Here is my dual battery system. I made the drawers and then got the local auto electrician to connect the battery system. I’ve got less than no idea with electrics, so left it up to the professionals. They ran heavy duty wiring from main battery through to the auxiliary battery in the tray, mounted and wired the Redarc isolator and mounted 3 x sockets. I then bought a sidewinder voltmeter and got him to wire that up to. I looked around for a voltmeter that would show voltage of both batteries, and then stumbled across the sidewinder which could do that, as well as link the two batteries together for emergency starting. I’ll tape that switch down so the batteries can’t be accidentally linked.
Here’s the drawers system…
and the voltmeter and sockets…
access to the battery….
the isolator next to the 2nd battery in the tray
Everything seems to be ok, but these are things playing on my mind:
· Is there enough ventilation for the battery (it’s a fully sealed battery, so I’m assuming that is not as important??)
· Is it ok for the isolator to be so far from the main battery? All the others I’ve seen have the isolator under the bonnet
· Will the new wiring be good enough for circumstances where I want to link the batteries to crank the motor (I’m assuming if the system is working well enough I should never need to link them)
· Will the tray area get too hot to effectively run the Engel?
Like most things, time will tell I guess!