Spare/Secondary Battery

[AJeepZJ]

I was wondering if anyone of you guys have performed this yet or considered it. I want to upgrade the Jeeps battery power by adding a second/back-up battery resource. I was considering installing it in the engine bay compartment behind the cooler since there is so much room availability in the V6. I want to link these two batteries and turn over all additional power using devices to this second battery. The battery would serve as the primary resource for auxiliary lighting (all cargo-mounted lights, guard-mounted lights, CB, and Scanner radio, on-board air, rocker lights and winch when I get those - AND would serve as the back-up battery source to start the vehicle should the primary fail.

It requires more electronics than I'm capable of understanding. Lol, I understand microbiology but very little about electronics. Anyway, I know I wanted to install a primary switch in the cabin that I can use to grant access to the second battery for the additional devices.


Thoughts/Criticisms/Concerns!?

[NeilSmith]

didnt Sal install a second battery ?

[Matt]

I'm pretty sure Dave has a second battery setup similar to how you want..... interested to see what he has to say.

Otherwise what you're doing is very possible/logical. Pretty sure every boat is setup like that.

I would recommend saving some trouble and not trying to wire it so both batteries are capable of starting the vehicle. The simple way someone would think of doing this is just running some jumper wires on a disconnect switch so the second battery would "help" the primary battery start the vehicle. However this usually doesn't work. If your primary battery dies its usually better to swap the other battery in it's place since the combination of bad+good battery = bad battery (hence why its hard sometimes to jump start vehicles with really dead batteries.

[AJeepZJ]

I'm pretty sure Dave has a second battery setup similar to how you want..... interested to see what he has to say.

Otherwise what you're doing is very possible/logical. Pretty sure every boat is setup like that.

I would recommend saving some trouble and not trying to wire it so both batteries are capable of starting the vehicle. The simple way someone would think of doing this is just running some jumper wires on a disconnect switch so the second battery would "help" the primary battery start the vehicle. However this usually doesn't work. If your primary battery dies its usually better to swap the other battery in it's place since the combination of bad+good battery = bad battery (hence why its hard sometimes to jump start vehicles with really dead batteries.

Sounds good, I def want to see what mr. Valpacer's setup is like!

[Sal-XK]

You'll need to run a battery isolator so they can both charge but not drain each other either. The wiring will cost you a pretty penny for sure but it's easy enough to do. I took mine out because my tire was rubbing on it so back to square one for me

[cico7]

Adondo shared this earlier....
Battery Seperator (http://www.ase-supply.com/Sure_Power_1314_200_Battery_Separator_p/sp-1314-200.htm)