I was trying to really push it by throwing in an espresso machine. It worked well enough that the next week we met up with some friends while camping and surprised everyone with espressos and lattes on the last day. We also have a 120watt solar setup from Go Power. It keeps my deep cycle battery charged no problem. However, we don't even typically hook up the solar when we are moving around everyday because the alternator charges the batteries up pretty quickly when rolling around the trails.