What if? An Alternative to a Dual Battery System Concept

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Drive the vehicle and let it charge... I can conservatively do 48 hours on my main bat before accessories error, at that point the truck will start on its main bat. 72 hours and I'm having to start off the aux battery. For my uses, its rare I'm in one place for more than a couple days, I suppose if I were I would look into alternate power generation be it solar, etc.
 
JL Rockies said:
If this be true and this fits your motivation, let me ask a question of anyone reading this thread. You're on a multi-day trip base-camping out of your rig, a few days go by and your accessory battery drains to the point that your ARB fridge goes into low-voltage protection and you have a couple of days before your trip is over... what do you do?
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I'm not an expedition guy but I would say fire up the truck and drive it around a bit. But to do it in true expedition style I would say break out the wind turbine, solar panels and find a stream and dam it up for the hydro-electric generator.
 
if I'm going to be stationary for more then a day I break out the solar panel and inverter so that I have true 120 ac... and take the load off my batteries... I have worked in the communications world for over 25 yrs and they use 24 and 48 volt dc systems and I have been to many schools to learn how to protect and service these systems. and I can say that most car fires are from idiots that install 1000 watt or higher amps for their sound systems and then use 12 awg wire to power it up... the wire gets hot then melts the insulation and then shorts to ground and starts the fire... or after the insulation is melted the hot wire comes into contact with the carpeting and starts the fire...


I have never seen a dual battery system catch fire... most of the time the stock alternator is used which puts out less then what the 4awg wire can handle.
I would be interested in hearing more of your what if device as well.
 
JL Rockies said:
I've not done any formal market research but I think it's safe to say that a majority of expedition peeps buy a dual batt system so they can run their ARB fridge, ARB Adventure light, ARB message chair, power their laptop so they can download their photos and have their rig start up when their ready to go home.
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Sounds like you have been following me around. This is pretty much how we camp, minus the massage chair but add in the projection/dvd player for movies under the stars.

If this be true and this fits your motivation, let me ask a question of anyone reading this thread. You're on a multi-day trip base-camping out of your rig, a few days go by and your accessory battery drains to the point that your ARB fridge goes into low-voltage protection and you have a couple of days before your trip is over... what do you do?
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We carry a 60 watt, (or is it a 60 amp, never can remember which it is), foldup solar panel. This will comfortably recharge both batteries.
 
The main problem with the voltage shut off in the fridges is they turn off the fridge, but most of the time after the voltage is too low to still start your car. That is why I run a second battery on my fridge. I usually dont even have the second battery hooked up to the charging system. I plug the fridge into the 12v socket while driving and stuff and then if it is sitting for a long time I put it on the auxillary battery and let it drain that. I can usually go a week this way until the second battery is too dead to run the fridge. I can still run it from the vehicle battery. I too get about what Kurt does and can go nearly 48 on primary battery.
 
Well, do you think it's safe to say that most trips fall into the 48hr range for the average person? If so, how many hours is the rig off?

I think the majority of trips fall into the 48-72 hour range with a travel time of 2-12hrs round trip.

A trip to the Wash for a 3 day weekend might end up 60hrs base camping if you went nowhere else. If you get 48hrs out of the primary batt, you're so close. What if you could push 'er over the edge?
 
JL Rockies said:
Well, do you think it's safe to say that most trips fall into the 48hr range for the average person? If so, how many hours is the rig off?
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I'm saying I can sit for 48 hours and the vehicle will start on its primary and that isn't utilizing the low voltage protection which can be set on the ARB fridges at various levels based on your needs, as you know. Set those to an conservative level and obviously the fridge is going to revert into a cooler.

JL Rockies said:
I think the majority of trips fall into the 48-72 hour range with a travel time of 2-12hrs round trip.
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Likely as different as the users themselves. The majority of my trips include less than 15 hours of non-running time per day as we are generally moving to a new place each night thus driving all day. If I were to 'estimate' the general uses of my customers I would say parked for no more then 40 hours would be the standard? Again its totally dependent on the trip, the user, etc. In my opinion a dual battery should follow other more obvious upgrades, i.e. choosing gear that has a low draw. You'll notice a pretty wild amp draw variance between accessories and generally speaking the higher prices are associated with lower amp draws. For example that Engel fridge you've used has a amp draw of roughly half that of the budget fridges available under different badging from K-Mart, Compact Appliance, Home Depot, etc. While it might not be an issue for some, it is a deal breaker for others considering that Engel will run twice as long as the others on a given charge. Lights, radios, etc are all similar... choose the accessories that match your 12V needs. I'm now using an LED camp light as it has a much lower amp draw than even the halogen I was using before, when you consider a batter that has ~60 amp hours of reserve even a light running for several hours can make a difference.

Speaking of reserve, its always a good practice to add up your amp-hour needs when not only selecting your accessories but also the battery that will power them, particularly if your integrating a deep cycle second battery. In the case of the fridges I sell, I conservatively tell customers to plan on the fridge running 50% of the time in hot conditions (worst case scenario) and pulling 3 amps (Engel). So with a 60 amp-hour batter under those conditions you have 40 hours of fridge run time. Add lights, and other accessories and that number drops.

JL Rockies said:
What if you could push 'er over the edge?
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Another 'what if' :D I don't think you'll find anyone that has a problem with 'bonus' amp-hours, dual batteries or not.
 
I actually still have no idea what this thread is talking about.

Is this system you are working on a mystery? I realize you are still developing it so some secrets are needed, but I don't get what you are talking about. You mention a bulk pack of 10 to buy, but I don't know what I would be buying. Is it so ambiguous because keeping it secret, or trying to generate some excitement, or because you don't have a vendor account yet?

Probably it all boils down to how little I know about 12v so I can't understand what you are saying from context.
 
mesha said:
I actually still have no idea what this thread is talking about.

Is this system you are working on a mystery? I realize you are still developing it so some secrets are needed, but I don't get what you are talking about. You mention a bulk pack of 10 to buy, but I don't know what I would be buying. Is it so ambiguous because keeping it secret, or trying to generate some excitement, or because you don't have a vendor account yet?

Probably it all boils down to how little I know about 12v so I can't understand what you are saying from context.
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The 10 pack includes the wheel that the hamsters run on... ;) :hickey:
 
The master pack quantities of 10 was distributor speak and the smiley face indicated I was joking about suggesting Cruiser Outfitters should be selling the mystery box. I love me some Cruiser Outfitters and if not for being broke, I'd have a lot more ARB gear purchased there. If I make a few dollars on my idea, it's all going to Kurt anyway.

I guess the purpose of this thread was to discuss the motivations for buying an exisiting system which offers the advantages of 1234 and disadvantages of 123 when advantages of only 1&2 are needed by most people. If there was another solution that offered advantages 1&2 and none of the disadvantages would you consider purchasing?

My solution will have narrower focus than a dual batt set-up so for many vehicles, my solution will not be an option and that's going to be the main dissadvantage. My solution will offer advantages #1 and #2 but not #3 & #4 so why pay for it if you won't use it?

I have not discussed specifics (even with those who've been drafted as testers) because I have not completed (or started) rugged real-world testing but the idea is sound and the technology already exists. My friend has agreed to help me with some demos when I get to Ft Lauderdale. It seems that I am no longer banned from the JL Audio facillity and my friend is Director of Technical Services. They got some cool gear in the lab.

I'd like to make clear once again that this is existing technology that I'm applying to a specific purpose, there's no voodoo and there will be no Nobel Prize for Science awarded. Dual Batt technology is much older and with the increase of computer-controlled charging systems will become increasingly irrelevant... for better or for worse. That's my story about the truth.
 
If figured the master pack was for distributors and I am interested, but hard to tell if what I want is 1 and 2. I guess I will keep my eyes open for the end product. I was just trying to understand what your product is going to offer. If it is still in development then Kurt is definately the guy to be working with. I still don't, but I am slow.
 
You can never replace the duel battery system for true dependability. I have a pretty good idea of what your working on and for the everyday driver it would be a great product, but for someone 150 miles out in the desert on a road that gets traveled once a week? Hard sell to me.

Good luck for sure, I hope this can work out for you.
 
JL Rockies said:
Dual batts offer no advantage while driving. Just sayin'
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True, unless you have an alternator fail... then the juice from the extra battery can keep your vehicle running for that much longer. Admittedly that is a pretty rare scenario at least in the LC realm where alternators are not really known to fail.

Do you research and then lets sit down over a meat-like meal (meat for me, like for you) and chat about moving forward with it. As I mentioned earlier if it has merits and a market, I'm interested to sell it.
 
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